By: Raúl Romero*

When in 2001 the Mexican political class denied the possibility of a profound reform of the Mexican State, which through recognition of the San Andrés Sakamch’en de los Pobres Accords opened the door to a new relationship between native peoples and the State, contributed to the exacerbation of various problems and generated consequences that we observe to this day.

One of them has to do with the intensification of the process of accumulation by dispossession, which accelerated since the reform to Article 27 of the [Mexican] Constitution, which meant the privatization of ejido and communal land. The territorial reorganization that Mexico needed for neoliberal integration with North America was to extinguish the few and diminished lights of the agrarian revolution of the beginning of the century. Recognizing indigenous peoples as subjects of public law and channeling the discussion on territorial self-determination was something that was in total contradiction to the neoliberal project. Politicians who rejected the San Andrés Accords at the same time ratified their adherence to the neoliberal consensus.

The story that came later is widely known: through projects such as the Plan Puebla Panama, which would become the Mesoamerica Project and which today is taken up again with the misnamed Maya Train and the Interoceanic Corridor, he promoted special economic zones and development poles where the peoples had won historic battles in defense of the territory. If the North American neoliberal integration had been contained, it was thanks in part to the resistance and strong social and community fabric of the original peoples, peasants and broad popular sectors.

Another consequence that must be analyzed is the route of the peoples who decided to promote their de facto autonomy and continue with the defense of their territories. The communities of the EZLN are the most emblematic case worldwide. In their word they say that they went from the time of asking and the time of demanding, to the time of exercising. With their resistance and rebellion they have managed to build a very different world based on commanding by obeying, with self-management and self-determination in 43 autonomous entities, among which the 12 Zapatista Caracols stand out.

The Zapatista communities were not the only ones to opt for this route. Other peoples, communities, neighborhoods, tribes and nations, most of them articulated in the National Indigenous Congress, decided to continue defending their territories. Whether rebuilding their communal guards or community police, boosting their community radios, strengthening their traditional authorities, strengthening their clinics or autonomous schools or recovering and creating productive projects, these indigenous peoples have given all their energy in defense of the commons. To confront municipal, state or federal governments, linked to powerful national and transnational corporations, indigenous peoples have explored various legal and political avenues in resistance. In some cases, they have been met with attacks by paramilitary groups or armed organized crime gangs that, through murders, disappearances, forced displacements, threats and other violence, have tried to eliminate the peoples in resistance.

The Nahua community of Santa María Ostula is an example of the violence that the State and the capital launch against the peoples for the purpose of dispossession. In 2009, thousands of community members of Ostula took on the task of recovering hundreds of hectares of land held by caciques and small landowners and desired by tourism companies, mining, organized crime, precious wood companies.

The people of Santa María Ostula built there an exercise of autonomy that won the attention of other peoples of the region and the world. To eliminate and displace this Nahua people in resistance, the State and legal and criminal corporations intensified a war that today leaves 36 community members murdered and another five disappeared. This violence is not a thing of the past, on August 10, Froylan de la Cruz Ríos, a member of the community, was disappeared and then found brutally murdered. This was happening at the same time that the governor of Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, threatened to evict the people in resistance.

Within the same strategy of violence for accumulation by dispossession, we could identify the one undertaken against the peoples of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata in Guerrero, the aggressions in Oaxaca against the peoples of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus, the attacks against the Zapatista communities in Chiapas or the murder in Morelos of Samir Flores Soberanes.

These peoples, who since 2001 have undertaken new strategies for the defense of territories and life, in fact dispute in the most concrete the legal and criminal corporations. A different state would bet on strengthening them, not abandoning them, reviling them and waging war on them. So far, that hasn’t happened.

* Sociologist
Twitter: @RaulRomero_mx

Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Saturday, August 26, 2023,    https://www.jornada.com.mx/2023/08/26/opinion/017a2pol and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee

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