Assessment for Mayans in Mexico

Risk Assessment | Analytic Summary | References

Risk Assessment

The Mayans demonstrate three factors that increase the likelihood of future rebellion: (1) persistent protest in the past decade, (2) territorial concentration, (3) and a high level of organization and cohesion behind the EZLN. However, four factors support the strong likelihood that rebellion will be avoided: (1) increased democratic stability under the Fox administration, (2) a bigger commitment by the Fox administration to meet indigenous demands, which has been backed by immediate action, (3) the widespread public and ideological support of Mexican indigenous groups by the numerous foreign governments and transnational NGOs, (4) and a lack of serious armed conflicts in neighboring Guatemala.

Prospects for peace in Mayan regions are very good. Despite the EZLN's opposition to the peace accord revisions passed by Congress, and despite their peaceful move toward greater regional autonomy in 2003 without the approval of the government, there is little indication that the peaceful stand off will escalate into violence. This is primarily due to President Fox's decisive action upon election to demilitarize Chiapas and work toward an agreement with the EZLN. Though the presence of pro-PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) paramilitary groups in indigenous regions pose a continued threat, such groups are likely to face greater constraints with the PRI unseated in the presidency and in key gubernatorial offices by Fox's National Action Party (PAN), long supported by Mayan constituencies. The EZLN's tendency to avoid violence in favor of political means of mobilization, such as their April 1999 referendum campaign, should also support peace and stability in the region.

Analytic Summary

Mayans in Mexico are located in the southeastern part of the country, specifically in the states of Chiapas (about 60% live there) (GROUPCON =

3), Tabasco, Campeche, Coahuila, Michocan, Nayarit, Quintana Roo,

Sinaloa, Sonora, Yucatan, and Zacatecas.

The principal Mayan tribes are Maya, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Tojolabal,

Zoque, and Lacandón, each of which possesses a unique, living language

of the same name. Maya is most common and spoken by 1,490,000 people,

accounting for approximately 14% of all indigenous speakers in Mexico.

Despite these tribal distinctions, religious (Mayans are predominantly

Catholic) and important political values are shared by most Mayans

(COHESX9 = 5). They traditionally controlled native lands through the

ejido communal land system (AUTON = 1) until government efforts to privatize Indian lands, beginning with agrarian reforms in the 1940s and continuing through the enactment of NAFTA, began to subject indigenous populations to increasing land and territory losses.

Since the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Indians have been very involved in state policies. Under the administration of General Lazaro Cardenas(1934-1940), Indian policies were centralized under the Mexican state. Cardenas established policies which separated Indians from peasants because the large number of Indians offered political strength and support for his administration. In 1940, the Autonomous Department of Indigenous Affairs was established and the First Inter-American Indian Congress was held. This "indigenismo" was a form of state cooptation through which Indians were assimilated into a broader Mexican culture.

After the Cardenas administration, the Indian movement further developed. This was primarily due to Mexican state policies of privatizing agricultural lands which were populated by Indians. At this time, Indians began to mobilize in response to government policies on a local and regional level, calling for more participation in the national system. Their demands were for land, fair pay, natural resources defense, and the right to self-determination.

It was also during the post-Cardenas period that the INI (National

Indigenous Institute) was formed. In 2003, the INI was replaced by the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), designed to take over and better manage all the functions of the old INI. It is the official government agency for indigenous affairs and coordinates more than 3,000 indigenous organizations. This coordination is facilitated through the government agencies of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the

Ministry of Agrarian Reform, the Office of the Agrarian Comptroller, the

Ministry of Social Development, the Ecology Institute, the National

Commission for Human Rights, and the National Institute for Anthropology and History. In response to INI programs during the post-Cardenas years, other Indian organizations formed nationally, such as the National Union of Indigenist

Organizations (UNOI), the National Federation of Indigenist Youth

(CNJI), and the Mexican Association of Indigenous Professionals and Intellectuals (AMPII).

As the international economic system developed in the 1970s, the Mexican state responded with national agrarian reforms, which greatly affected the Indian populations. The Ministry of Agrarian Reform was created in order to give the government more control over independent Indian lands and to control Indian discontent and protest. In response to this government control, the National Council of Indigenous Peoples (CNPI) was formed in 1975. While originally created to work with the state, this organization later protested against state policies (Tresierra 1994: 194-198). As Hector Diaz-Polanco posits, "[t]he traditional indigenismo revealed itself to be ever less suitable for controlling the country's ethnic groups. Rather, its old paternalistic and authoritarian

practices provoked the discontent and irritation of the indigenous

communities" (1992: 152).

