Fight over Wal-Mart at Mexico ruins

TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico (Reuters) -- Burning incense and sounding a conch shell horn, residents of an ancient Mexican city protested on Saturday at the construction of a Wal-Mart store on the edge of the ruins. The sprawling warehouse-style Bodega Aurrera, a unit of Wal-Mart in Mexico, is due to open in December in Teotihuacan, a major archeological site outside Mexico City. Opponents say it will ruin a way of life that dates back centuries and have taken legal action to stop it, in a fight that gives a grand dimension to the classic battle between big business and small-town values. "What they are doing in Teotihuacan is destroying Mexico's deepest roots for short-term interests like lower prices," local teacher Emanuel D'Herrera told about a dozen protesters outside Teotihuacan's town hall. "This is the flag of conquest by global interests, the symbol of the destruction of our culture."  [more ]

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