Chiapas, Indigenous Rights, and the Coming Fourth World Revolution

CHIAPAS, INDIGENOUS RIGHTS, AND THE COMING FOURTH WORLD REVOLUTION MartinEdwinAndersen "After 500 years ofcolonial silence and after 168 years ofrepublican exclusion, we now speak up to tell our truth. Democracy in a country that is multiethnic, pluricultural and plurilingual ought also to be multiethnic, pluricultural and plurilingual. ... A tree grows from its roots." Bolivian Vice President Victor Hugo Cardenas, Native American, whose election last year was a milestone in Latin American politics. Lhe New Year's rebellion by Native Americans in die southern Mexican state of Chiapas was a stunning embarrassment for the government of President Carlos Salinas de Gotari, whose far-reaching economic reforms were aboutto be crowned by the implementation ofrhe North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta). Coming at the end die United Nations' "International Year ofthe World's Indigenous Peoples," die revolt and die guerrillas' demand diat any peace setdement include national political reforms were quickly embraced by a broad spectrum ofMexican public opinion. When opposition leaders warned diat a nationwide upheaval would occur ifthe reforms were not made, policymakers in Mexico City, Washington, and die hemisphere's other capitals were forced to take greater stock ofdie urgent needs ofLatin America's Martin Edwin Andersen (SAIS '81), a former professional staff member ofthe Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is die author of Dossier Secreto: Argentina's Desaparecidos and the Mjth. of the "Dirty War" (1993). As a journalist, Mr. Andersen has covered Native American issues throughout the Americas. 141 142 SAIS Review SUMMER-FALL 1994 35 to 40 million Indians, particularly for political rights and protection oftheir land and resources. Chiapas is Mexico's poorest state and die site of long-running human rights violations against native peoples. For more than two decades large landowners have forced diousands of Mayans, Tzeltales, Zapotecos, Zoques, and odier indigenous communities off dieir communal farmlands. The guerrillas' justification for their revolt centered on what diey consider die Salinas government's complicity in human rights abuses and on die erosion of indigenous land rights. Worries about the effect ofnafta on die price ofcorn and fears that multinational corporations would push odiers off their land added to rhe guerrillas' appeal. As more became known about the Zapatista National Liberation Army and its puckish non-Indian leader, subcomandante Marcos, however, itwas clear diat some rebels had taken to the hills long before the trade accord was even contemplated. The resonant chord struck by die Zapatistas' demands in Mexican indigenous communities from Chihuahua in die north to Oaxaca in die soudi suggests diat die situation in Chiapas mirrors the condition ofnative peoples in many areas of Mexico. Some 10 million Mexicans are Native Americans, making diem Latin America's largest indigenous population. More dian one million cannot speak Spanish, and eight times mat many speak native languages. Nearly 70 percent ofthose living in rural areas are "marginalized" (as die Mexican government refers to them), widi nine in ten living widiout adequate sanitation and sewage systems. New constitutional reforms covering cultural diversity and communally held land-use rights have negatively affected indigenous communities and have fueled current discontent. The Coming Fourth World Revolution The Zapatista rebellion tragically demonstrates die risks governments fece ifthey fail to protect the political, social, and economic rights ofnative peoples. Around the globe some 300 million indigenous peoples inhabit more than seventy nations. Many fece either indifference or increasing discrimination and violence as diey struggle to establish their personal, cultural, and land-use rights. In Malaysia native activists are the victims of worsening aggression as they protest the destruction of their forests. In the north of Russia native peoples seek to protect their land from environmental disaster, as oil exploration and exploitation destroy die fragile tundra. In Uruguay representatives of South American indigenous groups maintain a vigil over the wreck ofa 200-year-old INDIGENOUS RIGHTS 143 treasure-laden sunken ship, demanding die return ofat least part ofthe money received from the resale ofthe riches to rhe native peoples from whom theywere plundered by Spanish conquistadors. In Burma the wealth gained from the destruction of what was until recendy one of die world's most pristine rain forests helps fuel the military dictatorship's campaign against me Karen people ofthe country's southeast...