Missing Mexican island fuels mystery

Lawmakers in Mexico are trying to determine the whereabouts of island central to the country’s oil claims, which appears literally to have dropped off the map about 10 years ago.

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.

“There are two stories about how it disappeared: one is that global warming raised the sea level and it is under water,” said Mexican lawmaker Elias Cardenas, of the Convergence Party.

“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.

…Bermeja appears in a 1998 book of Mexican islands by the Interior Ministry, but in 1997 a Navy fishing expedition reported it could not locate the island, Cardenas said.

AFP