Time of the Snails: Autonomy and Resistance in Chiapas
Stahler-Sholk, Richard
THE PEOPLE OF NUEVO SAN ISIDRO watched warily as a helicopter appeared over the horizon, circled in over their seven thatched huts and landed somewhere on the far side of the Lacantrin River....
...The Social Forum must work within these contradictions and overcome them collectively It has exposed some of the problems inherent in mobilizing opposition to capitalism on a global scale...
...Skeptics of the RAP model cite the danger of regional "bossism," and the concern that it merely replicates the top-down structure of existing political institutions without developing new leadership capacity rooted in local communities...
...32, No...
...243-269...
...as well as serious under-representation of women in governing councils that are distant from their communities...
...Gregorio kept his composure...
...I'll take you there myself right now if you want...
...But look, I just came to invite you to a meeting, so you can hear the proposal yourselves...
...The helicopter that circled over the newly divided community of Nuevo San Isidro had brought 19 government agents...
...In other words, the right to have rights will be at the discretion of the existing authorities...
...For a balanced assessment of the RAP model in Chiapas, see: Shannan L. Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes: Peasant Activism and indian Autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003...
...Activists rejoice in the opportunity to come together, meet and learn from each other...
...It is paradoxical, of course, that such divisions and imbalances should weigh so heavily within a broad global movement dedicated to equality and to an improved life for the marginalized and excluded of the world...
...1 3 The Zapatistas themselves, while preferring to build autonomy from the community level upward, nevertheless remained open to a pluralism of autonomy models...
...Article 26 of the original COCOPA law requiring "the necessary mechanisms so that development plans and programs take into account the indigenous peoples and communities in their cultural needs and specificities" was eliminated along with a clause that "the State will guarantee them their equitable access to the distribution of the national wealth...
...Time of the Snails 1. Xochitl Leyva Solano, "Regional, Communal, and Organizational Transformations in Las Canadas," pp...
...The fourth and most recent phase of the movement began in July 2003, when the Zapatistas launched a regional structure of autonomous government in Chiapas...
...We are not with the government," he began, pointing to a hand-lettered sign nailed to a tree at the riverbank that read "Zapatista Army of National Liberation...
...Jeanne Simonelli and Duncan Earle, "Disencumbering Development: Alleviating Poverty Through Autonomy in Chiapas," in Robyn Eversole, ed., Here to Help: NGOs Combating Poverty in Latin America (Armonk, NY: ME...
...Alejandra, visibly agitated but maintaining her forced smile, responded: "No, I agree, that wasn't right...
...Her pseudo-NGO, ENDESU, began building another station in 2002 at Rio Tzendales, where a billboard proclaimed a "conservation" project to be supported by the Ford Motor Company In mid-2004 the legislative framework for bio-prospecting was drafted in a proposed "Law for the Conservation of Biodiversity and Environmental Protection for the State of s of as Chiapas," denounced by human rights groups as a violation of indigenous rights to autonomous control "ment of resources in their territories...
...One model of autonomy that predates the 1994 emergence of the EZLN REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS in Chiapas is based on the concept of the Pluriethnic Autonomous Region (RAP).'2 The RAP model envisions autonomy as decentralization, and creates an additional representative layer for an indigenous territory within the existing structures of national government...
...Rights of indigenous communities to elect their own authorities, in the revised version, would only be granted "within a framework that respects the federal pact and the sovereignty of the states...
...For a textual comparison of the initial November 1996 compromise language for an indigenous rights law drafted by the Congressional peace commission (COCOPA), the executive's December 1996 modifications, and the bill introduced in April2001, see: EZLN, "Reformas ala Iniciativa de Ley de Derechos y Cultura Indlgena," <http://www.ezln.org/sanandres/cuadro010430.html...
...The federal government launched a series of joint police-military raids in April and May 1998, dismantling the two autonomous municipalities of Ricardo Flores Magon and Tierra y Libertad...
...In 2003 name tags clearly labeled people in bold capital letters as "invitees," "delegates" (those who had registered in the name of an organization) or "participants...
...The Zapatistas insisted not only on individual citizenship rights within a democratic national framework, but also collective ethnic rights for indigenous peoples, a departure from the atomizing ideology of neoliberalism...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS communal violence, and its own troops as a stabilizing force...
...Alejandra started to protest that she had only come to invite them to a meeting, and that it was about giving them land...
...76-104...
...Gregorio (not his real name), who spoke the best Spanish, responded...
...174-21 9; and June Nash, "Indigenous Development Alternatives," Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, Vol...
...A similar program called PROCEDE undermines the management of communal landholdings by offering individual titles to those who opt out of the collective agrarian ejidos...
...161-184 in Jan Rus, Rosalva Aida HernOndec Castillo and Shannan L. Mattiace, eds., Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003...
...Part of the attraction of the region for foreign capital is the rich biodiversity found in this stretch of jungle...
...The Zapatista communities boycotted the municipal elections of October 1996, and instead elected parallel authorities through indigenous usos y costumbres (traditional customs and practices...
...Why do they send soldiers from village to village to kill...
...In essence, this created a fourth level of government, in addition to the federal, state and local...
...The recognition of indigenous peoples and communities will be done in the constitutions and laws of the federative entities...
