Journal of Latin American Anthropology 2(2)2-41
1997
American Anthropology Association
Iynn Stephen
Northeastern University

The zapatista opening: the movement for indigenous autonomy and state discourses on indigenous rights in Mexico, 1970-1996

Abstract
This article examines indigenous autonomy that emerged in the wake of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas Mexico. A historical analysis explores how these movements emerged and have interacted with the government attempts to formulate national indigenous policy, counter-agrarian reform policy, and to define Mexico as a "multicultural" nation. The competing, yet interacting discourses of the government and movements to indigenous autonomy in Chiapas and elsewhere have refined the meaning of nationalism in Mexico. The process of building an alternative vision of ethnicity and nationalism involves both challenges to and incorporation of historically hegemonic structures and categories.

Introduction

Nineteen ninety-four was the year that the imagined community of the Mexican nation was revealed for what it was--truly imaginary. Here I am not referring to Benedict Anderson's (1983:6) definition of imagined community. "It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion"--but to the fiction of nations as revealed by sustained challenges to them. One of the problems with Anderson's concept of nation is the singular "who" that is doing the imagining. Elite conceptions of nation are not the only ones that have a lived reality in the minds of citizens. There are multiple "imagined communities." The issues of who is in a nation, what it means to be a citizen and what rights citizens have are all continuously contested through competing, multiple discourses of nationalism. By nationalist discourses I mean the language, categories, myths, histories or what we might call the intellectual and political practices that make sense of events, objects and relationships in the nation (Mallon 1995:5). Here nationalism refers to a sense of common citizenship --what it means to be a citizen of Mexico (rights, obligations, notions of justice and legitimacy). As Florencia Mallon (1995) cautions us, discourses are not themselves political or historical actors, but the products of alliance and confrontation among human beings as they attempt the meanings of their actions

What follows is a specific story with specific historical actors who have reinscribed the meaning of national culture in Mexico first through a regional struggle and then through its articulation with a national movement for indigenous autonomy and its interaction with specific agents of the government. The work takes a perspective similar to that of Mallon (1995) in looking at how popular political cultures and movements interact with nationalism and the production and interpretation of state policy. More specifically, the following discussion at-

Tempts to look at a regional cultural and political process and its interactions with government attempts to formulate national indigenous policy, agrarian reform, and a definition of a "multi-cultural" nation. The spirit of this article very much follows Charles Hale's call for "sharpened empirical attention to the specific local contexts and consequences of the new cultural politics" rather than "the search for the unified 'insurrectionary subject "' and the "descent into 'anything goes postmodernism "'(1996:39).

Latin America's indigenous peoples have made a powerful statement with their movements for autonomy at the end of the 20th century. Cultural distinctiveness, political reform, territorial rights, participation in national political systems and control over natural resources and economic development are some of the common demands of movements ranging from Ecuador to Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico (Van Cott 1995:12). To counter the 20th century assimilationist policies characteristic of most Latin American countries towards indigenous peoples, movements of the 1990s have focused on the concept of "self-determination," drawing on its precedent in international law following World War 1. The United Nations has been the chief body to which indigenous peoples have appealed for the right of self-determination, more recently appealing to International Labor Organization Convention 169 which sets forth a broad range of economic, political, land, social and cultural rights for indigenous peoples. In most cases, self-determination does not imply secession from the nation-state but the broadening of rights within the structure of the nation-state. Thus engaging in a movement for "autonomy" entails not only an assertion of a specific ethnic identity or identities but also a reformulation from below of what is meant by "the nation" and how the rights of citizens are understood.

In 1991, the nation of Colombia ratified a new constitution that recognizes "its indigenous population as an integral component of the nation and granting them full citizenship for the first time"(Dover and Rappaport (1996:2). There, the notion of a pluri-ethnic nation was promoted by granting indigenous people a degree of autonomy to administer finances, development programs and systems of justice within their own territories. The creation of administrative units called Indigenous Territorial Entities created a "new form of citizenship that would recognize native peoples as holding a different type of citizenship from other Colombians and bequeathed the right to govern according to cultural criteria different from those used by the rest of the population" (Dover and Rappaport 1996:2). Similarly, Paraguay has also changed its constitution in favor of indigenous rights including indigenous representatives in the constitutional reform process (Van Cott 1995:12).

In Nicaragua, a Miskitu autonomy proposal signed in 1987 called for multi-ethnic assemblies. The autonomy proposal, written into the constitution, "granted political autonomy for the entire coastal population, divided into two autonomous regions. In each autonomous region there would be an election to pick a regional assembly that would legislate regional matters" (Diskin 1991:164-165). Initial Miskitu ethnic militancy in the 1980s which involved a "strategic essentialism" has given way to what Hale calls a "strategic multiplicity" (l 996:52). Hale finds that there is no "unified discourse of identity and common values that orients collective action"; instead, there is a hybrid politics as Miskitu people "use, discard and partly use again discourses previously imbued with grave, essential meanings" (1996:51). On the optimistic side of his analysis, Hale sees this multiple political subjectivity as possibly helping to resolve autonomy's greatest problem of how to unify distinct ethnic groups while fostering "a space for the egalitarian participation of each in the resulting benefits" (l996:52). Hale's insightful analysis points to key issues inherent in any long-term autonomy struggle which must always forge temporary unity out of diversity, cope with historical power differentials between various ethnic groups, and take into consideration the ever-shifting position of nation-states as they politically position themselves at different political junctures

As we will see, although Mexico enthusiastically supported indigenous rights legislation at a vety general level by endorsing international legislation and rewriting one article of its constitution to pay lip-service to Mexico as a multi-cultural nation, these surface-level changes did nothing to improve the lives of Mexico's indigenous population, particularly in states such as Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz which have the highest number of indigenous inhabitants.1 On January 1,1994, one of Mexico's "unofficial" imagined communities (in Anderson's sense) burst onto the national and international scene after slowly building and stewing for, as some would argue, 502 years. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation's (EZLN) cry of "¡Basta! " and its board program of democracy, indigenous rights and economic justice brought the voices, projects and visions of Mexico's rural and indigenous populations closer to the center of power or at least granted them a prominent place in national discourse. In the fall of 1994, almost half of the municipalities of Chiapas declared themselves to be part of pluri-ethnic autonomous regions and pledged their allegiance to a transition government that stood in defiance of the declared winner from the state-controlled party. Hundreds of schools were shut down as were health clinics, city halls, and other government installations. In some areas, alternative governing systems were installed. In January of 1995, the first national meeting was held of the National Indigenous Convention (CNI) which launched a nationwide campaign to found pluri-ethnic autonomous regions across the country and integrate them into Mexican judicial, legislative, political and economic structures. In February and March of 1995, thousands of Mexicans were crying "Todos somos indios" (We are all Indians) at mass demonstrations protesting a government-ordered military incursion into Zapatista territory. In February of 1996, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the government of Mexico signed a series of accords on indigenous rights and culture.

