Cancun: Maya “cleansing ritual” after Bush visit

From La Jornada, March 31, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

CANCUN — Mayan priests tonight carried out “a cleansing against the wickedness of George W. Bush,” in the culmination of the first day of protests against the presence of the American leader in this city…

In the morning, the Cancun Other World Committee [Comité Cancun Altermundista] said that attendance at the anti-Bush protests could be reduced, because three buses transporting people to the marches were detained in Campeche and Yucatan.

At 3 PM, some 60 members of the Zapatista collectives Rincón Rupestre, Lucha Libertaria y Subversivo of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, had gathered at Las Palapas Park and were marching towards the hotel zone.

Access to that sector barred, the demonstrators returned to Ceviche Plaza and read a manifesto against George W. Bush and Vicente Fox: “The Bush visit is an insult to us all,” said David of the Subversivo collective Subversive, “but this complaint is against all the politicians who have left this country in poverty.”…

At around 7 PM, five Mayan priests of the Ceremonial Center of Valladolid, Lazaro Cardenas municipality, arrived at Las Palapas Park and began the ceremony. They raised an altar, burned incense and distributed a sacred beverage called “balche,” that serves to purify the spirit. Mayan priest Romualdo May Ec explained that it served as “a cleansing of the evil of Bush” from Maya lands.

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