...They now referred to the pro-government side of the village as the priistas, an old habit from the 71 years during which the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PR1) ruled Mexico...
...3. See: Global Exchange, Always Neat Always Far: The Armed Forces in Mexico (San Francisco: December, 2000), Chapters 9-10...
...Another program, PROCAMPO, gave direct perhectare compensation payments to producers as price supports for peasant agriculture were being dismantled...
...A third potential trap is what an analyst in the Guatemalan context called "managed neoliberal multiculturalism...
...239-265...
...Since they lacked official recognition and resources, the autonomous municipalities were supported through five Zapatista multiservice centers called Aguascalientes...
...But there was an underlying sense that the stakes were rising, and that the community would be even more isolated if their neighbors were spirited off to faraway lands...
...While the Mexican government tries to uproot communities, freeing up more land and resources for the global market, the Zapatistas have continued to resist by constructing autonomous government...
...1 4 It is noteworthy, for example, that the 1991 agrarian counter-reform, which modified Article 27 of the Constitution and eroded the communal agrarian ejido, was coupled with reforms to Article 4 that for the first time explicitly recognized the multiethnic character of the Mexican nation...
...1 5 Both reforms were imposed from above without grassroots consultation, and taken together, they reflect the neoliberal model's recognition of a plurality of indigenous identities, as long as those identities do not become the basis for collective organization around substantive rights...
...CIEPAC (Centro de Investigaciones Econbmicas y Politicas de AcciOn Comunitaria(, "Nuevos Desalojos en los Montes Azules," Chiapas a/CIa, No...
...14 It is noteworthy, for example, that the 1991 agrarian counter-reform, which modified Article 27 of the Constitution and eroded the communal agrarian ejido, was coupled with reforms to Article 4 that for the first time explicitly recognized the multiethnic character of the Mexican nation.15 Both reforms were imposed from above without grassroots consultation, and taken together, they reflect the neoliberal model's recognition of a plurality of indigenous identities, as long as those identities do not become the basis for collective organization around substantive rights...
...They began by building on community structures of local self-governance continually created since the 1950s by migrants from the highlands and other regions to Richard StahlerSholk is an associate professor of political science at Eastern Michigan University...
...But there was an underlying sense that the stakes were rising, and that the community would be even more isolated if their neighbors were spirited off to faraway lands...
...For the text, see EZLN, Third Declaration of the Lacandbn Jungle' (January 1995), zww.ezln.org/documentos/1 995/1 99501xx.en.htm...
...1, Spring 2003, pp...
...In a preliminary self-evaluation of the Juntas after one year, the Zapatistas celebrated advances in social-service provision, as well as the experience gained by community members serving one- to two-week shifts in the regional governments...
...5, March/April 1998...
...Invitees enjoyed a VIP lounge, while mere participants were excluded from some sessions...
...Anyway, that's all we came for, If you want to come, we'll be meeting over there...
...They came from Chavajebal in Chiapas' central highlands, a region of land scarcity and paramilitary violence, and wanted simply to work the land peacefully...
...The Zapatistas insisted not only on individual citizenship rights within a democratic national framework, but also collective ethnic rights for indigenous peoples, a departure from the atomizing ideology of neoliberalism.8 The Zapatistas also continued pressing at the negotiating table for recognition of indigenous rights and culture, something the government formally conceded with the B signing of the San Andres Accords in February 1996...
...31, No...
...We already know that the government's word is pure lies," Gregorio replied...
...A variant of this model can be seen in the North and South Atlantic autonomous regions of Nicaragua...
...After the March 2001 Zapatista caravan to Mexico Women in City demanding implementation of the the Zapatista Accords, the legislature passed a sham community "indigenous rights law" that actually of Amador reneged on key provisions of the agree- Hern'ndez...
...they were going to have a meeting at the pro-government cluster of huts, and they wanted to invite everyone on this side to come and hear a proposal about "how to make the best use of the land...
...They now referred to the pro-government side of the village as the priistas, an old habit from the 71 years during which the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PR1) ruled Mexico...
...The helicopter that circled over the newly divided community of Nuevo San Isidro had brought 19 government agents...
...The Supreme Court rejected all 320 constitutional challenges to the law, claiming it had no jurisdiction over such matters, and the law took effect...
...To overcome the dilemma of autonomy without resources and the danger of losing decision-making control to outside NGO funders, the Juntas have set up mechanisms for reviewing NGO development proposals and taking a 10% tax to redistribute to communities within each region.17 The juntas do not preclude other authority structures or autonomy models, but they do exert a greater discipline over who gets to claim the "Zapatista" label within a given region...
...SINCE THE GOVERNMENT'S INITIAL MILITARY RESPONSE TO the 1994 Zapatista uprising, the counterinsurgency has shifted emphasis toward state-sponsored paramilitary groups composed mainly of rootless young indigenous men who lack land and are given arms and money to attack communities of Zapatista supporters.3 This allows the government to portray the killing in Chiapas as inter35 MARCH APRIL 2005 REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Las Cafiadas, the jungle canyons of the agricultural frontier of eastern Chiapas...
...In some of the Caracoles, there are already signs of local acceptance of the legitimacy of the Juntas, even by non-Zapatistas, who turn to them for dispute resolution and other governance functions...