How did this happen? How did "the Indians" move to center stage in Mexico? To answer these questions, this article covers the years from the 1970s through 1996 focusing on the interaction between this regional and later national movement for indigenous autonomy and state policy and discourses on indigenous rights. I begin by highlighting the multiple origins of discourses on indigenous autonomy and rights in the state of Chiapas. I then shift to a discussion of the evolution of state indigenous policy from the 1970s to the 1990s. In the third section, l trace how the ethnically-based demands of the EZLN set the scene for the practice of indigenous autonomy in Chiapas and elsewhere in the nation.

This article is based in part on fieldwork carried out in Chiapas in August of 1994, March, April, and July of 1995, and June and July of 1996.1 have participated in three delegations in and around the Tojolobal community of La Realidad, a Zapatista stronghold which permitted me to speak at length with people there. During 1994,I attended the Democratic National Convention in Guadalupe Tepeyac where I also had the opportunity to speak with many people from there and surrounding communities. I have also spent time in other Zapatista communities in eastern Chiapas such as Ejido Morelia, and Belsario Dominguez, and in Oventic and San Andrés Larrainzar in the highlands or Los Altos region… I have attended Zapatista meetings, forums and peace negotiation sessions with the government. During 1995 and 1996,1 attended meetings which brought together indigenous leaders from throughout Mexico to discuss how to move proposals for indigenous autonomy forward. At these meetings I was able to interview leaders active in the autonomy movement in Chiapas as well as elsewhere in Mexico. In addition, l have interviewed state agrarian officials and staff members I from NGOs who have worked closely with Zapatista communities.

Theoretically, the primary point addressed here is how the competing yet interacting discourses of the government and its institutions and of the movement for pluri-ethnic autonomous regions in eastern Chiapas and the growing national movement for indigenous autonomy have redefined the meaning of nationalism in Mexico to recognize not only Mexico's indigenous citizens, but to ethnically mark all Mexicans. Secondly, while the Mexican government's policies tend to homogenize and essentialize the category of "Indian," the more fluid conceptualization of "pluri-ethnic" autonomy avoids the problem of focusing on ethnicity as a "pore" essence and encourages us to look at ethnicity in action and see how it is deployed within a specific historical, political, economic and cultural context. Politically, the main question is this: how do differing constructions of ethnicity determine to what degree (if at al 1) Mexico's indigenous peoples will be truly (as opposed to symbolically) integrated into national decision-making structures that decide their future economic, political and cultural development' As detailed by the story told here, the process of building an alternative vision of ethnicity is not a unilineal process, but involves both challenges to and incorporation of historically hegemonic categories and structures.

Antecedents to the movement for indigenous autonomy in eastern chiapas.

In order to understand the complex cultural, historical and political context out of which the movement for pluri-ethnic autonomous regions emerged in eastern lowland Chiapas we have to consider many antecedents in the construction of the movement. These include the demographic and cultural history of the eastern lowland part of the state, the Involvement of the church of Liberation Theology and protestant proselytizers, the emergence of local and regional indigenous and peasant organizations and the option of armed struggle. All of those factors contributed tile rise of a unique model of indigenous autonomy that called for regional control over economic, political and regional decision making yet also consciously promotes indigenous participation in the nation, rather than separation. The region of eastern Chiapas known as "Las Cañadas" (The Canyons) of the Lacandón is the heart of a movement where "autonomy" has come to mean participation in the nation without assimilation and democracy is defined by leaders who obey their communities.

migration and the reshaping of eastern chiapas fleeing violence and exclusion

Many people today refer to the state of Chiapas as part of "the other Mexico"--that part of the country that doesn't conform to the image of "modern Mexico" promoted in the campaign to promote the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Historically, Chiapas wes in fact "the other Mexico" since it did not form part of the Spanish colony that is now Mexico. Chiapas spent several hundred years as pact of the Captaincy General of Guatemala under Spanish colonial rule. The Captaincy General of Guatemala became independent from Spain in 1821. It was immediately incorporated into Agustin de Iturbide's Mexican Empire (1822-1823) from which the United Provinces of Central America became independent in 1823, ceding Chiapas to Mexico around that time. Throughout the period of Iturbide's empire, elites in Chiapas debated whether or not the province should be annexed to Mexico or Guatemala. In 1823, "some proponents of autonomy formed a sovereign government of Chiapas until a final decision could be made regarding annexation" (Benjamin 1995: 36). At the end of the 20th century, the inhabitants of Las Cañadas in Chiapas refer to themselves as "the forgotten ones"--forgotten not only in the history of Mexican Independence but also in the contemporary sense of the Mexican nation. The eastern frontier of Mexico had become a destination for the landless and unwanted not only from the state of Chiapas but from elsewhere in Mexico as well.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Chol refugees moved into the area from near Palenque. In the 1960s, highland Tzotziles pushed out of San Juan Chamula by caciques reinforced by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came to the Cañadas area of the Lacandón jungle, bringing with them protestantism and a history of working with opposition parties. Rus reports that by the mid- 1970s, more than half of the municipios in the highlands had active opposition movements, and that by the early 1980s, the model of expelling dissidents had spread to other communities, "generating thousands of exiles who, in turn, founded dozens of new colonies in San Cristóbal and the Lacandón jungle" ( l 994:300). The Tojolobal inhabitants of Las Margaritas and Comitán had been removed from their land base early on by the Spanish. After centuries as landless peones and later as migrant laborers on the Soconusco coast, they later received ejido lands through colonizing the Lacandón beginning in the 1940s (see Leyva Solano and Asencio Franco 1996). Tzeltal Indians from the northern and eastern highlands, former plantation workers or peasants who had lost their land to local elites, all went to the Lacandón region (Benjamin 1995 :222-224; Collier 1994:31 -S 1; Harvey 1994:27; Ross 1994:256).

Other people were moving into the Cañadas region of eastern Chiapas as well. Presidential decrees in 1957 and 1961 declared the Lacandón open for colonization. Many of the people who came to the area from other parts of Mexico or from within Chiapas were fleeing situations of violence and confrontation. Non-Mayan Indians from Oaxaca came to eastern Chiapas after losing their land and their homes to a government dam project. Indians from southern Veracruz pushed off of their land in what were often bloody confrontations with cattle farmers also arrived. Landless mestizo farmers from Guererro and Michoacan also came. In the 1980s, Zoques driven out by the explosion of the Chichonal volcano and Guatemalan Kanajobales and Mames fleeing the scorched earth policy of the Guatemalan military also joined the Indigenous ethnic mix in the Lacandón (HernándezCastillo 1989; Ross 1994:257). Many of those who arrived in this region came from situations of struggle and confrontation over access to land and control over local resources. The social composition of Lacandón communities forged from a history of violence, confrontation, colonization and expulsion led to a unique mix of social, political, cultural and economic experience. 2

organizing in eastern chiapas the church of liberation theology and Protestantism

The church hierarchy of San Cristóbal has been strongly influenced by Liberation Theology which had already begun organizing in indigenous areas before the 1968 Medellin Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops in Colombia.3 Bishop Samuel Ruiz and a team of Liberation Theology priests organized peasant cooperatives and Christian communities throughout eastern Chiapas. Their work focused on defending human right and developing cooperative projects aimed at conserving indigenous forms of economic and social organization. They preached that Indians were the equals of whites, that their languages were beautiful and that radical egalitarianism was the only road to salvation. Bishop Ruiz and his priests learned the indigenous languages of the area and spent much of their time in isolated communities promoting their projects. They also trained several generations of catechists who became leaders in a variety of regional peasant and indigenous organizations. Bishop Ruiz also set up a human rights office in the Diocese of San Cristobal that played a central role m defending indigenous people as they faced a steady onslaught of repression for their organizing efforts.

