Rural Chiapas Ten Years after the Zapatista Uprising

Sarah Washbrook

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000158199
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Considered the most significant recent agrarian movement in Mexico, the 1994 EZLN uprising by the indigenous peasantry of Chiapas attracted world attention. Timed to coincide with the signing of the NAFTA agreement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation reasserted the value of indigenous culture and opposed the spread of neo-liberalism associated with globalization.

The essays in this collection examine the background to the 1994 uprising, together with the reasons for this, and also the developments in Chiapas and Mexico in the years since. Among the issues covered are the history of land reform in the region, the role of peasant and religious organizations in constructing a new politics of identity, the participation in the rebellion of indigenous women and changing gender relations, plus the impact of the Zapatistas on Mexican democracy.

The international group of scholars contributing to the volume include Sarah Washbrook, George and Jane Collier, Antonio García de León, Daniel Villafuerte Solís, Gemma van der Haar, Mercedes Olivera, Marco Estrada Saavedra, Heidi Moksnes, Neil Harvey, and Tom Brass.

This book was previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Introduction

The Chiapas Uprising of 1994: Historical Antecedents and Political Consequences

SARAH WASHBROOK

INTRODUCTION

On 1 January 1994, the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, Canada and the United States¹ came into effect, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), declared war on the Mexican government and seized four municipalities in the southern state of Chiapas.² Within ten days of combat the federal army had regained control; however, instead of annihilating the rebel army, the fate of similar guerrilla movements in Mexico in the post-1968 era,³ under the pressure of Mexican and international public opinion, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)⁴ called a unilateral truce on 12 January 1994. In the years that followed, the EZLN became an important force in Mexican politics, criticizing the authoritarian regime and its neo-liberal economic policies and contributing to anti-globalization campaigns and movements for greater democratization and the rights of women and indigenous peoples, both nationally and internationally. Part of the reason for the success of the EZLN lay in its skilful manipulation of the media, particularly the internet, and the timing of its appearance when Mexican society was still reeling from structural adjustment and increasingly demanding electoral reform and greater democratic accountability.

Sarah Washbrook, St. Antony's College, Oxford.

This special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies seeks to examine some of the social, economic and political consequences of the armed uprising of 1994 and to analyse the phenomenon of Zapatismo in light of the changes that have taken place in Chiapas and Mexico more broadly during the last ten years. Three of the most salient consequences of the uprising of 1994 have been its impact on govemability and the rural economy in Chiapas (addressed in this edition by contributions by Neil Harvey, Marco Estrada Saavedra, Heidi Mosknes, Daniel Villafuerte and Gemma van der Haar); democratization in Mexico (examined by George and Jane Collier and Antonio García de León); and the rights of indigenous people and women in Mexico (see the contributions by Xochitl Leyva Solano and Mercedes Oliveira respectively). A final contribution (by Tom Brass) locates their findings in the broader context of debates about nationalism and the peasantry. As will become apparent, there is disagreement among all these contributors as to the nature of the EZLN and its impact on politics and society in Mexico since 1994.

In this introduction I will survey the historical and political background to the uprising and set out the terms of the debate by examining five areas of interest: first, the political events following the uprising in January 1994; second, the debate concerning the origins and nature of the EZLN itself; third, the link between economic crisis and political and religious changes in Chiapas between 1970 and 2004; fourth, agrarian reform and state formation in the post-revolutionary era, covering the 1920-94 period; and fifth, some of the social and political consequences of the uprising of 1994 in Chiapas.

I

THE POLITICAL EVENTS OF 1994 AND AFTER

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari came to power in 1988 amidst widespread claims of electoral fraud. In the context of economic crisis and structural adjustment that followed Mexico’s Debt Crisis of 1982 a large number of voters rejected the ruling PRI and voted instead for a leftist alliance led by Cuáhtemoc Cárdenas, ironically the son of President Lázaro Cárdenas, who had founded the PRM, a precursor to the PRI, in 1938. However, the computers collating the electoral results crashed just as it was becoming apparent that Cárdenas might win, and the final result showed a resounding victory for Salinas. During his period in office President Salinas extended and deepened the neo-liberal economic reforms that had begun during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid (1982-88).

However, by 1994 Mexico’s political system was beginning to crack. Two months after the Zapatista uprising, in March 1994, the PRI’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colossio was shot dead, and in September 1994 the secretary-general of the PRI, José Francisco Ruiz Masseau, was also assassinated. Nevertheless, the PRI’s replacement presidential candidate in July 1994, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, emerged triumphant. In Chiapas, Eduardo Robledo Rincón of the PRI won the gubernatorial elections of August 1994 amid much controversy. The opposition candidate Amador Avendaño of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which was founded by Cuahtemoc Cárdenas after his defeat in 1988, refused to accept the results, and a short-lived parallel government was inaugurated with support of the state’s popular organizations.