...the potential for the neoliberal state to pass off responsibility for the unprofitable provision of public goods to "autonomous," but underfunded units...
...Gregorio (not his real name), who spoke the best Spanish, responded...
...Another dilemma is presented by a version of autonomy without resources, i.e...
...Meanwhile, since their inauguration in August 2003, the Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobiemo have been offering to serve both Zapatista and non-Zapatistas, and the Fox Administration has had to reluctantly concede that they are probably not unconstitutional...
...Why do they send soldiers from village to village to kill...
...In other words, the right to have rights will be at the discretion of the existing authorities...
...A third potential trap is what an analyst in the Guatemalan context called "managed neoliberal multiculturalism...
...In any case, the debates are mostly waged not at the Forum itself but in print and on the Internet before and afterward...
...The government has been waging a campaign to evict settlers from Montes Azules over the last two years, particularly targeting Zapatista settlements of indigenous people who have recently taken refuge here.4 lions of dollars of investment to southern Mexico and Central America.5 The PPP envisions port and railway facilities for expanded maquiladora plants and dams for hydroelectric power for the anticipated industrial boom...
...Meanwhile, since their inauguration in August 2003, the Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobierno have been offering to serve both Zapatista and non-Zapatistas, and the Fox Administration has had to reluctantly concede that they are probably not unconstitutional...
...REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS He continued, "We are a Zapatista community...
...Charles B. Hale, "Does Multiculturalism Menace...
...We are in resistance...
...Skeptics of the RAP model cite the danger of regional "bossism," and the concern that it merely replicates the top-down structure of existing political institutions without developing new leadership capacity rooted in local communities...
...teacher, she greeted the assembled crowd and launched into a speech about how she and her colleagues were here to help...
...This allows entrepreneurial ecotourism and 37r' it REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS bio-prospecting ventures in the LacandOn jungle to pick and choose partners among the "diverse" indigenous peoples, while celebrating the Disneyesque concept of a multiethnic "Selva Maya...
...This could leave them vulnerable to clientelistic politicians or even paternalistic NGOs moving into the breach...
...After the March 2001 Zapatista caravan to Mexico Women in City demanding implementation of the the Accords, the legislature passed a sham IIty "indigenous rights law" that actually of Amador reneged on key provisions of the agree- Hernandez...
...The most intense military/paramilitary operations have shifted over the years from the jungle canyons of eastcentral Chiapas, to the northern zone, then to the central highlands and now to this southeastern slice of jungle where the government had demarcated the vast "Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve" nearly 30 years before...
...This allows entrepreneurial ecotourism and 37 MARCH APRIL 2005 REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Implementing legislation, however, was never passed, so the Zapatistas inaugurated a second phase of the autonomy movement by proceeding to implement it themselves...
...58, June 1995, pp...
...I have nothing to do with what the soldiers do, I disagree with it, in fact, I have denounced it myself...
...The wary Zapatista side gathered on the riverbank to see their pro-government neighbors ferry their benefactors across the river by cayuco in groups of four...
...0 Time of the Snails: Autonomy and Resistance in Chiapas by Richard Stahler-Sholk HE PEOPLE OF NUEVO SAN ISIDRO watched warily as a helicopter appeared over the horizon, circled in over their seven thatched huts and landed somewhere on the far side of the Lacantun River...
...The market paradigm tends to privatize gains while socializing costs and risks...
...In October 2004, one of the Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobierno decided to consolidate eight beleaguered, isolated communities from Montes Azules, including Nuevo San Isidro, in order to better integrate them into the resistance offered by their new regional structures of government...
...The villagers lingered by the riverbank, chuckling that Alejandra was afraid to take her proposal to the Zapatista regional autonomous authorities...
...There is also a striking gender imbalance-not among participants but among speakers...
...Gregorio effectively ended the conversation: "If you want to invite us to a meeting you can present yourselves at Caracol Number One, to the Zapatista Junta of Good Government, and see what response they give you...
...Look, these people have already chosen their land...
...Access would be decided "with respect for the forms and modes of property and land tenancy established in this Constitution and relevant law, as well as rights acquired by third parties or by members of the community, to the use and preferential enjoyment of the natural resources of the places inhabited and occupied by the communities, except those corresponding to strategic areas...
...1, 1999, pp...
...7 "tic, Since the 1980s, the neoliberal agenda in Mexico e has been implemented with the help of a series of programs designed to create new clientelistic mecha- ary nisms to divide and co-opt discontent...
...Resistance to the counter-reform is weakened as state resources are drained from this social property sector and the cheap products of U.S...
...In the midst of all these overlapping concessions, the government only initiated evictions when communities of Zapatista supporters began to settle the southern fringe of the jungle reserve...
...38 When this "indigenous rights" legislation passed the Congress in a "fast-track" deal between the National Action Party (PAN) and the FRI...
...She said goodbye with a huge smile and a wave as she whirled around to disappear with her entourage...
...Look what happened to the people in Santa Cruz...
...It would be hard to imagine an event of comparable scope and reach achieving greater coordination...
...We are in resistance...
...25, No...