Protestant proselytization also had influence in the region of Las Cañadas particularly m the 1980s. By 1990, the municipio of Las Margaritas, for example, was 21% Protestant. Presbyterians and Evangelicals provided communities with new forms of communal organization and encouraged participation, particularly by women, in their weekly services Through learning to read and participating in public events and organizational meetings, Protestant women and girls gained important skills that have shaped their participation in larger community politics. More than anything, their experience with the Protestant church as well as with Liberation Theology may have socialized them to expect to be included in public events and discussions in some communities (see Collier 1994:58-60; Hernández Castillo 1989, 1993).

Liberation Theology and Protestantism thus have had a strong influence on Indigenous organizations in this region. Along with organizing cooperatives, projects and public events, these theologians spread a message that could be read as one in support of autonomy. In a Tzeltal version of the Bible translated by brothers Mardonio and Ignacio Morales Elizalde in the 1970s, the book of Exodus was titled, "We Are Looking for Liberty" (Rovira 1994:23).

the first indigenous congress and regional peasant organization

The work of Bishop Ruiz and his team of priests was critical in laying the foundations for the First Indigenous Congress, referred to by many as a landmark event in the contemporary movement for autonomous pluri-ethnic regions in Chiapas. Before this 1974 Congress, local and regional congresses and meetings to prepare for the Congress were run in a style characterized by "planting and harvesting the words of the people" (sembrar y cosechar la palabra) in which all issues were discussed first in small groups of six to eight people that worked by consensus (Garcia de León 1994:ii). After these small discussion groups reached consensus, democratically-elected leaders would periodically synthesize what had been decided in the small groups and call for a larger-level consensus. The teams that led these meetings were made of up indigenous leaders and put together largely by the church. They also included advisors from the Maoist group The People's Union (UP) who were invited by Bishop Ruiz to help prepare for the Congress (Harvey 1994:29). Methods used by The People's Union and then later by other organizers were designed to decentralize sod democratize decision making. The degree to which the organizing styles of the First Indigenous Congress and subsequent indigenous and peasant organizations were influenced by the decision-making style of church and People's Union organizers versus the styles of indigenous people participating in the Congress is unclear. What is interesting to note is that this style of consensus building seems to be characteristic of decision making both within Zapatista controlled communities as well as within areas that have declared themselves to be pluri-ethnic autonomous regions.

One of the most important features of the Congress was its pluri-ethnic nature. There were 1,230 delegates present including 587 Tzeltales, 330 Tzotziles, 152 Tojolabales and 151 Choles representing 327 communities (Garcia de León 1994: ii). While the first small meetings held to prepare for the Congress were often monolingual and only brought together those who spoke a common language, subsequent local and regional meetings-were multi-lingual. At these regional meetings a team of multi-lingual translators was trained for the Congress. Most of the translators were from colonization zones such as the Lacandón area or from linguistic border zones (Garcia de León 1994: ii). The multi-ethnic and multi-lingual experience of the preparatory meetings influenced the culture of the Congress and of subsequent organizing. Photographs show the presence of only a few women as delegates at the Congress.

The demands of the Congress and the platforms given and published in Tzotzil, Tzeltal, ChoI and Tojolabal focus on the following issues: land and land conflicts; labor rights including provision of the minimum wage; issues in indigenous education including language instruction, problems with teachers and a demand for an indigenous newspaper to be published in four languages; credit and issues of commercialization of coffee and other products; and health issues including the preservation of traditional medicine, the establishment or clinics and the eradication of chronic diseases (Garcia de León 1994:iii-viii). Ethnic autonomy and political representation were not reflected in formal documents, but did appear in speeches (Garcia de León 1994:ii).

Following the Congress, grassroots organizing efforts took off in several directions supported by the church and leftist activists, although the two groups didn't always see eye to eye. In 1976, three regional ejido unions were formed bringing together two or more communities in the municipalities of Las Margaritas and Ocosingo.4 Organizers from the Maoist-oriented Proletarian Line were active as advisors in each of those ejido unions. In 1980, a statewide effort to improve the terms of coffee marketing resulted1 in the unification of the three ejido unions as well as other smaller producer groups to form the Union of Ejido Unions and Solidarity Peasant Organizations of Chiapas (UU) (Harvey 1992; 1994:30). The UU focused primarily on peasant appropriation of the production process. As described by Harvey, it was "the first and largest independent campesino organization in Chiapas, representing 12,000 mainly indigenous families from 170 communities in I 1 municipalities" (1994:30). In 1983 the organization split. One part of the split plus two other ejido unions later formed another organization in March 1988 called the Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC-UU).

As outlined in Harvey (1992,1994), many other sources of independent peasant organizing emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. The National Coordinator Plan of Ayala, which takes its name from Zapata's 1911 plan to redistribute land, was founded in 1979 with ten regional peasant organizations. Their principal demands included:

"the legal recognition of longstanding indigenous land rights; the distribution of land exceeding the legal limits for private property; community control over and defense of natural resources; agricultural production, marketing, and consumption subsidies; rural unionization; and the preservation of popular culture" [Paré 1990:85].

Another important regional peasant organization that developed in the 1970s was the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants (CIOAC) which organized Tzeltal and Tzotzil agricultural workers into unions on coffee and cattle ranchos in the municipalities of Simojovel, Juitinpan, El Bosque, Pueblo Nuevo and Solistahuacan in Chiapas. CIOAC was also a primary actor in the Tojolobal region of eastern Chiapas incorporating the municipios of Comitán and Las Margaritas. Leaders who would later be important in the movement for establishing pluri-ethnic autonomous regions worked within the ranks of CIOAC. Within this organization, struggles for land reform put indigenous and peasant leaders from various parts of the region and the nation into contact with one another (Mattiace, forthcoming). While the name of the organization did not signal ethnically-based demands, its documents reflect an awareness of indigenous identity and politics through the acknowledgment of indigenous claims to lands historically denied, defense of indigenous languages and forms of government and religion, and the need to struggle against efforts to assimilate indigenous peoples (Mejia Piñeros and Sarmiento Silva 1987:214-215). While indigenous identity within CIOAC was often framed by "class straggle," their organizing efforts brought together indigenous peoples across ethnic boundaries resulting in a multi-ethnic organizing model that forced participants to break down the cultural barriers of particular ethnic and linguistic boundaries. In the late 19X0s, visible tension emerged between leaders who wanted to pursue the question of indigenous rights and those who resisted. This tension later surfaced at the national level as well (Mattiace, forthcoming).