In December 1995 the Mexican economy was wracked by the peso crisis, when the national currency lost half its value overnight, reducing both the ability of the middle class to repay dollar-denominated debts and the purchasing power of the poor [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 16]. In the following years, President Zedillo instituted electoral reform and worked to modernize and democratize both Mexico and the PRI. In the 1997 National Congress elections the PRI lost its majority in the lower house for the first time, although it remained the largest party, and in 1999 the PRI broke with the tradition of having presidents pick their own successors and held its first presidential primary. Then, in the presidential elections of July 2000, the PRI candidate, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, lost to Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party (PAN), ending more than 70 years of one-party rule. Less than two months later the PRI candidate for the governorship of Chiapas was defeated by Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía, who was backed by an alliance of eight opposition parties.

Despite the ceasefire of January 1994, from December 1994 to February 1995, the territory at least partially under EZLN control grew from four municipalities to 38 as many towns and hamlets declared themselves free from the control of the official municipal authorities. In February 1995 the government, presided over by Ernesto Zedillo, broke the ceasefire and tried to capture the EZLN high command. Although unsuccessful in its declared objective, the army retook large areas of area controlled by the Zapatistas [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 16-17]. In October 1995 negotiations began between the federal government and the EZLN in the small indigenous village of San Andrés Larrainzar (renamed San Andrés Sacamch’en de los Pobres by the Zapatistas) near the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Four themes were scheduled for discussion, but only the first, on Indigenous Rights and Culture, made it to the negotiating table. An agreement was signed between the government and the EZLN in February 1996, which became known as the San Andrés Accords. But the EZLN unilaterally pulled out of the negotiations soon afterwards, claiming dissatisfaction with the implementation of the agreements.

During the period of negotiations overt military actions were put on hold, but there was a strong military presence in the central and eastern regions of state and a build-up of tension from late summer 1994 as local political bosses (caciques) associated with the PRI began arming paramilitary groups.⁵ From 1996 the federal government stepped up its strategy of counterinsurgency through increased military pressure and programmes of government assistance designed to divide and co-opt communities in regions of Zapatista influence and control [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 18-19]. In many parts of Chiapas the result of the conflict between the EZLN and the government was growing levels of poverty and intra-communal violence. Policies of repression and paternalism in the wake of the breakdown of negotiations culminated in the Acteal massacre of December 1997, in which a group of paramilitaries associated with the local PRI entered a chapel in the small hamlet of Acteal in the municipality of San Pedro Chenalhó in Chiapas’s central highlands, and massacred 13 men and 32 women, members of ‘Las Abejas’ (the bees) an indigenous non-governmental human rights organization, who were praying at the time (see Heidi Mosknes, this volume). Although tensions in Chiapas eased after Acteal, inter and intra-communal conflict and violence have continued to be one of the most tragic legacies of the uprising of 1994 [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 20]. Following the victory of Vincente Fox in 2000 the military presence was significantly scaled down and the federal government began to seek new solutions to the conflict in Chiapas.

After 1994 the EZLN became increasingly identified with the movement for indigenous rights in Mexico (see Xóchitl Leyva Solano, this volume). For example, in January 1996, while discussions on Indigenous Rights and Culture were taking place in San Andrés, a National Indian Forum was convened, organized and presided over by Zapatista commanders and moderated by EZLN advisors in nearby San Cristóbal de las Casas. The forum attracted a large national and international turnout, including numerous indigenous representatives and activists from Mexico and other parts of Latin America [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 17]. In December 1996 the government announced that significant parts of the constitutional reform, based on the San Andrés Accords of February 1996, and put forward by COCOPA (Comisión de Concordia y Pacificación), a mediating body made up of congressional members of Mexico’s main four political parties, was unconstitutional. The government was particularly unhappy with parts of the reform referring to administrative autonomy for indigenous peoples [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 19].

