The Chiapas conflict (Spanish: Conflicto de Chiapas) consisted of the 1994 Zapatista uprising, the 1995 Zapatista crisis, and the subsequent tension between the Mexican state, the indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers of Chiapas from the 1990s to the 2010s. [5]
The Zapatista uprising started in January 1994, and lasted less than two weeks, before a ceasefire was agreed upon. [6] The principal belligerents of subsection of the conflict were the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Spanish: Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional; EZLN) and the government of Mexico. [6] Negotiations between the government and Zapatistas led to agreements being signed, but were often not complied with in the following years as the peace process stagnated. This resulted in an increasing division between communities with ties to the government and communities that sympathized with the Zapatistas. Social tensions, armed conflict and paramilitary incidents increased, culminating in the killing of 45 people in the village of Acteal in 1997 by an anti-Zapatista militia with ties to the Mexican government. [7] Though at a low level, rebel activity continued and violence occasionally erupted between Zapatista supporters and anti-Zapatista militias along with the government. The last related incident occurred in 2014, when a Zapatista-affiliated teacher was killed and 15 more wounded in Chiapas. [8] The armed conflict ended in the late 2010s. [9]
After the Mexican War of Independence, Mexico kept many features of its Spanish colonial system, including limpieza de sangre ("purity of blood"), a legal code that distinguished those of Spanish ancestry from those of indigenous ancestry. [10] This was the starting point for many land rights and social rights struggles in Mexico, some of which can be attributed to the strict structure of Mexican social classes with the Criollo people at the top, who were Mexicans of direct Spanish descent. [11]
The same issue appeared amongst the non-Criollo population in later years, especially among the Mestizo population during the 19th century. In the Mexican Revolution of 1910, poor farmers and other marginalized groups, led in part by Emiliano Zapata, rebelled against the government and large land tenants due to failures of the authoritarian regime of Porfirio Díaz. [12] It is from Zapata that the Zapatistas got their name. [13]
The years after the revolution saw several agrarian reforms, and through Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution the encomienda system was abolished and the right to communal land and other resources for the people of Mexico was granted in accordance with the principles set forth by Zapata. [14] This part of the Constitution more specifically gave the traditionally communal indigenous groups within the country the "legal capacity to enjoy common possession of the lands, forests, and waters belonging to them or which have been or may be restored to them." [15] Thus, the ejido system was created, which organized lands that were able to be worked by various members of rural and indigenous communities, but were often sold off to multinational corporations. [14]
Aldama, in the highlands region of Chiapas, has experienced a territorial dispute dating back to the 1970s. [16]
Since the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico's economic policy concentrated more on industrial development and attracting foreign capital. However, this policy soon changed to try to brand Mexico as more of an agricultural power, which culminated in the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari initiating a process of privatization of land through several amendments in 1992, which put the process of determining communal land under federal jurisdiction. [17] The EZLN claims that it has existed since 1983, although it only began to gain traction by the early 1990s. [13]
In 1982, General Absalón Castellanos Domínguez, then Governor of Chiapas, increased acts of violent oppression against indigenous people. [18] Members of the National Liberation Forces (FLN), including Rafael Vicente, eventually known as Subcomandante Marcos — the eventual spokesman of the EZLN [19] — moved into the area later that year, and by late 1983 the EZLN was formed by 3 indigenous people and 3 mestizos. [18] As the group grew, it became more like the state of Chiapas, consisting primarily of indigenous or partly indigenous people. [20]
In December 1993, The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) issued the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, which declared that the government of Mexico and President Gortari were illegitimate. This declaration was heavily rooted in Emiliano Zapata's Plan of Ayala (1911), which denounced President Francisco Madero and proposed several measures to reform the government. [21]
On 1 January 1994, the EZLN began their military insurrection in the southernmost province of Mexico, Chiapas, in the name of the rights of oppressed indigenous peoples and democracy; this was the same date on which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. [22] The EZLN based their operations out of the Lacandon Jungle, and used this as their launching point for capturing the towns of Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, Altamirano, and San Cristóbal de las Casas. [6] By 2 January, the rebels had already captured former Governor Castellanos Domínguez, and proceeded hold him hostage due to their own tribunal finding him guilty of anti-indigenous crimes and corruption, and sentenced him to forced labor. [23] By 3 January, the EZLN had lost over 50 of its soldiers, and over 100 civilians had been killed, but had withdrawn from San Cristóbal de las Casas, as they could not maintain their grip on it; they had also captured a government prison with about 180 inmates. [20]
During the period of 1–12 January 1994, there was a large discrepancy between the information released and spread by the two respective sides. The government insisted that there were only a few hundred rebels, while the EZLN reported that they numbered in the thousands. [20]
