Quiptic: Peasant Movement and Conflict Resolution in Chiapas

It is worthy to note that neo-Zapatista movement was preceded by organised "campesino" unions of the Selva Lacandona.  They resisted the so-called Presidential Decree of the "Lacandon Breach" ("La Brecha Lacandona") by which the majority of selva lands was granted to the Lacandon community (tribal people living in the selva for about 300 years) which deprived other indigenous people in this area of their titles to the same land.  The controversial nature of this decree may be explained in the context of Mexican government's agrarian policy in 40-60s which focused  mainly on colonisation of "unpopulated" lands  and preferring rather the extensive, not intensive development of its agrarian sector.  In search for new lands, thousands of indigenous migrants from the states of Guerrero, Michoacan, Morelos, Chihuahua as well as from other regions of Chiapas moved to the Selva Lacandona trying to establish their homes there. Through a decade, settlers were motivated and commended by the Mexican Government and Secretaria de la Reforma Agraria (Ministry of Agrarian Reform) who legally granted them titles for "unpopulated" lands hoping to resolve the vibrant Mexico's issue of the 60-s - deficiency of land.

The settlers' land titles became invalid when the Decree of the "Brecha Lacandona" was enacted in 1973. Of course, the Presidential Decree envisaged the following re-settlement of peasants from the area of the Selva Lacandona (called "Lacancon Community") and special re-settlement programmes were taken.  Nevertheless, indigenous settlers of the Selva (tzeltal, chol, tzotzil and tojolabal indigenous peoples) resisted the displacement and rightly saw it as a consequence of unlawful and inconsistent agrarian policy of the Government.

In 1975, then biggest campesino union Quiptic Ta Lecubtesel was created uniting 23 resisting settlements ("Quiptic"). Marcela Acosta Chavez, researcher of Quiptic, notes that resistance to the unjust Presidential Decree was the main organising factor in strenghening and uniting of the Selva peasants (Marcela Acosta Chavez, "La Quiptic Ta Lecubtesel"). They managed to organise their representation and negotiated with Chiapas government their land titles by urging them to resolve the real root of the conflict (land deficiency),  and opposing  government's usual "quick solutions" which they saw in replacement of "irregular" indigenous settlements.

This was the first attempt in the modern Chiapas history to resolve the main and long-lasting Chiapas conflict: deficiency of land and uneven distribution of income, which later developed in Zapatista rebellion and San-Andres Accords.

Mediators' Position in Armed Conflicts (Zapatista case)

(a Russian opinion or, rather, question relating to the well-known Mexico's event)

It seems interesting how Mexican CONAI (National Comission for Intermediation) defines their moral position while negotiating the peace between government and indigenous rebels.

The CONAI was created in 1995 by Chiapas bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia with views to help establish the peace process after armed rebellion by EZLN ( indigenous neo-Zapatistas) which took place on 1 January 1994. Immediately after the conflict, a very unstable truce was established in Chiapas, so bishop Samuel Ruiz put forward his peace initiative proposing himself and his Commission as mediators between the rebels (who were mostly of his congretation) and the government.  Soon CONAI was recognised by then Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari as a lawful mediator between the EZLN and Government representatives.

Anyway, after three-year process of peace negotiations, in 1998 the CONAI withdrew from the negotiation process.  Bishop Ruiz explained this action as a protest again government's infulfilment of San-Andres Accords.  In response to this claim, he was accused by various officials of "evading his mediator's duty" and "non-neutrality".  Indeed, mediators' code of conduct reads that they shall be neutral and promote the process of negotiation by being impartial and free of any personal or political preferences, as well as be adamant against any external pressure.

Miguel Alvarez Gandara, then CONAI Secretary, explained the  Commission's moral position by arguing their moral standpoint:

The CONAI, -  he said, - was an independent entity which was impartial to all parties in the conflict. The accusations of non-neutrality refer mostly to CONAI's moral position which they assumed from the very beginning of the armed conflict - the CONAI was seeking to build the type of negotiation which would eliminate the real roots of the conflict, and namesly, disrespect and exclusion of indigenous peoples of Mexico. The only resolution of the conflict, as it was seen by multiple experts, opposition politicians, observers and majority of Mexicans, might be found  only in pursuing the appropriate and relevant constitutional reforms granting indigenous peoples the status of "public law entities", not "objects" by public law to be easily manipulated by unstable and ever changing political situation.

Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, one of the Mexican most prominent intellectuals, ex rector of the UNAM (Autonomous University of Mexico) and a former member of CONAI,   formed this standpoint by saying that he "cannot remain neutral while facing the truth."

Shall a mediator be neutral as it is demanded by his/her job position?  Shall he/she seek the real solution of the conflict, or confine himself with pacification measures only? What is the real objective of political mediation?

Zapatistas' Mexican Agenda - Why Autonomy, Not Separatism?

Gary Gossen in his article "Maya Zapatistas Move to the Ancient Future" provides his view on one of the core points that Zapatistas demanded in the course of San-Andres negotiations:  this point is indigenous autonomy.

Why autonomy, but not separatism? Why neo-Zapatista agenda coincides with the national agenda of Mexico? Why Mayan Zapatistas do not see their future apart from the Mexican state and Mexican nation? Why do they want to be Mexicans?

Gary Gossen, one of the most prominent Mayanists undertakes to answer these questions, and his arguments seem to be quite convincing. Gossen argues that among the Tzotziles, for example, foreign "heroes", regardless of their positive or negative nature in indigenous perceptions, are very commonly taken as a "necessary precondition for collective identity within the Chamula pattern of  historical memory and being in the present" (see Gossen 1993).

For example, Miguel Hidalgo (the father of Mexican Independence) and Erasto Urbina (local hero of Chiapas) are both ladinos and bearers of Mexican mestizo culture, yet Mayan Indians perceive them as part of their indigenous history. Emiliano Zapata, a  "campesino" leader of the Mexican Revolution and also being mestizo (not Indian) has become a hero of the Mayan indigenous peoples of Chiapas.  From the point of view of religion, Catholic saints have always played and are playing a very important and active role in modern Mayan panteon:  in particular, St Jerome is considered to be a keeper of animals and animal soul's companion (nahualli). At the same time, surprisingly, the heroine of the Mexican history and "mother" of all Mexicans, legendary Malinche is known in Chamula culture as "Nana Maria Cocorina", wearing a ladino dress "and is ritually addressed as xinulan antz, "stinking ladino woman"."

So why ladinos have become an inseparable part of the Mayan culture? Why sub-comandante Marcos, also being a ladino among Indians, has been entrusted the role of spokesperson of the Mayan rebels?

According to Gary Gossen, "Mayans have always constructed enthnicity, cosmology, historical reckoning and political legitimacy by drawing freely from symbolic and ideological forms of other ethnic and political entities - particularly those perceived to be stronger than themselves - in order to situate and center themselves in the present.  Therefore, what I have identified as the apprently anomalous and peculiar link of the Zapatistas to foreign alliances and symbolic affiliations - including Marcos, white foreign martyrs, the paladin of Zapata and the Mexican revolutionary ideology that he embodies - is not at all strange to the Maya imagination.  In fact, such alliances appear to have been a centrally important strategy for Maya cultural affirmation and political legitimacy since well before the contact period."