San Francisco Cozoaltepec
SAN FRANCISCO COZOALTEPEC, the Agencia Municipal and Nucleo Agrario (Bienes Comunales) of Tonameca is huge. If you have ever gone to Mazunte or Huatulco, you have driven through it on the Coastal Highway. Extending from the ocean to the mountains, it borders Colotepec, the Loxichas, and Santo Domingo de Morelos, and includes Santa Elena and Agua Blanca. It has 53 communities, plus three Agencias de Policia. In February, Nasario Rito Martínez, the deputy mayor (alcalde suplente) of Cozoaltepec, gave us a tour of the area.
At first sight, the town of Cozoaltepec, around 30 minutes north of Santa Elena, is not much different than downtown Chila. But when we returned from the mountain villages of Linda Vista and Pueblo Viejo, it looked like a major metropolis.
Linda Vista
Linda Vista deserves its name; the view from the school yard is spectacular. This farming community includes many new houses that reflect the efforts of temporary migrants to the U.S. As in much of Oaxaca, the rural areas have benefitted enormously from the remittances from community members working in the U.S.
Pueblo Viejo
Zapotec is spoken in most of the mountain villages. Pueblo Viejo is one of the oldest settlements in Cozoaltepec and has a bilingual Zapotec-Spanish elementary school. On February 5, representatives of a federal campaign against dengue distributed chemically treated mosquito nets, along with masks for Covid protection. The recipients had to maintain social distance.
Tilzapote
The Nucleo Agrario of Cozoaltepec has been in the news recently because of an on-going conflict between the 278 comuneros of Tilzapote and would-be developers of a luxury resort. At stake are 300 hectares including the beach that borders Agua Blanca.
The developers have papers that say the land is theirs, the residents have actas de posesión from Cozoaltepec that show it belongs to them, including 48 hectares held in common by the community. There is a school, a chapel and a general store. The Agrarian Court in Oaxaca has decided in favor of the two investors, but the residents insist that their documents are fraudulent. President López Obrador has said that he would intervene to stop the illegal seizure of the property.