...But the October 2004 Montes Azules evacuation and regrouping of communities of Zapatista supporters illustrates the continued conflictive negotiation of space between the state as broker for global capital and the rebels representing community autonomyu NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS bio-prospecting ventures in the Lacand6n jungle to pick and choose partners among the "diverse" indigenous peoples, while celebrating the Disneyesque concept of a multiethnic "Selva Maya...
...But look, I just came to invite you to a meeting, so you can hear the proposal yourselves...
...Sharpe, 2003) pp...
...This, in effect, means greater control over the movement by the Zapatista communities themselves, represented in the Juntas, rather than the insurgent structures of the EZLN...
...For the most part, however, the municipalities relied on local resources to launch production and social service projects, drawing on the indigenous tradition of a community labor tax in which each family contributed a quota of person-days...
...Most participants don't have to choose...
...418, June 30, 2004...
...4, Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, "Breve historia de Ia llamada 'Comunidad Lacandona" (San CristObal de Las Casas, Chiapas: December 2002), and "iNo al desalojol: El caso de Ia Reserva Montes Azules en Ia Selva Lacandona, Chiapas" (San CristObal de Las Casas, Chiapas: April 2003...
...She was a wiry, thirty-something woman named Alejandra, sporting close-cropped brown hair with frosted highlights...
...He continued, "We are a Zapatista community...
...And most of the leadership and the visible speakers are from the white, northern (mainly European) left elite, with the debates disproportionately reflecting their issues...
...35, No.4, Winter 2001, pp...
...Over the decades, various communities of Tzeltal and Ch'ol people living within the overlapping Montes Azules and LacandOn Community boundaries also received recognition of their land rights under agrarian reforms...
...The prototype gof was the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), which selectively doled out benefits through local s. committees to compensate for the social impact of economic austerity (which far exceeded the payouts...
...agribusiness flood the Mexican market...
...they were going to have a meeting at the pro-government cluster of huts, and they wanted to invite everyone on this side to come and hear a proposal about "how to make the best use of the land...
...52, No...
...5 The PPP envisions port and railway facilities for expanded maquiladora plants and dams for hydroelectric power for the anticipated industrial boom...
...They are happy to live the exhilarating experience of global solidarity, tangible in their interaction with others from around the world...
...In the Nicaraguan case, implementation of a 1987 autonomy statute fell short of expectations due to problems of representation and the under-funding of the autonomous government structures...
...The Zapatista communities boycotted the municipal elections of October 1996, and instead elected parallel authorities through indigenous usos y costumbres (traditional customs and practices...
...Each autonomous municipality now sends rotating representatives to one of five regional Juntas de Buen Gobierno based in the Caracoles that replaced the old Aguascalientes...
...The apparent recognition of autonomous spaces in society could create new mechanisms for division and cooptation, as social sectors and regions compete with each other for a share of the shrinking pie...
...440-465...
...7. CIEPAC, "El Pukuj Runs Loose in Montes Azules," Chiapas al CIa, No.409, April 29, 2004...
...The villagers lingered by the riverbank, chuckling that Alejandra was afraid to take her proposal to the Zapatista regional autonomous authorities...
...Though some women who are stars of the international global justice movement, such as Arundhati Roy, Medea Benjamin and Susan George, have addressed the forum, many plenaries, panels and even the smaller workshops have only male speakers...
...We don't want government people here...
...A similar program called PROCEDE undermines the management of communal landholdings by offering individual titles to those who opt out of the collective agrarian ejidos...
...Gregorio kept his composure...
...Anyway, that's all we came for...
...Over the decades, various communities of Tzeltal and Ch'ol people living within the overlapping Montes Azules and Lacand6n Community boundaries also received recognition of their land rights under agrarian reforms...
...On the impact of the agrarian counter-reform in Chiapas, see: Neil Harvey, "Rural Reforms and the Question of Autonomy in Chiapas," in Wayne A. Cornelius and David Myhre, eds., The Transformation of Rural Mexico: Reforming the Ejido Sector(La Jolla, CA: UCSD Center for U.S-Mexico Studies, 1998...
...They came from Chavajebal in Chiapas' central highlands, a region of land scarcity and paramilitary violence, and wanted simply to work the land peacefully But in October 2004, when government agents came in and promised to help them relocate elsewhere in exchange for government aid, their small community was divided: six of the original 13 families started taking the aid and seven refused...
...This could leave them vulnerable to clientelistic politicians or even paternalistic NGOs moving into the breach...
...4 Member the Junt of Good Govern in Ovenl Chiapas celebrate the first annivers of the foundin the Caracole Officially, the government invokes a conservationist rationale for evicting settlers from the biosphere reserve...
...The fourth and most recent phase of the movement began in July 2003, when the Zapatistas launched a regional structure of autonomous government in Chiapas...
...9. For examples of implementation of community-level autonomy, see: Richard Stahler-Sholk, "Massacre in Chiapas," Latin American Perspectives, Vol...
...5. See:CIEPAC, "El Plan Puebla Panama )PPP)," <www.ciepac.org/ppp.htm...
...The federal government launched a series of joint police-military raids in April and May 1998, dismantling the two autonomous municipalities of Ricardo Flores MagOn and Tierra y Libertad...
...Look, these people have already chosen their land...