the armed option in eastern chiapas: the emergence of the zapatista army of national liberation

While the First Indigenous Congress m Chiapas made 1974 a landmark year, another event that year also affected the landscape of political organizing. In 1974, the government destroyed the guerilla training camp of a group known as the Forces of National Liberation (FALN) (Ortega 1994:54; Ross 1994:273; Rovira 1994:28). According to an investigation carried out by a reporter for the newspaper El Financiero, the group that preceded the Forces of National Liberation was the Mexican Insurgent Army (EIM), founded in 1971. In 1974, the Mexican insurgent Army supposedly incorporated recruits from several other armed revolutionary organizations (Ortega 1994). After those groups merged as the Forces of National Liberation sod were practically annihilated by the government, one guerilla leader known as Pedro " returned to Nuevo León where he went to work in an urban organization known as The Popular Front for Land and Liberty (FPTyL). Others who escaped remained in Chiapas to reorganized a new guerilla army in complete secrecy (Ortega 1994: 56). This group reorganized and nine years later appeared under the name of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) (Ortega 1994:56).

Members of the EZLN have also told their own story of the group's origins, initially through charismatic leader Subcomandante Marcos and later through several indigenous leaders including Comandante Tacho and Mayor Moisés (Reza 1995). According to their own oral history, the founders of the EZLN and their early recruits began military training in caves in the mountains in the Sierra of Corralchén near Ocosingo and in the jungle above Guadalupe Tepeyac near the Guatemalan border. They engaged in health campaigns promoting vaccinations and began to encourage people to undergo military training (Ross 1994:279). The early core members had to adjust their ideas and actions in accordance with the various leftist and Liberation Theology-inspired indigenous and peasant organizations in eastern Chiapas. For instance, they had to abandon the idea that a select few would lead their armed movement as the revolutionary vanguard. Most importantly, they had to significantly change their internal decision-making process and incorporate the methods used in indigenous communities and organizations (see Guillermoprieto 1995:39).

According to Zapatista accounts, there are two distinct groups of people who work militarily and politically within the EZLN. The insurgents live in military camps and go into communities to carry out political education and social welfare projects. The militia members or milicianos live in their communities, receive training and participate in armed actions. Local Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committees (CCRls) incorporate militia members in their work and elect their own officers responsible for communal safe houses, education and health. These officers meet regionally to coordinate campaigns and initiate new ideas (Ross 1994:287; interviews with Zapatistas carried out in 1994, 1995 and 1996). Local CCRls also elect delegates to one of four regional CCRls, which according to Ross(1994:287) are organized around "the four Zapatista language groups," presumably Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal and Chol--the four language groups represented at the 1974 First Indigenous Congress. Each regional CCRI has 16 to 40 members. Eleven delegates from each regional CCRI are chosen to sit on the CCRl-General Command that is the maximum political authority of the EZLN (Ross 1994:287). Marcos has been identified as the leader of the EZLN's military wing and serves on the CCRI-General Command in this capacity. In numerous interviews, Marcos repeated that he was not a commander and was under the orders of the CCRI-General Command. He has also been identified as the mouthpiece and ambassador of the EZLN because of his Spanish-speaking ability. In 1995 and 1996, indigenous leaders such as Tacho, Moises, Ana Maria, Trinidad and David also emerged as eloquent spokespeople in the second round of peace accord dialogues and in large national and international gatherings in Chiapas.

According to observers who have interviewed peasant activists working in the area, the Zapatistas offered armed training to many young peasants who were in a range of organizations, particularly those in the Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC-UU). In 1988 the organization split. The more reformist side focused on market and credit mechanisms and skillful negotiations with the government. The other side, affiliated more with the church, was utterly distrustful of the government. They stuck to demands for land. In 1989, after the collapse of the coffee market, more than half of the communities affiliated with the non-reformist Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC-UU) began to participate in a semi-clandestine organization.

That same year, The Independent Peasant Alliance "Emiliano Zapata " (ACIEZ) emerged in Chiapas. By some accounts, ACIEZ received a high percentage of its recruits (up to 40% by one account) from the Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC-UU) (Ross 1994:280). In 1992, ACIEZ became, ANCIEZ, adding the word national to its title. In 1990 and 1991 the organization grew steadily. The growth of ANCIEZ and its concern with land rights foreshadowed a major change in the Mexican Constitution which strongly affected peasants still petitioning the government for land or involved in unresolved land disputes. In accordance with NAFTA, changes in the Constitution were aimed at encouraging the privatization of non-privately held land. This change dashed the hopes of the landless for receiving land from the government, a right stemming from the legacy of Emilano Zapata and perhaps the most enduring result of the Mexican Revolution.

The announcement in 1992 of an amendment to Article 27of the Mexican Constitution that called for ending land redistribution and regularizing (mapping, measuring and Issuing of certificates of use) all landholdings was a final straw for some of the indigenous peasants of Chiapas. With over 25% of Mexico's unresolved land disputes in Chiapas at that time, news of the end of agrarian reform was not well received. Marcos later stated to the press that

"...the government, had the brilliant' idea of reforming Article 27 of the Constitution and this was a powerful catalyst in the communities. These reforms go, rid of any legal possibilities for obtain land.... This slammed the door shat for indigenous people to survive in a legal and peaceful manner. This is why they picked up arms " (Petrich and Henriquez 1 994)

As ANCIEZ grew steandily, indigenous organizing in other areas of Chiapas was intensifying as well.

October 12,1992 was marked by the Campaign for 500 years of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance in Chiapas and elsewhere in Mexico Several days prior, a new statewide coalition of 17 organizations titled the Front of Social Organizations of Chiapas (FOSCH) was created including the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants (CIOAC) and the Council of Indigenous Representatives from the Altos of Chiapas (CRIACH) (Rovira 1994:29). On October 12th, the expectations of march organizers were far surpassed when 10,000 Indians
arrived in San Cristóbal. About half of these ANCIEZ militants who reported arrived in buses
and trucks they had expropriated from throughout the Lancandón region (Ross 1994:81). Many of the marchers had their faces painted and carried bows and arrows. The culminating point of the march occurred when marchers pushed over the statue of the conquistador Diego de Mazariegos by fastening ropes around his neck and smashing his pedestal with sledgehammers. The downing of Diego de Mazariegos by the ANCIEZ militants and their subsequent disappearance in April of 1993 is believed by many to mark the first announcement of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

