Cirque du Soleil in Nuevo Vallarta has locals on high alert

The construction of a theme park for Cirque du Soleil is underway in Nuevo Vallarta – a project in partnership with Vidanta Group and Mayan Palace, with an investment of $16 billion pesos – has the residents of Jarretaderas on high alert, who fear being forced to sell their homes or land or be evicted.

The residents with a large population of Chiapas families, remember how the hotel group Vidanta seized entire streets in Nuevo Vallarta, located in a federal zone, and of lands bordering the Ameca River, which divides Jalisco and Nayarit. While Vidanta and Cirque du Soleil maintain all actions are legal and have city and state issues licenses to proceed.

Residents claim that the land is being graded to create flooding into their neighborhoods by the Ameca River and forcing them to flee their homes. Stating Vidanta’s strategy is to surround the village and flood it to force its inhabitants to sell their houses and lands, and thus take over the area located in front of the Bay and the Ameca River, where the Island of Birds is located, which already has under its control.

According to environmentalists, residents of Jarretaderas could experience what happened in the town of Corral del Risco, in Punta de Mita, where fishermen were evacuated and threatened by state agents over 20 years ago, forcing residents to flee for the development of Punta de Mita.

Vidanta group is offering money to the owners of the farms and has already acquired some of strategic location, but the fear is that those who do not sell will be forced out by government or Vidanta’s plan to flood the community using the Ameca River.

Last November, the governor of Nayarit, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, announced the investment of $16 billion pesos in the theme park and predicted that it will generate between 5,000 and 10,000 thousand jobs.

Source: La Jornada San Luis