Have you seen this Island? If so, please call Mexico at 01-800-BERMEJA
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Attention all international readers, Mexico needs your help. Have you seen this island? Bermeja is about 80 kilometers in size and was last seen frolicking in the Gulf of Mexico outside of Yucatan. She is at least 350 years old and was last seen wearing 22 billion barrels of sea bed oil reserves. If seen, please call Mexico at 01-800-Bermeja.
There has been much commotion and even greater conspiracy theories involving the disappearance of our little Bermeja Island.
Where'd she go? Who is she with? Is she frightened and alone, waiting for us to rescue her or did she meet a handsome pennisula and just take off? Did her provactive attire prove too much to resist? The questions are unlimited.
The mysterious remote islet is said have been roughly 100 kilometers North of the state of Yucatan. Her history is a bit surreal, like many things in Mexico. She first appeared in catography in the 1600's where she remained and was rewritten into a 1946 cartography book edited by the Mexican government. The islands cartography can be followed with visual testimonial proof until 1977 and actualized Mexican cartograpghy until 1998.
Bermeja island in the Gulf of Mexico -- a strategic marker defining US and Mexican maritime and subsea rights -- has disappeared along with documents backing up a bilateral treaty on major oil reserves in the area, fueling rumors of a CIA plot.Low-lying Bermeja, a smallish 80 km2 (31 sq miles), until 30 years ago was the official land point from which Mexico set its 200 nautical-mile economic zone.
The Alacranes islands now are being used as the marker, sharply reducing Mexico's economic zone. -AP
The interesting issue of her disappearance is the the strategic value she holds for her rightful owner. The mystery of Bermeja is not within her geographics, but in politics and economics.
Under the administrations of Ernesto Zedillo and William Clinton, an agreement was signed setting the boundaries and rights of the two nations. The donut holes are zones in the ocean lying in international waters outside of any national territory and require treaties for their exploitation.
The Zedillo-Clinton treaty awards 60% of the Gulf sea bed in the Western Donut Hole (an eastern one exists as well) to Mexico, and the 40% remaining, which have a greater possibility of oilfields, to the United States.
In June 2000, Mexico and the United States signed a treaty putting a 10-year moratorium on their prospecting and pumping activities in the area. It is set to expire in 2011. -AP
Miguel Angel Gonzalez Felix, a foreign ministry legal adviser when the treaty was negotiated, told senators the island was some 40 to 50 meters (120 to 150 feet) under water, thus before the treaty was even signed Bermeja had been removed from treaty negotiations. With the removal of the M.I.A. Bermeja island the ocean was divided without it as part of Mexican territory. Thus, Mexican territory was deemed to begin much farther south, which meant the elimination of Mexican territory in the Western Donut Hole and reducing its oil potential in favor of the United States, which already has three highly productive oil wells in exploitation.
This is where it gets good. I know you've got to be thinking "WTF, how the hell does and island just get lost?" According to Mexican lawmaker, Elias Cardenas, there are only two possibilities:
"There are two stories about how it disappeared: one is that global warming raised the sea level and it is under water,""The other is that ... it was blown up by the CIA so that the United States would get the upper hand in Hoyos de Dona" -- the oil reserves area.-Elias Cardenas, Mexican senator
Wow! Senator Elias Cardenas strikes fast and furious. So, who's the culprit? Did Mother Nature swallow our little Miss Bermeja whole or did the greedy, deceitful and corrupting American government send in special operational island vanishing forces to do away with her?
"A force of nature (able to sink an island) does not take place without anyone noticing, and much less so when it is sitting in an area with more than 22 billion barrels of oil reserves."-Mexican senators
They've probably got a point there. You would think, in this day and age, where everything and everyone is monitored by sometype of Big Brother system or satellite 31 square miles of land vanishing would not just go unnoticed. If by some freak of nature it did happen, why were all surrounding islets and islands left unscathed; coincidence or was someone hungry for donuts?
At the same time, bombing 31 sqaure miles of land off the face of the earth would not go unnoticed either. I am more inclined to believe rising sea levels, or sinking sea floor, or a combination of both. Maybe Navy Seals, aliens, or robot dolphins dismantled it a shovel at a time. Even that is more probable than a bomb.
Now, there are some very interesting details surrounding Bermeja's disappearance. We know Bermeja appears in a 1998 book of Mexican islands by the Interior Ministry, but in 1997 a pretreaty Navy expedition sent by President Zedillo, reported it could not locate the island. We also know the treaty was signed, we know it regulates and dictates both U.S. and Mexican pumping and prospecting activities. We know it will become null in 2011, but we don't know the specifics of how the treaty, and under what conditions, the treaty was signed.
"We do not have information about how this accord was signed"-Elias Cardenas
The documents establishing territorial ocean borders with the United States have disappeared, documents that should have been kept in the power of the Senate, are nowhere to be found.
When the treaties were discussed, the primary negotiations were only opposed by one Mexican Senator, José Angel Conchillo, who denounced this new dispossession with to everyone including the four winds. Oddly enough, Conchillo, died in a strange road accident that was never investigated in 1998.
Standard Congressional rule dictate all discussions on the treaty should have and were in fact recorded, yet these recordings, along with the list of participating legislators seem to have disappeared along with the island.
There you have it. We had an island, the island was charted, and now she's gone; we lost her. Where? Nobody really knows, but let me leave you with a question to ponder:
Wouldn't you think an island such as Bermeja, with billions of barrels of oil in awaiting would be kept track of? We're talking about national security, our nation's economic livelihood. I'll admit, I lose things all the time: my keys, wallet, cellphone; hell I've even lost track of my kids in the past, but I have never lost something and not looked for it.