According to Marcos' oral history of the EZLN, at the end of 1992 communities working with ANCIEZ and the social organization of the EZLN voted in assemblies to give the Zapatista military wing one year to prepare for war. By 1993, more than half of the reformists of the Rural Collective Interest Association (ARIC) (who were previously reluctant to join) signed up for Zapatista military training and had joined ANCIEZ. Peasant leaders and EZLN military commanders also met more and more frequently. Some AR1C members remained steadfastly opposed to the armed option. Follow

ing the Zapatista revolt in 1994, however, many of those holdouts joined peasant organizations sympathetic to the Zapatistas. Those who remained opposed to the EZLN sided with the National Peasant Confederation (CNC) (aligned with the government) and some later supported the army's presence in the region.

indigenous policy and politics of the mexican state

Indigenous and peasant organizing efforts in Chiapas and elsewhere beginning in the 1 960s did not take place in a vacuum. Since the Mexican Revolution, the post-revolutionary state has forged a conscious national policy to address "the Indian" issue. From the 1 920s until the I 970s, the primary focus of this policy was to encourage indigenous assimilation into so-called mainstream Mexican society through paternalistic institutions and programs that would help indigenous peoples to learn Spanish, increase their levels of education rise of poverty and become constructive citizens in building the Mexican nation

To look at the evolution of state indigenous policy from the 1 970s to the 1 990s, this section highlights Mexico's ratification of new international norms for relations between states and indigenous peoples contained in National

Indigenous Institute (INI) policies, International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169, Articles Four and 27 oft he Mexican Constitution and government responses to EZLN demands during the 1994 peace negotiations and events leading up to the 1996 peace accords. This will serve as background to understanding subsequent discussions of the contrasting models of indigenous rights and the meaning of ethnicity developed by the state and by the movement for indigenous autonomy based in Chiapas and nationally.

the national indigenous institute

Founded in 1948, the National Indigenous Institute (INI) has often represented contradictory policies towards Mexico's indigenous peoples. Fox (1994:190-191) argues that politics within the INI can be understood as a shifting balance of forces between three positions: a faction identified primarily with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRl) and local elites; a group that opposed local elite domination of indigenous peoples yet didn't support autonomous decision making for indigenous peoples, and a third group that supported autonomous self-organization for- indigenous rights. While each of these currents can also be thought of as periods in the organization's development, over time these competing currents often resulted in confusing policies and effectively prevented the INI from supporting the independent organizing efforts of indigenous peoples. INI also remained in a subordinate position to other more powerful state agencies that interacted regularly with Mexico's indigenous populations such as the Ministry of Agrarian Reform (SRA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (SARH).

When indigenous militancy grew in the 1970s, government policy switched to " participatory indigenism" in an effort to co-opt and incorporate some indigenous leaders and organizations into government-aligned and funded indigenous organizations and support institutions. The National Council of Indian Peoples (CNPI) was created by the government in the 1 970s to diffuse growing indigenous militancy, particularly over land rights. INI was a major player in its formation. In 197S, the First (official) Congress of Indigenous Peoples was held in Pátzcuaro and was presided over by Mexican president Luis Echeverria who called for an "indigenismo de participación" (participatory indigenism) (Ewin 1994: 34).5 The conference culminated with the formation of the CNPI which was not only immediately critical of Echeverria, but also of his successor López Portillo.

The original CNPI contained several currents which later split into two organizations. The original letter from Pátzcuaro reveals these tensions and same of the more radical strains within the CNPI. It clearly reflects demands for indigenous autonomy and self-government. Like documents of the National Cocrdinator Plan of Ayala (CNPA) and the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants (CIOAC) of the late 1970s, the 1975 1,ener from 1'étzcuaro locates the struggle of indigenous peoples within class struggle. The indigenous representatives participating in the first Congress state "the best road that we have found for our struggle is in our integration with the struggles of the workers, the peasants and all of the peoples of Mexico" (Mejia Piñeros and Sarmiento Silva 1987: 162). At the same time, however, the document also emphasizes the notion of self-determination. "We proclaim the right to self-determination in our government and traditional organizations that are our own and we want to maintain, communal property and exploitation of our land, our own language or dialect to communicate among ourselves, and our own aesthetic and artistic) expressions" (Mejia Piñeros and Sarmiento Silva 1987: 162). The conclusion to the 1975 1,etter from Pátzcuaro states that land tenure is the principle problem of indigenous peoples. In the letter, indigenous representatives requested the resolution of agrarian disputes, the titling of communal lands and the conversion of ejido lands to communally titled lands.

The different political currents seen within the official CNPI exploded after the Third CNPI Congress which had been particularly critical of the government (Ewin 1994: 40, note 25). In 1981, some members of the CNPI left to join the National Coordinator Plan of Ayala (CNPA). Some remained with the official CNPI and others formed the new CNPI, the National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples. This new CNPI is closely identified with its primary promotor and leader, Genaro Dominguez, who also participated in the original CNPI formed in Pátzcuaro.

The moral of the CNPI story is that when the organization attempted to become autonomous and step back from government control, its efforts were thwarted and it had to split. Many attempts to genuinely incorporate indigenous organizations into policy-making and resource allocation were aborted, even under administrations such as those of Echeverria and De la Madrid who purported to support greater indigenous autonomy (see Fox 1994:192- 193, notes 34 and 35.)

adoption of i.l.o. convention 169

In the late 1980s, Mexico led the way in Latin America to recognizing indigenous rights by being the first to ratify Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The government then did an about-face, however, and served up an internal indigenous policy that often failed to integrate the spirit of Convention 169 into the implementation of government programs. As described by Hindley (1995:7), Mexican indigenous organizations were not directly represented in the process by which the Mexican government worked on revisions to the draft of ILO Convention 169. They were only indirectly represented by international indigenous organizations. Nevertheless, the content of Convention 169 contains important changes for how relations between states and indigenous peoples are to be conducted. Article 7,which represents only a smell part of Convention 169 states:

"Those pueblos (peoples) concerned have the right to decide their own priorities with regard to what concerns the development process in the manner that this affects their lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-being and the land they occupy or use in any manner or control and in whatever measure possible, to control their own cultural, economic and social development. " [Gil Olmos and Henriquez 1994:21, author's translation].

As noted by Hindiey (199S:8), Convention 169 represents "a clear and detailed outline of specific collective, economic, social and political rights for indigenous peoples and the obligations of states towards them." The document recognizes the existence of two parties with possible conflicting interests, makes the interests of indigenous people visible and legitimates them, and spells out specific procedures for consultation and representation of indigenous peoples in all arenas of decision making that affect their future at all levels. The document also explicitly rejects the notion of indigenous assimilation, recognizes the social inequality suffered by indigenous peoples and the systematic violations of their citizenship and human rights (Hindiey 1995: 7). Finally, the document establishes the link between indigenous people and the lands or territory they occupy and/or use and their right to control their future development. The document represents the key struggles articulated by indigenous movements throughout the world during several decades and resonates with the demands of indigenous and peasant organizing in Chiapas discussed earlier. Convention 169 of the ILO also became a key document used by the Zapatistas and the national movement for indigenous autonomy in Mexico to advance their demands.

article four and the issue of indigenous rights in the mexican constitution

After the Mexican Senate ratified ILO Convention 169 and it was signed by president Salinas in 1990, the government had an obligation to modify national legislation and indigenist action accordingly (Hindley 1995:8). The creation of the National Commission of Justice for Indigenous Peoples in 1989 was done in anticipation of Mexico's endorsement of the ILO Convention 169 and this agency set out to consult with a range of officials, organizations and individuals about how to rewrite the Mexican constitution. Because indigenous organizations were just one of many groups consulted, it has been questioned whether or not they had any direct input (Hindiey 1995:9). This is also reflected in the content of the amendment known as Article Four which reads:

The Mexican nation has a multicultural composition originally founded in its indigenous peoples. The low protects and promotes the development of their languages, uses, customs, resources and,.specific forms of social organization and guarantees their members effective access to the fall range of the state's legal authority (jurisdiction). In the agrarian judgements and legal proceedings they are part of, their own legal practices and customs shall be taken into account in establishing the law.