...We are not with the government," he began, pointing to a hand-lettered sign nailed to a tree at the riverbank that read "Zapatista Army of National Liberation...
...I'll take you there myself right now if you want...
...The Supreme Court rejected all 320 constitutional challenges to the law, claiming it had no jurisdiction over such matters, and the law took effect...
...In essence, this created a fourth level of government, in addition to the federal, state and local...
...Each autonomous municipality now sends rotating representatives to one of five regional Juntas de Buen Gobierno based in the Caracoles that replaced the old Aguascalientes...
...In the midst of all these overlapping concessions, the government only initiated evictions when communities of Zapatista supporters began to settle the southern fringe of the jungle reserve...
...An expose by local NGOs has already halted one bio-prospecting project by the U.S.-funded "ICBG Maya" consortium.6 Not far from the settlement in Nuevo San Isidro is the mysterious Chajul "ecotourism station," which locals say is a base for bio-piracy, run by former Secretary of Environment, turned entrepreneur, Julia Carabias...
...Crucial language guaranteeing indigenous peoples access and use of resources in their territories was replaced...
...You promised them aid for three years and it ended after three months...
...6 Not far from the settlement in Nuevo San Isidro is the mysterious Chajul "ecotourism station," which locals say is a base for bio-piracy, run by former Secretary of Environment, turned entrepreneur, Julia Carabias...
...The Chiapas state government, meanwhile, approved a redistricting scheme creating seven new municipalities aimed at undermining Zapatista autonomy claims...
...63-75...
...2, April-June 2002, pp...
...Article 26 of the original COCOPA law requiring "the necessary mechanisms so that development plans and programs take into account the indigenous peoples and communities in their cultural needs and specificities" was eliminated along with a clause that "the State will guarantee them their equitable access to the distribution of the national wealth...
...Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, "Autonomy and Interdependence in Native Movements: Towards a Pragmatic Politics in the Ecuadorian Andes," Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Vol...
...Another program, PROCAMPO, gave direct perhectare compensation payments to producers as price supports for peasant agriculture were being dismantled...
...34, Part 3, August 2002, pp.485-524...
...This Tzotzil indigenous community had migrated to the remote jungle near the Mexican-Guatemalan border in February 2001...
...ments.16 The original Article 4 of the indigenous rights law drafted by the congressional peace commission, COCOPA, affirmed that "indigenous peoples have the right to free determination and, as expression of that, to autonomy" Its replacement begins with the affirmation that "the Mexican Nation is one and indivisible," and adds that "the right of indigenous peoples to free determination will be exercised in a constitutional framework of autonomy that assures national unity...
...Some interpretations of a comparable experience in Ecuador suggest that a territorially bounded definition of autonomy might create a kind of self-policed homeland, limiting options for indigenous people whose subsistence and cultural identity depend increasingly on complex patterns of mobility...
...Hermann Bellinghausen, "ComenzO Ia reubicacion de poblados zapatistas en el sur de Montes Azules," La Jomada, October 29, 2004...
...The Social Forum is inherently pluralistic...
...8 The Zapatistas also continued pressing at the negotiating table for recognition of indigenous rights and culture, something the government formally conceded with the signing of the San Andres Accords in February 1996...
...Entry by government officials is prohibited...
...The government has been waging a campaign to evict settlers from Montes Azules over the last two years, particularly targeting Zapatista settlements of indigenous people who have recently taken refuge here...
...teacher, she greeted the assembled crowd and launched into a speech about how she and her colleagues were here to help...
...Alejandra broke in again: "I recognize that some mistakes have been made...
...agribusiness flood the Mexican market...
...Another clue to the newfound interest in Montes Azules may be found in President Vicente Fox's much-publicized "Plan Puebla-Panama" (PPP), a grand scheme to attract bil36 economic austerity (which far exceeded the payouts...
...The limits of working within the neoliberal legal framework of individual property guarantees and corporate prerogatives are illustrated by the struggle over the San Andres Accords...
...Officially, the government invokes a conservationist rationale for evicting settlers from the biosphere reserve...
...In October 2004, one of the Zapatista Juntas de Buen Gobiemo decided to consolidate eight beleaguered, isolated communities from Montes Azules, including Nuevo San Isidro, in order to better integrate them into the resistance offered by their new regional structures of government...
...Rights of indigenous communities to elect their own authorities, in the revised version, would only be granted "within a framework that respects the federal pact and the sovereignty of the states...
...34MARCH APRIL 2005 Las Cafladas, the jungle canyons of the agricultural frontier of eastern Chiapas.' When government troops encircled this region in a military offensive in December 1994, the EZLN declared the existence of 38 autonomous municipalities, including many in the highlands and other areas outside Las Canadas.2 InJuly 2000, the EZLN grouped the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipalities into regional autonomous government structures administered by five Juntas of Good Government based in governing centers called Caracoles (snails or conch shells, an ancient Mayan symbol...
...38 When this "indigenous rights" legislation passed the Congress in a "fast-track" deal between the National Action Party (PAN) and the PRI, it was denounced by indigenous rights groups and rejected in all the states with large indigenous populations but ratified in enough states to pass...
...These distinctions are visibly present at the conference...
...You can pick out the land you want...