The federal government reached a ceasefire agreement with the EZLN on 12 January, [6] and on 17 February the peace negotiators of each party met for the first time, resulting in the freeing of Castellanos Domínguez. Manuel Camacho Solís was the government's chief peace negotiator, [23] Subcomandante Marcos was the EZLN's, and Bishop Samuel Ruiz García mediated between the two parties. [24] As peace talks continued, there were several high and low points in apparent progress in drafting an agreement, but eventually there was a shift in strategy on the part of the rebels to keep up the talks until the upcoming Mexican Election, to increase the pressure on the government after years of having little to no way to influence government policy or actions. [25] On 11 June, the EZLN rejected the agreement proposed by the Mexican government, but reinforced its commitment to the ceasefire unless the government broke it first. [26] By mid-October, tensions began escalating when the rebels threatened action if the Governor-Elect Eduardo Robledo Rincón of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) were to take office. Subcomandante Marcos also heightened the rhetoric in this situation: "If they want lead, we'll give them lead... We are an army, not a labor union or some neighborhood club." [27]
These developments attracted a lot of international attention and criticism. While human rights organizations emphasized the marginalization of the indigenous population, Riordan Roett (adviser to the Emerging Markets Group of the Chase Manhattan Bank) stated in January 1995:
"While Chiapas, in our opinion, does not pose a fundamental threat to Mexican political stability, it is perceived to be so by many in the investment community. The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy." [28]
Just two days later the Mexican army came into action to bring the Zapatista occupied areas back under their control, but they did not succeed in arresting subcomandante Marcos or other leaders of the EZLN.
In February 1995, the new President, Ernesto Zedillo, attacked the EZLN, which proved to be politically unpopular, resulting in new peace negotiations that culminated in the San Andrés Accords of 1996. [13] This treaty indicated an agreement on the importance of indigenous autonomy and land reform. [13]
In 1996, the Comisión de Concordia y Pacificación (COCOPA) presented a proposal of constitutional reform (the Cocopa law) based on the San Andrés Accords to the EZLN and the federal government. [29]
On 21 March 1999, several referendums on the rights of indigenous people were held with support of the EZLN, and the people voted in support of the San Andrés Accords, although turnout was low compared to general elections in that time period. [13]
In the months leading up to the Acteal massacre, growing violence resulted in over 6,000 people being displaced, and 25 had been killed in the area. [30] In December, 1997, this culminated in the largest incident of violence of the Chiapas Conflict since the initial rebellion took place in the village of Acteal, in which 45 indigenous people, 15 of whom were children, were murdered by people with machetes and AK-47 assault rifles inside a church. [31]
Following the killing, the investigation was led by Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuéllar, and the witnesses/survivors of the Acteal Massacre have said that the attackers were loyalists to the governing PRI. [32] By the end of the month, several people had been charged with the killings, including the de facto mayor of Acteal, Jacinto Arias Cruz, a member of the PRI, resulting in the national party denying any connection to the killings and to the mayor. [33]
On 2 July 2000, the first non-PRI president was elected, Vicente Fox, ending the PRI's 71 year grip on the office. [34] His campaign focused on increasing economic growth and ending government corruption. [35]
In March 2001, about 100,000 supporters of the Zapatistas and the rights of indigenous people mobilized in Mexico City to express their demands of the government; many of the rebels, led by Subcomandante Marcos, traveled for two weeks to reach the site of the political rally. [36] This march was known as the "March of the Color of the Earth" (Spanish: La Marcha del Color de la Tierra) after a quote by Marcos. [37] The Zapatistas expressed support for a Bill of Rights for the nation's minority Indigenous population and, in his speech to the crowds, Marcos demanded that President Fox "listen to us," despite Fox's vocal support for, and initial proposal of, [35] the Zapatista-backed legislation. [38] By the end of April 2001, the Bill was passed by Congress by a wide margin, with Fox's support, but underwent several amendments before it was passed that were criticized by a number of indigenous leaders. [39] The Zapatistas referred to the final version of the law as a "betrayal" because of its failure to affirm the communal rights indigenous people had to land, other natural resources, and to have autonomous states within Mexico, contrary to the San Andrés Accords. [5]
In response to the passage of the law with its new amendments, the EZLN suspended dialogue with the government and created a new system of leadership, which was necessary to govern autonomously as the San Andrés Accords allowed, in principle, and created "Good Government Committees (JBG)" to do so. [5]
After 2003, the peace process has been in a gridlock, the government officially ignored the EZLN, seeing it just as a political rival, but armed attacks involving pro-government para-military groups frequently made civilian casualties (see the list below). [5]
The counterinsurgent methods designed and implemented by the Mexican government in 1994 intended to disrupt and dissolve the resistance of the EZLN. This provoked large amounts of forced displacement, threats and harassment by the Mexican army upon indigenous villages. This displacement has grown since the year 1996, and various paramilitary groups have been responsible for crimes against the indigenous population. An example of this is the Acteal Massacre, where on December 22, 1997, 45 people and four unborn children were murdered in the camp of Los Naranjos, Chenalhó. [40]
Extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, forced displacement, torture, threats of violence and death, intimidation, arbitrary deprivations of liberty and destruction of property were some of the threats faced by these communities. Remnants of the counterinsurgency strategies enacted by the Mexican state in the Altos and Northern regions of Chiapas in the 90s continues in the form of illegally armed paramilitary groups who learned from those strategies. These groups are sustained by the criminal organizations of the region, and powerful groups whose aims oppose those of the local population. These groups are further supported by impunity from the municipal, state, and federal governments. Forced disappearances continue to permeate the socio-political landscape surrounding the Chiapas conflict as the generalized violence in the region in the last decade has forced many to leave their homes. Many Chiapans also continue to suffer threats of violence, abduction, and displacement. From 2010 to 2021, there were approximately 14,476 people displaced in the state of Chiapas. [40]
A violent incident occurred in 2014, with a Zapatista-related teacher killed and 15 more wounded in Chiapas ambush by alleged anti-Zapatista militia; however, there appeared to be some dispute as to whether the casualties occurred due to a "confrontation" or an "ambush of unarmed" civilians. [41]
On the sixth of December 2019, around the hours 6:00 in the morning, an armed group of approximately 20 people of the community of Pechton Icotsilh’ the population of San Antonio Patbaxil with firearms. The same group of aggressors displaced the residents of the village of Carmen San José between the 20th and 25th of June 2018. In total 40 families, including men, women, children and the elderly, were displaced by the armed group of people. [42]
There are cases in which families and communities have been unable to return for over a decade since their displacement. These cases resulted from violent events that took place in the northern zone of Chiapas from 1995–2000, encompassing the municipalities of Tumbalá, Sabanilla, Tila, Salto de Agua y Palenque. The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Center for Human Rights (Frayba) has documented the armed conflict to have forcibly displaced approximately 9,950 people in that region since 2006. [42]
A more serious flare-up took place in 2020, as several assassinations took place across Mexico, targeting indigenous rights advocates – including the murder of Pérez López in Chiapas. [16]
Total casualties during the conflict: 105 killed.
While the Zapatistas had little physical effect outside of Chiapas, their domination of the "information space" has strengthened their image and allies from foreign activists and journalists. [46] Because the members of EZLN were residents of Chiapas, living in the jungle, original material for the organization started out as written communiques for media outlets, which were then uploaded to the Internet. Many forums and websites dedicated to the discussion of the Chiapas conflict were sponsored by advocacy groups centered on Latin America and indigenous protection, mostly situated in North America and Western Europe. [47] Soon after the uprising, fax campaigns and public caravans were popular methods of gaining media attention and organizing supporters. [46]
Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities as of September 2017 and its capital and largest city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán, and Arriaga. Chiapas is the southernmost state in Mexico, and it borders the states of Oaxaca to the west, Veracruz to the northwest, and Tabasco to the north, and the Petén, Quiché, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos departments of Guatemala to the east and southeast. Chiapas has a significant coastline on the Pacific Ocean to the southwest.
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a far-left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
The Acteal massacre was a massacre of 45 people attending a prayer meeting of Catholic indigenous townspeople, including a number of children and pregnant women, who were members of the pacifist group Las Abejas, in the small village of Acteal in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Right-wing paramilitary group Máscara Roja murdered the victims on December 22, 1997, while the Government of Mexico first admitted responsibility for the massacre in September 2020.
San Cristóbal de las Casas, also known by its native Tzotzil name, Jovel, is a town and municipality located in the Central Highlands region of the Mexican state of Chiapas. It was the capital of the state until 1892, and is still considered the cultural capital of Chiapas.
Samuel Ruiz García was a Mexican Catholic prelate who served as bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, from 1959 until 1999. Ruiz is best known for his role as mediator during the conflict between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a Mexican political party which had held power for over seventy years, and whose policies were often disadvantageous to the indigenous populations of Chiapas. Inspired by Liberation Theology, which swept through the Catholic Church in Latin America after the 1960s, Ruiz's diocese helped some hundreds of thousands of indigenous Maya people in Chiapas who were among Mexico's poorest marginalized communities.
Comandanta Ramona was an officer of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), a revolutionary indigenous autonomist organization based in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. She led the Zapatista Army into San Cristóbal de las Casas during the Zapatista uprising of 1994, and was the first Zapatista to appear publicly in Mexico City.