The results of Article Four are the recognition of Mexico as a nation having a pluri-cultural composition and the conferring of cultural rights on indigenous peoples. As pointed out by Hindley (1995:1 1), the fact that Article Four is contained within a chapter tilled "Individual Guarantees" immediately dilutes the concept of indigenous rights as collective. The article does nothing to address the broad range of collective rights suggested by the ILO Convention, particularly those regarding participation in economic and political decision making and indigenous claims to resources and territory. The statement that "in the agrarian judgements and legal proceedings they are part of, their own legal practices and customs shall be taken into account in establishing the law" provides no specific guarantees for how indigenous peoples will be included in decision making regarding land use, ownership and allocation. Given the fact that land claims and disputes are the most important issues in many indigenous and peasant organizations, this vagueness provided a lot of maneuvering room for future rulings on indigenous land claims.

revision of article 27 on agrarian reform

The exclusion of the most important aspects of ILO Convention 169 from Article Four was repeated in the process of revising Article 27 of the Constitution. In 1992, the Mexican government issued reforms to Article 27 of the constitution ending the government's constitutional obligation to redistribute land to those who need it. The original constitution of 1917 included Article 27 to make land available to a majority of the country's landless population. According to the 1910 census, 96.ó% of rural households held no land (Cockcroft 1983:91). Until 1992, receiving land through an ejido land grant was the primary (but not only) avenue for Mexico's landless to put claims on latifundios that exceeded the legal maximum size allowed for private ranches and on fallow government land. The reforms also encourage, but do not require, the privatization of previously inalienable community-held ejido and communal land. The law also allows foreign firms to buy, rent or lease land for agriculture and forest use (see Harvey 1994 for a detailed description).

Indigenous participation in revising Article 27 was minimal (usually coerced) and the INI did not participate in an institutional capacity in the negotiations, demonstrating its weak position within the state (Fox 1994:213; Hindley 1995:12-13). The result is that indigenous lands are only briefly mentioned as "being protected by the authorities in terms of the law that regulates Article Four and the second paragraph of Fraction VII of Article 27 of the Constitution" (Hindley 1995:13). This Article also repeats the language of Article Four noting that "in the judgements that involve lands of indigenous groups, tribunals will take into account their customs and uses, where these do not contravene the terms of this law nor affect the rights of third parties. Moreover, when necessary the tribunal will assure fiat the Indigenous can call upon translators"(Hindley 1995:13). Since no regulatory lows existed to implement Article Four, the framing of agrarian disputes involving indigenous lands in terms of what is stipulated in Article Four is meaningless. The vagueness of Articles Four and 27 with regard to indigenous land rights reveals the ad-hoc manner in which indigenous rights policy was formulated during the Salinas administration (Díaz Polanco 1992:76; Hindley 1985:14). The writing of the two pieces of legislation and their regulatory laws should have been coordinated.

continued contradictory policy of i.n.i. in moving towards indigenous selt-determination

Studies such as that of Fox (1994) focusing on the administration of solidarity (social welfare) funds through regional councils coordinated by INI further point out the unevenness of indigenous policy during the tenure of Salinas and the weakness of the INI as a state agency While the INI carried out some of the most pluralistic programs under Salinas through the formation of regional indigenous solidarity councils their success varied depending on a number of variables. These included the degree of consolidation of previous community-based organizations the disposition of INI directors and employees and the quality of relationships regional council members could establish with government officials and regional elites (Fox 1994). While some of the regional solidarity councils in Oaxaca (which included significant representation of independent indigenous organizations) were able to function reasonably well those that were similarly successful in Chiapas were seriously challenged through the jailing of the top three INI officials in the state on trumped-up charges of fraud by the governor (Fox 1994:213). In 1993, the regional funds were seriously undermined by the Ministry of Social Development because it had not released their budget allocations. INI as an agency was also politically weakened with the transfer of its director to the newly created Agrarian Attorney's Office to administer a new government program to certify and title ejido and communal land (Fox 1994:215).

In September of 1993, indigenous organizations protested the lack of input by indigenous peoples into the legislation process for implementing Article Four. In Oaxaca on September 6,1993, at a National Forum of Civil Society titled "The Poor Construct their Own Social Policy " indigenous representatives from Guerrero Oaxaca, Chiapas and Hidalgo criticized a proposal for implementing Article Four. Those present criticized the fact that while indigenous peoples were fighting for recognition of the autonomy of their organizations the INI was given the right to deter". determine which organizations were legitimate and could "continue to reinforce the clientalism characteristic of the institution" (Rojas 1994: 1 O). The proposal for implementing Article Four named INI as the interlocutor between indigenous families and their communities by giving the agency the role of receiving confirmation of people's participation in indigenous communities. The document also gave INI the right to create a list of indigenous organizations to interpret the law in terms of specific pieces of legislation and to carry out studies of indigenous populations so that they could decide which ones were truly indigenous. In 1994 during the initial peace negotiating process between the EZLN and the Mexican government a different model of indigenous representation and politics was presented.

e.z.l.n. demands and the government's response: first round of peace negotiations in spring 1994 '

7apatista communiqués the subsequent organization of civil society in support of the Zapatista demands and the high profile of the Zapatistas in the initial peace talks in San Cristóbal in 1994 provided a critical opening for the assertion of indigenous autonomy within the framework of the Mexican nation. The clearest articulation of the CCRI-General Command's position' on ethnically-based politics comes in their 32-point document released at the Meeth~gs for Peace and Conciliation in Chiapas begun in March 1994.
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Key demands were founds in points 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 which call for self government with political , economic and cultural autonomy , an end to racism and discrimination against indigenous peoples, mandatory indigenous language instruction, respect for indigenous culture and traditions and administration of indigenous justice systems according to customs and traditions and without interference by the government (CCRI-GC I 994b: 13). This document clearly laid out the primary demands of indigenous communities supporting the EZLN and served as a working plan for civil resistance campaigns that took place following the peace talks.