...Some interpretations of a comparable experience in Ecuador suggest that a territorially bounded definition of autonomy might create a kind of self-policed homeland, limiting options for indigenous people whose subsistence and cultural identity depend increasingly on complex patterns of mobility.'3 The Zapatistas themselves, while preferring to build autonomy from the community level upward, nevertheless remained open to a pluralism of autonomy models...
...Then they come with promises that are pure lies...
...The government also killed people from this community, on June 10, 1998, in Chavajebal...
...it was denounced by indigenous rights groups and rejected in all the states with large indigenous populations but ratified in enough states to pass...
...An expose by local NGOs has already halted one bio-prospecting project by the U.S.-funded "ICBG Maya" consortium...
...Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, "Leer un video," August 2004, 40 <http://www.ezin.org/documentos/2U04/leer_un_video_1.es.htm...
...But the October 2004 Montes Azules evacuation and regrouping of communities of Zapatista supporters illustrates the continued conflictive negotiation of space between the state as broker for global capital and the rebels representing community autonomy...
...There was also uneven ability to attend to dispersed settlements far from the Caracoles...
...57-98...
...the potential for the neoliberal state to pass off responsibility for the unprofitable provision of public goods to "autonomous," but underfunded units...
...SINCE THE GOVERNMENT'S INITIAL MILITARY RESPONSE TO the 1994 Zapatista uprising, the counterinsurgency has shifted emphasis toward state-sponsored paramilitary groups composed mainly of rootless young indigenous men who lack land and are given arms and money to attack communities of Zapatista supporters...
...The Zapatista movement had its roots in independent rural organizing initiatives that demanded rights rather than clientelistic privileges...
...9 Following the collapse of the San Andres process, the Zapatistas began a third phase by further institutionalizing their de-facto municipal governments, often expelling the official government authorities...
...They began by build- ing on community structures of local self-governance continually created since the 1950s by migrants from the highlands and other regions to NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS that produces divergent positions on important global issues...
...This is the same government that is responsible for the massacre at Acteal in 1997," he said, "45 men, women and children massacred...
...Some time after the last cayuco had crossed, as the villagers continued talking among themselves at the riverside, an agrarian reform official appeared in the clearing escorted by two priistas...
...Part of the attraction of the region for foreign capital is the rich biodiversity found in this stretch of jungle...
...The wary Zapatista side gathered on the riverbank to see their pro-government neighbors ferry their benefactors across the river by cayuco in groups of four...
...He has served as a human rights observer in Chiapas on numerous occa- sions since 1994...
...If you want to come, we'll be meeting over there...
...The apparent recognition of autonomous spaces in society could create new mechanisms for division and cooptation, as social sectors and regions compete with each other for a share of the shrinking pie...
...101-125...
...Another dilemma is presented by a version of autonomy without resources, i.e...
...We already know that the government's word is pure lies," Gregono replied...
...This, in effect, means greater control over the movement by the Zapatista communities themselves, represented in the Juntas, rather than the insurgent structures of the EZLN...
...8. See Neil Harvey, "Resisting Neoliberalisni, Constructing Citizenship: Indigenous Movements in Chiapas," in Wayne A. Cornelius, Todd A. Eisenstadt and Jane Hindley, eds., Subnational Politics and Democratization in Mexico(La Jolla, CA: U.C.-San Diego Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies, 1999), pp...
...English translation in i Ya Bastal Ten Years of the Zapatista Uprising (Oakland: AK Press, 2004), pp...
...They return home ready to fight against war and imperialism, energized to carry on the fight for social justice and popular sovereignty in their communities and in their countries...
...3 This allows the government to portray the killing in Chiapas as inter35REPORT ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS communal violence, and its own troops as a stabilizing force...
...Entry by government officials is prohibited...
...In a preliminary self-evaluation of the Juntas after one year, the Zapatistas celebrated advances in social-service provision, as well as the experience gained by community members serving one- to two-week shifts in the regional governments.1 0 Yet they recognized problems of inefficiency and discontinuity caused by the frequent rotation...
...Her pseudo-NGO, ENDESU, began building another station in 2002 at Rio Tzendales, where a billboard proclaimed a "conservation" project to be supported by the Ford Motor Company In mid-2004 the legislative framework for bio-prospecting was drafted in a proposed "Law for the Conservation of Biodiversity and Environmental Protection for the State of Chiapas," denounced by human rights groups as a violation of indigenous rights to autonomous control of resources in their territories.7 Since the 1980s, the neoliberal agenda in Mexico has been implemented with the help of a series of programs designed to create new clientelistic mechanisms to divide and co-opt discontent...
...The recognition of indigenous peoples and communities will be done in the constitutions and laws of the federative entities...
...See also Luis Herndndez Navarro and Laura Carlsen, "Indigenous Rights: The Battle for Constitutional Reform in Mexico," in Kevin J. Middlebrook, ed., Dilemmas of Political Change in Mexico (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2004) pp...
...No, no, I already know where it is...
...This is the same government that is responsible for the massacre at Acteal in 1997," he said, "45 men, women and children massacred...
...The limits of working within the neoliberal legal framework of individual property guarantees and corporate prerogatives are illustrated by the struggle over the San Andres Accords...
...A variant of this model can be seen in the North and South Atlantic autonomous regions of Nicaragua...
