Aumenta El CalorZIHto

I read through some of the previous posts. I also read various notices of how Por Los Ninos' great efforts have improved educational opportunities for many in the immediate and surrounding communities.

From my perspective, Por Los Ninos does great work, I will continue to support them and hope others will not be persuaded by what some Locals have summarized as resentment by one over a family spat.

A family spat? I have no idea where you get "a family spat" out of anything I mentioned. You've been seriously misinformed. By "Locals" I'm going to guess you mean some foreigners who live here who aren't actually locals, because most locals will not open up to foreigners about local matters.

Zihuatanejo's hillsides above the COTA 70 (70 meter mark) were once saved for future generations by being designated as Ecological Zones. Then along came the PRD political party fomenting land invasions to try to win elections from the PRI, who had always dominated (and continue dominating) local politics. At about that same time one of those small invading groups sought assistance from foreigners to help them build a school that they called "a bilingual indigenous school". Soft-hearted saps that we are, lots of us pitched in to help what sounded like such a noble cause. Then other groups of land invaders started trying to do the same thing. I took the time to investigate and found out that having a school on stolen land was a legal requisite for getting that land designated as a "colonia" and getting it "regularized" so that the land thieves could eventually get titles to the lands they stole. Of course, local politicians were all too eager to help, since they knew they could use the poor people to manipulate them for their votes. In that 3-year mayoral period Zihuatanejo went from having around 20 land invasions to over 50. Basically most of what you see today on our hillsides, except for the Cerro del Vigia development, happened in that 3-year period. And the foreigners went crazy helping land thieves steal our hillsides. Though I warned the well-intentioned foreigners, they preferred to ignore me and paint me as the bad guy for not "caring about the children", which was pure self-serving BS by people who placed more importance on believing they were doing something good than actually doing good. The locals (I mean Mexicans) who are aware of the involvement by foreigners in the loss of Zihuatanejo's hillsides remain few, including those who benefitted politically from them, but nevertheless there are locals who are aware and who are furious that this was allowed to happen. Like my wife's family, many people have been here for generations yet never stole lands, so how do you expect them to feel when they found out foreigners were working with corrupt politicians to help squatters steal some of our most coveted lands? When we continue seeing some of the same well-meaning but misguided people responsible for the loss of much of our ecological zones continue to pose in local newspaper photos with politicians who continue taking the credit for the schools built with mostly foreigners' donations, then I begin to hear less flattering comments about foreigners and calls for the enforcement of Article 33 of Mexico's Constitución. This has nothing to do with any "family spat", and I'm a bit surprised you would ask me then believe the bullshit someone else fed you. You can read what I wrote around 20 years ago on this matter, and it will coincide with what I just wrote here. I have no need to lie, embellish or make anything up. I have no family spat with anyone.

After much of the damage was done, Por Los Niños' founder years later promised me they would avoid dealing with squatters. I believe that comment is also here in my archived messages. Yet today they continue posing with politicians who continue fooling the locals about who is responsible for helping them, and that is where there is a clear violation of Mexico's Constitución.

The bottom line is that regardless of the good done by this altruistic organization, the damage they've caused to the community has been substantial. And unfortunately each time we see our crowded hillsides we are reminded of that damage. It's not something people with a memory should be expected to just get over unless perhaps they're trying to forget their own involvement.

George Carlin had a great spiel on politicians and demagogues using "for the children" as an excuse to curtail our rights, or get stuff done by pandering--eg, the type of legislation that gets passed by calling a bill "Suzy's Law." Interesting that the slogan comes up here in Zihua town.