After President Fox took power in December 2000 he sent COCOPA’s proposal for constitutional reform to the Senate and the Zapatistas and members of Mexico’s Indian National Congress (CNI) organized a march for Indian rights to Mexico City in its support. However, the proposal was significantly watered down by the Senate, and the new version, which reduced the scope of Indian autonomy, was publicly rejected by the EZLN, COCOP A, and the CNI (see Xóchitl Leyva Solano, this volume). Despite opposition from Indian organizations, the law was passed by the Senate on 25 April 2001 and three days later was accepted by the National Congress. It became law in August 2001 [Rus, Hernández Castillo and Mattiace, 2003: 22], Since the defeat of the PRI in the presidential elections of 2000 and the passing of the indigenous law of 2001 the EZLN has become less important on Mexico’s political agenda and lost much popular support. Nevertheless, the EZLN remains of relevance for understanding current social and political events in Chiapas.

II

WHAT IS THE EZLN? INTERPRETING THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF REBELLION

Since 1994 the EZLN has often been presented (and presented itself) in the media, as a ‘new’ social movement, which, in contrast to the vanguard parties and class-based social movements of the past, draws its support from the grassroots participation of ‘civil society’ and aims to advance democracy and identity-based claims such as the rights of women and indigenous peoples. Yet, even though it is in those areas that the EZLN has had its greatest impact at the national and international level, many analysts believe that such an image does not accurately reflect the origins and concrete political aims of the organization. Instead, they link the emergence of Zapatismo in Chiapas to class-based demands for social justice in the form of peasant political organizing from the 1970s onwards. Most obviously, the EZLN takes its name from the greatest peasant leader, and socially the most radical figure, of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, and in 1994 the organization’s principal social base was among peasant cultivators located in the Lacandón region of north-eastern Chiapas.

However, while analysts familiar with Chiapas’s social and political history agree that the EZLN cannot be separated from ‘traditional’ classbased politics, they disagree substantially over the exact nature and origins of the EZLN, and this disagreement influences interpretations of the causes and consequences of the armed rebellion of 1994. As Neil Harvey [1998: 8-9] points out, two currents of opinion have developed. The first, usually associated with anthropologists who have long experience in the field, sees the uprising as resulting from a combination of ecological and economic crisis, the lack of access to resources, the political and religious reorganization of indigenous communities from the 1960s, and the emergence of an increasingly politicized discourse of ethnic identity, all of which were exacerbated by neo-liberal structural reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The causes are thus basically internal, historical and socio economic.

Other authors, who constitute the second current of opinion, are less convinced that regional social grievances alone were responsible for the rebellion and argue instead that outside activists with roots in the Marxist Left of the 1970s manipulated Indians in Chiapas for their own political objectives. For example, Carlos Tello Díaz [1995] argues that the EZLN was formed out of the association of revolutionary leftist groups with workers of the Catholic diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. He therefore considers that the EZLN’s socialist origins are a ‘truer’ reflection of the organization’s nature than its outward discourse of democracy and freedom. The reasons for the disagreement between authors are partly political and epistemological and partly due to the shifting nature of the EZLN itself. Below I will examine in greater depth the diverging interpretations given by Neil Harvey [1998] and Pedro Pitarch [2004a] concerning these issues, both of which throw light on the emergence of the EZLN in 1994 and its subsequent development.

Neil Harvey asserts that in 1994 the EZLN ‘was not a small band of guerrillas hoping to incite a popular uprising. Rather it was a well-organized indigenous army with a mass base of support’ [Harvey, 1998: 3], While he does not dispute that the founders of the EZLN, originally known as the FLN (Forces of National Liberation), were leftist urban guerrillas from central and northern Mexico, he emphasizes the consensual nature of the relationship between the outsiders and independent peasant organizations in northern and eastern Chiapas, which con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and Glossary
• 1. Introduction - The Chiapas Uprising of 1994: Historical Antecedents and Political Consequences
• 2. The Zapatista Rebellion in the Context of Globalization
• 3. Rural Chiapas Ten Years after the Armed Uprising of 1994: An Economic Overview
• 4. Land Reform, the State, and the Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas
• 5. From Revolution to Transition: The Chiapas Rebellion and the Path to Democracy in Mexico
• 6. The ‘Armed Community in Rebellion’: Neo-Zapatismo in the Tojolab’al Cañadas, Chiapas (1988-96)
• 7. Indigenismo, Indianismo and ‘Ethnic Citizenship’ in Chiapas
• 8. Suffering for Justice in Chiapas: Religion and the Globalization of Ethnic Identity
• 9. Subordination and Rebellion: Indigenous Peasant Women in Chiapas Ten Years after the Zapatista Uprising
• 10. Who Needs Zapatismo? State Interventions and Local Responses in Marqués de Comillas, Chiapas
• 11. Neoliberalism and the Rise of (Peasant) Nations within the Nation: Chiapas in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective
• Index