...Alejandra backpedaled...
...She was a why, thirty-something woman named Alejandra, sporting close-cropped brown hair with frosted highlights...
...Crucial language guaranteeing indigenous peoples access and use of resources in their territories was replaced...
...He switched back and forth from Spanish to Tzotzil for the benefit of the priista escorts...
...You can pick out the land you want...
...The Chiapas state government, meanwhile, approved a redistricting scheme creating seven new municipalities aimed at undermining Zapatista autonomy claims...
...Alejandra, visibly agitated but maintaining her forced smile, responded: "No, I agree, that wasn't right...
...Those who refused identified with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and moved a few hundred yards upriver, establishing formal affiliation with the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipality of "Freedom for the Mayan Peoples," part of one of the Zapatista regional Juntas de Risen Gobierno (Juntas of Good Government) called "Towards Hope...
...For a positive presentation of the territorial decentralization model including the Nicaraguan case, see Hector Diaz Polanco, AutonomIa regional: La autodeterminacidn de los pueblos indios(Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1991 (. For a critical view of this model from a Zapatista advisor, see tlustavo Esteva, "The Meaning and Scope of the Struggle for Autonomy," in Bus et al., eds., Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias, pp...
...Since they lacked official recognition and resources, the autonomous municipalities were supported through five Zapatista multiservice centers called Aguascalientes...
...Alejandra broke in again: "I recognize that some mistakes have been made...
...With the overly chipper air of a kindergarten Government representatives are ferried across the LacanttTh River to Nuevo San Isidro, a Zapatista community...
...This Tzotzil indigenous community had migrated to the remote jungle near the Mexican-Guatemalan border in February 2001...
...Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, "Chiapas: La treceava estela," seven-part communique (July 2003), available at 'www.ezIn.org...
...In some of the Caracoles, there are already signs of local acceptance of the legitimacy of the Juntas, even by non-Zapatistas, who tum to them for dispute resolution and other govemance functions...
...589-625...
...Yet, the Echeverria Administration in 1972 had conceded 614,000 hectares (1.5 million acres), including much of what in 1978 was designated the Montes Azules reserve, to a group of 66 indigenous families it had inaccurately labeled the "Lacand6n Community" The government gave them trinkets in exchange for exclusive lumber concessions to strip valuable hardwood from the forest...
...But I'm here to make sure the promises are kept...
...No, no, I already know where it is...
...The prototype was the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), which selectively doled out benefits through local committees to compensate for the social impact of Members of the Juntas of Good Government in Oventic, Chiapas celebrate the first anniversary of the founding of the Caracoles...
...Indigenous identity was to be recognized, but stripped of collective rights...
...I have nothing to do with what the soldiers do, I disagree with it, in fact, I have denounced it myself...
...The other chapters of this book provide an excellent picture of the many facets of the Zapatista autonomy movement...
...You promised them aid for three years and it ended after three months...
...and "Reubicaciones de Ia SRA propician confrontaciones en Ia selva Lacandona," La Jornada, September 15, 2004...
...But in October 2004, when government agents came in and promised to help them relocate elsewhere in exchange for government aid, their small community was divided: six of the original 13 families started taking the aid and seven refused...
...In the Nicaraguan case, implementation of a 1987 autonomy statute fell short of expectations due to problems of representation and the under-funding of the autonomous government structures...
...m! 4, 4 0r CDMARCH APRIL 2005 implementing legislation, however, was never passed, so the Zapatistas inaugurated a second phase of the autonomy movement by proceeding to implement it themselves...
...11 AS THE ZAPATISTA AUTONOMY MOVEMENT EVOLVES, IT offers potential alternatives to the neoliberal model, but autonomy is not without its dilemmas...
...To overcome the dilemma of autonomy without resources and the danger of losing decision-making control to outside NGO funders, the Juntas have set up mechanisms for reviewing NGO development proposals and taking a 10% tax to redistribute to communities within each region.'7 The juntas do not preclude other authority structures or autonomy models, but they do exert a greater discipline over who gets to claim the "Zapatista" label within a given region...
...As THE ZAPATISTA AUTONOMY MOVEMENT EVOLVES, IT offers potential alternatives to the neoliberal model, but autonomy is not without its dilemmas...
...71-89...
...Some time after the last cayuco had crossed, as the villagers continued talking among themselves at the riverside, an agrarian reform official appeared in the clearing escorted by two priistas...
...The government also killed people from this community, on June 10, 1998, in Chavajebal...
...as well as serious under-representation of women in governing councils that are distant from their communities...
...Those who refused identified with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and moved a few hundred yards upriver, establishing formal affiliation with the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipality of "Freedom for the Mayan Peoples," part of one of the Zapatista regional Juntas de Buen Gobierno (Juntas of Good Government) called "Towards Hope...
...She said goodbye with a huge smile and a wave as she whirled around to disappear with her entourage...
...But I'm here to make sure the promises are kept...
...and "The Wars Within: Counterinsurgency in Chiapas and Colombia," NA CIA Report on theAmericas, Vol...
...Alejandra backpedaled...
...While the Mexican government tries to uproot communities, freeing up more land and resources for the global market, the Zapatistas have continued to resist by constructing autonomous government...