Las Abejas is a Christian pacifist civil society group of Tzotzil Maya formed in Chenalhó, Chiapas, Mexico in 1992 following a familial property dispute that left one person killed. When members of the community took the injured man to the nearest town for medical attention, they were accused of attacking him themselves and jailed. When family members realized what had happened, they began a pilgrimage on foot to San Cristóbal de las Casas. Along the way, Christian pacifists in other villages joined the group, which is dedicated to peace, justice, and anti-neoliberalism. Las Abejas freed their companions and grew as an organization.
Ocosingo is a city and its surrounding municipality of the same name in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
A Place Called Chiapas is a 1998 Canadian documentary film of first-hand accounts of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) the and the lives of its soldiers and the people for whom they fight. Director Nettie Wild takes the viewer to rebel territory in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, where the EZLN live and evade the Mexican Army.
The San Andrés Accords are agreements reached between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican government, at that time headed by President Ernesto Zedillo. The accords were signed on February 16, 1996, in San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas, and granted autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous population of Mexico.
Neozapatismo or neozapatism is the political philosophy and practice devised and employed by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who have instituted governments in a number of communities in Chiapas, Mexico, since the beginning of the Chiapas conflict. According to its adherents, it is not an ideology: "Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or a rehash of old ideologies. .. There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, rules or slogans. There is only a desire: to build a better world, that is, a new world."
On 1 January 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) coordinated a 12-day uprising in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, in protest against the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The rebels occupied cities and towns in Chiapas, releasing prisoners and destroying land records. After battles with the Mexican Army and police, a ceasefire was brokered on 12 January.
Radio Insurgente is the official voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).The radio station has been operating since August 2003 and it is independent from the Mexican government. Its broadcasting location is unknown. Radio Insurgente's content is focused on promoting the ideas and struggles of the Zapatista movement. Radio Insugente transmits programs in Spanish and in the indigenous languages Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol and Tojolabal. According to their websiteArchived 2005-04-04 at the Wayback Machine, they transmit "from various places in Chiapas directed to the Zapatista bases, the insurgentes and milicians, the commanders and local people in general". No new programs have been posted on the website since 2009, but CDs are on sale on the site and users can listen to previous content.
Women have been influential in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, a revolutionary leftist group in Chiapas, Mexico, by participating as armed insurgents and civil supporters. In the 1990s, one-third of the insurgents were women and half of the Zapatista support base was women. The EZLN organization style involved consensus and participation by everyone, including women and children. Therefore, one aspect of the EZLN's ideology was gender equality and rights for women. After the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the EZLN announced the Women's Revolutionary Law which was a set of ten laws that granted rights to women regarding marriage, children, work, health, education, political and military participation, and protected women from violence. Prominent figures who joined the movement early on such as Comandante Ramona and Major Ana Maria encouraged other women to join the Zapatistas.
The 1995 Zapatista Crisis was a political crisis in Mexico in the aftermath of the 1994 Zapatista uprisings, which began as a result of the 1991 revision of Article 27 of Mexico's Constitution. This revision caused unrest in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, as many indigenous tribes believed the article's revision negatively affected them due to the new economic policies. Violence ensued over several years, and the many peace deals proposed by the Mexican government were rejected. After he came to power in 1994, President Ernesto Zedillo took a series of decisions that contradicted decisions from the earlier administration.
The Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities were the basic governmental units utilized until 2023 within the de facto autonomous territories controlled by neo-Zapatista support bases in the Mexican state of Chiapas. They were founded following the Zapatista uprising which took place in 1994 and were part of the wider Chiapas conflict. Despite attempts at negotiation with the Mexican government which resulted in the San Andrés Accords in 1996, the region's autonomy remains unrecognized by that government.
The National Indigenous Congress is an organization of communities, nations, towns, neighbourhoods and indigenous tribes of Mexico. In its own words, the CNI is "... a space of unity, reflection and organization of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, promoting the integral reconstitution of the original peoples and the construction of a society in which all cultures, all the colors, all the towns that we are Mexico". Since its foundation, among several activities, five national congresses have been held.
Comandanta Esther is the nom de guerre of a revolutionary in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico, created for indigenous people's rights. She is considered a high ranking woman in the EZLN. Military "commanders" have no actual military or governmental power and are simply spokespeople for the movement. Comandanta Esther is best known for her March 2001 speech to the Congress of the Union at the San Lazaro Legislative Palace in Mexico City, in which she spoke for constitutional recognition of indigenous people and the difficulty that indigenous women face in Mexico, demanded that their rights be acknowledged. Her work has helped inspire women activists to speak up in and join leadership roles in their communities in Mexico.
The National Liberation Forces were an insurgent group in Mexico. It was founded in 1969 by a group of young regiomontanos led by César Yáñez Muñoz, integrating the members of an old dissolved organization called the Mexican Insurgent Army.
Major Ana María is the nom de guerre of one of the first military leaders who led the Zapatista uprising in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the Southwest of Mexico.
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