Mayans, along with Mexico's other indigenous groups, were represented by the state-sponsored Autonomous Department of Indigenous Affairs, beginning in 1940 and, later, through the INI (now called the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, or CDI), the official government agency for indigenous affairs. The National Council of Indigenous Peoples (CNPI) formed in 1975 to work with the state on indigenous issues, but later staged protests against state policies. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which advocates the rights of Mayans and all Indians of southeastern Mexico, emerged from the 1994 Chiapas uprising as a militant organization, but has since favored political forms of mobilization and is currently the most widely recognized pro-indigenous organization in Mexico. Mayan and indigenous causes are also supported in Mexico by numerous smaller organizations, both militant and conventional, including the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR) and the Revolutionary Army of Insurgent People (ERPI).

Mayans have been demographically marginalized by a history of social exclusion, land struggles, poor health conditions, and periodic natural disasters.

Political activity has historically been restricted (POLDIS03 = 3), in

part, due to social exclusion, but also to widespread human and civil

rights abuses precipitated by the heavy militarization of Mayan regions. In general, Mayans do not face religious restriction, but Protestant and Evangelical Mayans are regularly and violently persecuted by Catholic Mayans.

Until late 2002, Mayans faced significant language discrimination in the justice system, where Spanish is used and interpreters were not supplied for non-Spanish speakers. A law passed in mid-December 2002 guaranteed that indigenous language speakers would be provided a bilingual judge.

The most pressing demands for most Mayans, most of which were presented in the San Andrés Accords of 1996, include regional autonomy and self-determination for indigenous communities, major investments in social services for indigenous populations, control of elections, anti-discrimination legislation, conservation of natural resources in indigenous regions, and the demilitarization and removal of paramilitary groups from Mayan regions.

The Mayan response to land dispossession and resettlement grew from local revolts against land owners (COMCON75X = 1) and National Council of Indigenous Peoples (CNPI) protests in the 1970s (PROT75X = 2), to clashes between small militant resistance groups and land owner militias in the 1980s (COMCON8X = 1), and peaked with the Chiapas uprising (REB94 = 6) of January, 1994, led by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Subsequently, limited negotiations progress was disrupted by the December 1997 massacre of 45 indigenous peasants in Actael, leading to sporadic violent clashes between pro and anti-Zapatista armed civilian groups (COMCON98X = 3), subsiding only recently with the Fox

administration's demilitarization of Chiapas.

Though the Zapatista movement has benefited from the widespread ideological support of the international community, it has received little to no material support from transnational parties outside of possible guerrilla training and weapon supplies from Guatemalan forces.

The Chiapas uprising ended with a cease-fire that remains in effect. Negotiations between the EZLN and the government led to the San Andrés

Accords of 1996 to end fighting and institute greater indigenous autonomy, however, the government has failed to fully implement them. The EZLN's resistance to negotiations in the wake of the 1997 Actael massacre has eased with the election of Vicente Fox, who has scaled back the military presence in Chiapas and submitted the peace accords to Congress. On April 28, 2001, the accords were passed with revisions opposed by the EZLN. The EZLN leader, subcomandante Marcos, went into a period of silence to protest their passage. In August 2003, after the Supreme Court upheld the passage of the contested Indian rights bill, Marcos broke his silence and announced that indigenous communities in southeastern Mexico would take steps toward regional self-government in Chiapas, despite the passage of the law. The move was peaceful: announcing that "Armies are for defending, not for governing," the EZLN forces withdrew from all checkpoints in the region and transferred control of the areas under their authority to special governing councils.

References

Coe, Michael D. The Maya. London. Thames and Hudson. 1987.

Collier, George A. "Peasant Politics and the Mexican State: Indigenous

Compliance in Highland Chiapas." Mexican Studies. Winter 1987. 3(1): 71-9.

."The Rebellion in Chiapas and the Legacy of Energy Development."

Mexican Studies. Summer 1994. 10(2): 371-382.

. "The New Politics of Exclusion: Antecedents to the Rebellion in

Mexico." Dialectical Anthropology. Spring 1994.

Fourth World Bulletin. "Self-Determination and Maya Rebellion in

Chiapas." April 1994 3(2).

Nexis Library Reports, 1990-2000.

Panagides, Alexis. "Mexico" In G. Psacharopoulos and H.A. Patrinos.

Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America. The World Bank. 1994.

Tresierra, Julio. "Mexico: Indigenous Peoples and the Nation-State." In

VanCott, Donna Lee. Indigenous Peoples and Democracy. New York. St.

Martin's Press. 1994.

EFE News Service, May 1, 2001, Mexico-Indians Mexican Indians Reject Indian Rights Bill.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 20, 2001, Indigenous rights bill controversy heats up in Mexico.

Latin American Weekly Report, September 23, 2003, MEXICO: New push for indigenous policies.

Agence France Presse, August 10, 2003, Mexico's Zapatista rebels defiantly launch self-government.

The News, December 13, 2002, Congress approves indigenous language provision.

** Newspaper articles cited are from New York Times, Washington Post,

BBC News, Reuters News Agency, and The International Herald Tribune.