...30-58...
...Another clue to the newfound interest in Montes Azules may be found in President Vicente Fox's much-publicized "Plan Puebla-Panama" (PPP), a grand scheme to attract bil36 lions of dollars of investment to southern Mexico and Central America...
...1 6 The original Article 4 of the indigenous rights law drafted by the congressional peace commission, COCOPA, affirmed that "indigenous peoples have the right to free determination and, as expression of that, to autonomy" Its replacement begins with the affirmation that "the Mexican Nation is one and indivisible," and adds that "the right of indigenous peoples to free determination will be exercised in a constitutional framework of autonomy that assures national unity...
...One model of autonomy that predates the 1994 emergence of the EZLN in Chiapas is based on the concept of the Pluriethnic Autonomous Region (RAP...
...Access would be decided "with respect for the forms and modes of property and land tenancy established in this Constitution and relevant law, as well as rights acquired by third parties or by members of the community, to the use and preferential enjoyment of the natural resources of the places inhabited and occupied by the communities, except those corresponding to strategic areas...
...2. The Zapatistas based the right of self-government on Mexico's 1917 revolutionary Constitution...
...and "Mexico Biopiracy Project Cancelled," November 9. 2001, 'vww.etcgroup.org/documents/ news_lCBGtermNov2001 .pdf...
...9, No...
...10 Yet they recognized problems of inefficiency and discontinuity caused by the frequent rotation...
...Resistance to the counter-reform is weakened as state resources are drained from this social property sector and the cheap products of U.S...
...So far, internal problems have not been overwhelming...
...For the most part, however, the municipalities relied on local resources to launch production and social service projects, drawing on the indigenous tradition of a community labor tax in which each family contributed a quota of person-days.9 Following the collapse of the San Andres process, the Zapatistas began a third phase by further institutionalizing their de-facto municipal governments, often expelling the official government authorities...
...For interesting analysis of the changing definitions of indigenous community in Chiapas in the context of globalization, see Jan Rus, "Local Adaptation to Global Change: The Reordering of Native Society in Highland Chiapas, Mexico 1974-1994," European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, No...
...ments...
...We don't want government people here...
...Gregorio effectively ended the conversation: "If you want to invite us to a meeting you can present yourselves at Caracol Number One, to the Zapatista Junta of Good Government, and see what response they give you...
...4, July 1998, pp...
...1 2 The RAP model envisions autonomy as decentralization, and creates an additional representative layer for an indigenous territory within the existing structures of national government...
...On the political prospects of autonomy claims, see: Donna Lee Van Cott, "Explaining Ethnic Autonomy Regimes in Latin America," Studies in Comparative international Development, Vol...
...The most intense military/paramilitary operations have shifted over the years from the jungle canyons of eastcentral Chiapas, to the northern zone, then to the central highlands and now to this southeastern slice of jungle where the government had demarcated the vast "Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve" nearly 30 years before...
...2 InJuly 2000, the EZLN grouped the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipalities into regional autonomous government structures administered by five Juntas of Good Government based in governing centers called Caracoles (snails or conch shells, an ancient Mayan symbol...
...He switched back and forth from Spanish to Tzotzil for the benefit of the pnIsta escorts...
...For a comparative discussion of this reframing of indigenous rights in the region, see: Deborah Yashar, "Democracy, Indigenous Movements, and the Postliberal Challenge in Latin America," World Politics, Vol...
...and "La Red de Derechos Humanos de Chiapas rechaza el proyecto de ley de biodiversidad para el Estado de Chiapas por gnorar a los pueblos indigenas," Chiapas a/CIa, No...
...Look what happened to the people in Santa Cruz...
...The market paradigm tends to privatize gains while socializing costs and risks...
...With the overly chipper air of a kindergarten Government representatives are ferried across the LacantOn River to Nuevo San Isidro, a Zapatista community...
...Alejandra started to protest that she had only come to invite them to a meeting, and that it was about giving them land...
...Indigenous identity was to be recognized, but stripped of collective rights...
...There was also uneven ability to attend to dispersed settlements far from the Caracoles...
...Then they come with promises that are pure lies...
...6, Andres Barreda, "Biopiracy, Bioprospectiog, and Resistance: Four Cases in Mexico," in Timothy A. Wise, Hilda Salazar and Laura Carlsen, eds., Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico (Bloomfield, CT: Kuniarian Press, 2003), pp...
...Yet, the Echeverrf a Administration in 1972 had conceded 614,000 hectares (1.5 million acres), including much of what in 1978 was designated the Montes Azules reserve, to a group of 66 indigenous families it had inaccurately labeled the "LacandOn Community" The government gave them trinkets in exchange for exclusive lumber concessions to strip valuable hardwood from the forest...
...393, February 3, 2004, <wwN.ciepac.org...
...1 When government troops encircled this region in a military offensive in December 1994, the EZLN declared the existence of 38 autonomous municipalities, including many in the highlands and other areas outside Las Cafiadas...
...Governance, Cultural Rights and the Politics of Identity in Guatemala," Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol...
...173195...
...The Zapatista movement had its roots in independent rural organizing initiatives that demanded rights rather than clientelistic privileges...
Vol. 38 • March 2005 • No. 5
