SLALA Statement on Mexico's Law on Indigenous Rights and Culture. ITAL The unscrupulous way that indigenous demands have been recently defused by the Mexican congress in favor of a law that is in every substantial way indifferent to their concrete situation shows that the government and Fox's administration were hoping to quickly pacify the the indigenous people and their supporters in the cities through nominal changes in the constitution while riding the current of sham change incited by the defeat of the ruling political political party. So that your readers may be informed we provide the following statement. -- Studies of the Liberation of Aztlán and Latin America END On April 28th the house of representatives of the Mexican Congress voted 386-60 to change the Mexican Constitution in accordance to amendments passed unanimously on April 25th by the senate. The amendments collectively known as the Law on Indigneous Rights and Culture were prepared by both Mexico's infamous reactionary Party of the Insitutionalized Revolution (PRI) and President Vicente Fox's own reactionary Party for National Action (PAN) as a result of the 1996 indigenous rights accords signed by the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in San Andrés Larrainzar, Chiapas.(1) The law is being passed on to the state governments for ratification before its application throughout Mexico. The land, independent media and participation Where the proposal by the Comission for Peace and Unity (Cocopa) gave indigenous people the ability to to choose their own leaders and implement their own forms of government including complete equality for women, the congressional version adds that they can do so only in accordance to state and federal law.(2) Indigenous people were also permitted collective use of natural resources available on their lands and territories by the Cocopa proposal. This was struck out in favor of a version that does not permit any type of ownership and rent of lands, property or 'third party rights' outside of consititutional laws protecting private property. Instead indigenous should received 'preference' as to how their lands and resources are used.(3) Cocopa established that indigenous people should be permitted to aquire, operate and manage their own media and communications. The congressional amendment says that indigenous people can do so only given the already existing laws governing the media. Each of the Cocopa proposals demanding a fair representation of indigenous people and setting quotas for participation in local government were replaced by statements effecting that indigenous people should be 'considered' when drawing electoral boundaries. Opposition the congressional version of the Cocopa proposals Because the provisions allowing indgenous autonomy and communal use of natural resources on indigenous land were left out in the congressional version the indigenous people of Mexico immediately rejected the amendments.(4) The National Indegnous Congress of Mexico (CNI) and over 100 NGOs presented 60 thousand signatures in support of the original Cocopa text and petitioned Vicente Fox to send the Cocopa proposal and the new law back to the congress for revision.(5) The high command of the EZLN as well as the social-democratic Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) have both made public statements addressing Mexico's president and the government saying that the law is a farce and a sore spot on the peace negoitiations between the Zapatistas and the government. The EZLN also said that the government and Fox's administration have shown themselves to be completely divorced from popular demands.(6) "With all modesty, we must begin again" The affront against the indigenous people of Mexico and the anti-democratic manner in which the demands of the indigenous have been treated by the government exposes the fact that political power in Mexico rests in the hands of domestic capitalists and landlords subservient to u.$. imperialism and should serve to re-orient the mass indigenous and democratic movements in Mexico. Martí Brates, leader of the PRD faction in the congress says of the indigenous law: "with all modesty, we must begin again." This is a sorry fact because the bourgeois government and land-lord power base that look to u.$. imperialism for their continued existence do not need to begin again, their enforcement of private property, hunger, increasing joblessness and immiseration continues. The EZLN, which has been a mover in the struggle for indigenous rights, has never really had a strategy to enforce its demands and combat the political power of the government, the ruling classes and u.$. imperialism. Outside of its explosive initial appearance on the stage of Mexican politics in 1994, this organization has exclusively opted for petitioning for economic reform and political representation on the terms and rules established by Mexican law, bourgeois democracy and enforced by the Mexican army. One result of the reform- oriented strategy of the EZLN is that the economic problems of semi-feudalism in the Mexican countryside have been interpreted by the government and much of the national bourgeoisie and some of the petty bourgeoisie as cultural problems about representation arising out of the ethnic composition of Mexico. But the root of the problem is economic. In a country like Mexico where u.$. imperialism encroaches on the pre-existing feudal modes of production, small owners are pushed into bankruptcy and the indigenous people into feudal bondage or otherwise they contribute to the large surplus population of unemployed. The result being the destruction of a national economy of self-sufficiency in favor of an economy of exports, a cheap local labor market and a government that serves foreign imperialism, their domestic capitalist allies and the landlords. While it is good that the Mexican congress, president Fox, the political parties and the NGOs are admit to the social marginalization of the indigenous people of Mexico, the forces fighting on the side of the indigenous people face a government that cannot do what is necessary to get to the economic root of the problem and enable economic self-determination and to offer political and military power to the people that make up its constituency. Indeed, the people of Mexico and their supporters in the cities should continue to pressure the government and to increase their agitation throughout Mexico. But history has shown that this type of action is not incompatible with the necessity of the poor people to use revolutionary violence to create a government that serves their interests. The pages of MIM Notes chronicle how in countries like Peru and the Philippines where the economic facts are similar to those of Mexico the poor people in the countryside and in the cities are organized in broad popular movements with an army under the leadership of a Maoist party. These movements are strong and successful in their campaigns for justice, economic self-determination and democracy. SLALA thinks that the indigenous people of Mexico should not have to rely on the mercy and the paternalist attitude of the Mexican government and would-be leaders that transform the struggle for economic self-determination and democracy into a congressional farce and a law that is no different in essentials than the status-quo. We encourage the indigenous people of Mexico and their supporters in the cities to evaluate the strategy so far pursued by the high command of the EZLN and social democratic parties in Mexico in terms of its effectiveness in gaining the power that is necessary to make provisions like those of Cocopa a reality for all the people of Mexico. Notes: 1."Indigenous Reform Passed in Mexico," La Jornada, 29 April 2001. 2. "Los 'desajustes' de la ley indígena aprobada por el Congreso mexicano," La Opinión, 30 April 2001, http://www.laopinion.com/archivo.html?START=1&RESULTSTART=1& DISPLAYTYPE=single&FREETEXT=COCOPA&FDATEd12=&FDATEd13=&SORT_ MODE=SORT_MODE. 3. Ibid. 4. "Indigenous People Reject the Senate's Law," La Opinión, 29 April 2001, http://www.laopinion.com/archivo.html?START=4&RESULTSTART=1& DISPLAYTYPE=single&FREETEXT=COCOPA&FDATEd12=&FDATEd13=&SORT_ MODE=SORT_MODE. 5. "They ask for a New Debate on the Text of Indigenous Law," La Opinión, 13 May 2001. 6 "Opposition Supports Original CCOCOPA Law," La Opinión, 17 May 2001.