Manuel Camacho government peace commissioner brought a response to each one of the 32 points raised by the Zapatistas. The proposals of the government addressing the ethnically-based demands of the Zapatistas did not vary much from what was already in place at the national level. Article Four of the Constitution was pointed to repeatedly as a way of addressing demands. At the state level of Chiapas, however, there were proposals for means of furthering land redistribution and for protecting land held in indigenous communities. Many of the solutions offered consisted of massive state aid to meet material and technical needs projected by the Zapatistas. What the document did not do, however, was address the issues raised by the Zapatistas at the national level. This was ultimately important in the rejection of the document by EZLN supporters (Humberto González 1994:1 12-133).

A comparison of the EZLN peace proposal and the government's response reveals four outstanding differences that have endured in the negotiating process for indigenous rights between the state and the EZLN with the active participation of indigenous leaders and advisors from throughout Mexico.

1. The EZLN proposal speaks in terms of "pueblos indios" or "pueblos indigenas" and "pueblo indigena" (Indian people/s/ nation/s). The government proposal drops the term "pueblos indigenas" which is used in Article Four of the Constitution and uses the more local connotation of "comunidades indigenas" or indigenous communities. This was seen most clearly in the proposal for a low called "The General Law of the Rights of Indigenous Communities," which was supposed to specify precisely how Article Four of the Constitution and those parts of Article 27 pertaining to indigenous land use and holdings would be implemented (see Hindley 1995:1 1).

2. While the EZLN proposal talks of self-governance and autonomy and not being subject to national and foreign powers, the solutions of the government consist of working within existing state structures, including the federal congress, state congresses, the Agrarian Attorney's office set up to facilitate the implementation of the rewritten Article 27, the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, and even the creation of a new Attorney's Office in Chiapas for the Defense of the Indigenous The Zapatista proposal does not offer any specifics about how to move towards autonomy and how new structures would work within or dispense with existing entities such as municipios, districts and states. This left an opening | for the government to propose a solution based on existing structures.

.

While government proposals tend to focus specifically on the state of Chiapas, particularly regarding the restitution of indigenous lands and the breaking up of latifundios, the EZLN's proposals for land reform and resolving agrarian conflict are national in scope, as are other points of their document.

4. Many of the demands of the EZLN focus on the difficult life conditions suffered by indigenous peoples and a basic lack of respect. While not proposing many specifics for addressing these issues outside of education and regional agricultural development, the Zapatistas' request for increased aid is not framed in terms of channeling it through existing government entities. The response of the government to these types of demands is to offer correctives through bilingual education, better training of government and judicial officials who deal with indigenous populations, and the funneling of vast amounts of resources to the state of Chiapas through government social welfare programs such as the National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL), the Federal Institute for the Integral Development of Families (DIF), and farmer subsidies through Support to the Mexican Countryside (PROCAMPO).

These basic points of tension have continued through the peace negotiation in its different phases. In February 1996, the government signed a first set of peace accords with the EZLN on indigenous rights and culture. Ongoing negotiations to form a set of laws to implement the accords came to a standstill in late 1996 and remained there in mid- 1997. The state repeatedly has invoked concerns about Mexican sovereignty and has steadfastly refused to include the issues of territory, resources and economic development m accords on indigenous rights. (Stophen, forthcoming).

In 1994, additional evidence of the desire of same actors within the state to further control and diffuse the issue of indigenous land rights was revealed in a draft document drawn up by the Agrarian Attorney's Office. This draft document confirmed the state's power to decide which communities were legitimate indigenous and therefore had the right to exclude their communal land from the government's land certification and titling program (PROCEDE) aimed at preparing land for privatization. According to a report published at the end of 1994, 50% of Mexico's ejidos had entered the program to regularize land and more than 1,500,000 documents
had been handed out between certificates for communal use, for ejido plots and titles for urban house plots (Procuraduria Agraria 1994:1).

While the document from the Agrarian Attorney recognizes conflicts between Article 27, Article Four and ILO Convention 169, it seeks to resolve them by imposing an inaccurate and a historical classification scheme on Mexico's rural population. The document declares that due to "the conquest, he imposition of western culture, the creation of new cities and their accelerated growth and other factors," there are two types of agrarian communities: the indigenous and the non-indigenous (Procuraduria Agraria 1994:2). The document states that indigenous agrarian communities are characterized by their "cultural traits and organization and conservation of those, and by their language, which is a basic characteristic identified with indigenous communities that constitutes an integral pan of all culture. "Other traits include community solidarity and forms of communal labor, participation in cargo systems and agriculture that is characterized by subsistence Traditional medicine as well as participation in mayordomias 6 are also key traits (Procuraduria Agraria 1994:2-3). The description appears to come directly out of an introductory anthropology textbook from the 1920s.

Non-indigenous agrarian communities, according to the document, are those that have "lost a significant part of their cultural roots, don't use any particular kind of identifying clothing, and which do not conserve their mother tongue except among a few elderly." They are usually found less distant from cities and because they sell wage labor, "western culture is reproduced more often inside of these communities." They combine "traditional medicine with modern medicine, have lost their tradition of collective work, and the members of their ejidos or communal land don't belong to any kind of ethnic group and their customs are heterogeneous" (Procuraduria Agraria 1994:3-4, author's translation). This draft document, which was undoubtedly elaborated with the help of some anthropologists, reduced the history and complexity of the Mexican countryside to a simple dichotomy, ignoring the fact that most communities are a mixture of the two prototypes of "indigenous agrarian community" and "non indigenous agrarian community " Since many indigenous communities both conserve "tradition" and have a long history of integration into national and international political economies, the limited traits listed for the certification of authentically "indigenous" communities suggest an effort to severely limit the number of communities that can exclude their land from (he state's land certification sod tilling program. Those most adept at convincing officials of their authenticity would be most successful.

At the end of President Salinas' term in 1994, state indigenous policy had gone from an enthusiastic endorsement of ILO Convention 169, which granted indigenous people's collective rights in controlling their lands and participation in all levels of decision-making processes that affected their future, to a paternalistic position that gave state agencies the right to decide who qualified as indigenous. In addition, such agencies used antiquated cultural trait lists with no base in reality to determine who qualified as an Indian. The hardening of the state's position on who determines ethnic qualifications and what constitutes legitimate indigenous ethnicity was perhaps driven, in pan' by a need to contain the movement for indigenous autonomy that exploded in Chiapas and by 1995 had consolidated throughout the nation.

the practice of indigenous autonomy: from chiapas to across the nation

The declaration of autonomous pluri-ethnic regions in Chiapas came in the wake of efforts to prevent the Institutional Revolutionary Panty (PRI) gubernatorial candidate from taking office in December 1994. During October, four then five areas declared themselves to be autonomous regions and proceeded to set up their own government. Two of these areas were outside the region controlled by the EZLN. Spokespeople for the autonomous regions announced that they would not pay for water and electricity would not pay taxes, credit or other payments owed to government organizations, and they would prohibit unsupportive government officials from coming into their communities. This declaration of autonomy was later said not to imply separation from the nation.

According to elected representatives interviewed in April 1995, the autonomous government consisted of elected community parliaments, regional councils and a 600-member General Council of the Transition Government in Rebellion.7 An 81 -member indigenous parliament including representatives from the regional councils was also set up at the statewide level. The process of setting up alternative governing structures has varied in each region. In most areas the consolidation of local governing structures was difficult due to the conditions of war and severe divisions within communities that wore incorporated into the autonomous pluri-ethnic regions. On November 20, 1994, the General Council sent a letter to the interim governor of Chiapas and to the INI director. The letter informed them that the General Council of the Transition Government in Rebellion would be taking over the San Cristobal INI offices on January first and wished them a happy new year. The INI offices were viewed as appropriate headquarters for the autonomous pluri-ethnic regions because the state agency WAS supposed to be devoted to improving the lives of indigenous peoples in Mexico. According to several members of the Executive Committee of the General Council, INI employees became quite nervous, packed and left immediately. The General Council of the Transition Government in Rebellion took over the INI offices in early December 1994.

In the spring of 1995, differences between indigenous communities pushing for autonomy and some members of the "government in rebellion" (the shadow government of the state headed by gubernatorial candidate Amado Avendano) emerged as the Democratic State Assembly of the People of Chiapas (AEDPCII) met with a government representative in charge of social welfare programs for the state of Chiapas. In a EZLN communiqué, Marcos declared the meeting an act of treason that undermined the EZLN's negotiating process with the government. Representatives of the movement for establishing autonomous pluri-ethnic regions in Chiapas held several tension-filled meetings with indigenous commanders of the EZLN. In June 1995, the Democratic State Assembly of the People of Chiapas held a referendum with their bases and 158 out of 160 organizations and communities voted to continue negotiating, taking a position somewhat independent of the EZLN (Henriquez 1995:12). At that point in time, the Zapatistas alienated same of the key figures in the Chiapas movement for indigenous autonomy who were simultaneously participating in a national movement. As described below, the national movement and the Zapatistas were reconciled a few months later and worked with the government negotiating committee known as the Committee for Concordance and Peace and another advisory commission led by Bishop Ruiz to bring indigenous autonomy to the fore of the 1995 peace talks between the EZLN and the government. These tensions resurfaced later, however, as many leaders active in the movement for pluri-ethnic autonomous regions were marginalized in the process leading up to the signing of the peace accords on indigenous rights and culture in February 1996 (see Mattiace forthcoming; Stephen forthcoming). They remain in marginal positions within the National Indigenous Congress, created in October 1996 which now spearheads the national movement for indigenous autonomy.

the national indigenous convention: making autonomy a national issue

In December of 1994, a new national indigenous organization held its first congress as the National Indigenous Convention (CNI) with the goal of taking the model of indigenous autonomy from Chiapas and moving it to a national level. The document produced at the first meeting of the CNI emphasized autonomy in decision-making, integration with national politics and decision-making processes, and the necessity of the CNI to build alliances with mestizos, extending the concept of ethnicity to include those who are non-Indian as well (National Indigenous Convention 1994).

A second meeting of the CNI was held in Juchitan, Oaxaca in February 1995 attended by 613 delegates from 63 indigenous organizations located in 13 states of Mexico. The second congress focused on the war in Chiapas and called far the immediate withdrawal of the military, urged Mexico not to receive any more foreign loans, called for cutbacks in the military budget and for the legal recognition of the autonomous regions in Chiapas and of the land reclaimed in Chiapas by peasant and indigenous organizations.8 Delegates at the second meeting proposed the creation of communal, municipal, regional state and national indigenous councils modeled on those of Chiapas.

In the spring of 1995, a proposal written by the Executive Council of the Autonomous Pluri-ethnic Regions of Chiapas along with two NGOs and the Secretariat of Human- Rights of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was released proposing reforms and additions to Articles 15, 73 and 115 of the Constitution to create autonomous pluri-ethnic regions at a national level. It called for specific legislative steps including: "The creation at the national level of autonomous pluri-ethnic regions that would function as a fourth level of government in addition to municipal, state, and federal. These regions would serve as regional indigenous organizations that would allow indigenous peoples to take part in their own processes of economic development and would also serve as the seats of self-government" (Iniciativa de Decreto 1995). The proposal draws on the Colombian and Nicaraguan models discussed earlier (see Disk in 1991; Rappaport and Dover 1996). The document states that autonomy can only be guaranteed as long as the diverse social groups found within one region can live in harmony and agreement. Therefore, the autonomous region has to conceived of as pluri-ethnic--power cannot be limited to one ethnic group (Iniciativa de Decreto Que Reforma y Adiciona Los Articulos 4, 73, y 115 de la Constitución Politica de Los Estados Unidos; see also Diaz Polanco 1994, 1995s,1995b).

The proposal for pluri-ethnic autonomous regions was debated at two subsequent congresses of the CNI in 1995, first in April in Sonora and then in August in Oaxaca. Both congresses had heavy participation from indigenous peoples with historical experiences quite distinct from the colonization experience of eastern Chiapas. The creation of pluri-ethnic autonomous regions did not make sense to them because they came from mono-ethnic regions. During the CNI congress in Sonora, the Yaquis took over the assembly and questioned the basic principles of pluri-ethnic regions. They stated that autonomy could be mono-ethnic or pluri-ethnic. In Oaxaca the Mixe declared mono-ethnic communal autonomy at the village level because that is the basis of their institutions. In 1938, an ethnically Mixe district was created in Oaxaca which allowed communities to conduct their economic, legal, and political business in a Mixe municipio (see Stephen, forthcoming). This district has allowed the Mixe to develop a strong mono-ethnic basis of organization. In same instances historical animosity between various ethnic groups living in the same municipio such as between the Zapotec and Huave in Oaxaca resulted in reluctance to consider pluri-ethnic regions in all areas. The particular historical experience of multi-ethnicity organizing in eastern Chiapas was clearly not the norm elsewhere in the nation. The CNI thus developed a more nexible version of its proposal that allowed for autonomous communities and hamlets as well as municipios, each to be defined according to the specific local and regional experience.

During July and August 1995, the CNI met with the government negotiating team for the EZLN peace accords and the advisory team led by Bishop Ruiz in an attempt to get their proposals endorsed by the state and the EZLN. They also brought their proposal to the Mexican Congress. In the process they changed their name to the National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples in Support of Autonomy (ANIPA). The CNI became ANIPA.

Their efforts bore somewhat bitter fruit. Their proposal was discussed at the first round of talks between the government and the EZLN that gave the issue of indigenous rights national legitimacy and involved dozens of organizations and indigenous peoples in the process. Ultimately the ANIPA proposal was rejected in this process and those involved were alienated from the EZLN once again until October 1996 when a new constellation emerged to call a National Indigenous Congress in Mexico City. Here ANIPA appeared to be marginally included and participated in efforts to move the Mexican government towards actually implementing the signed accords (see Stephen, forthcoming).

The proposal of the CNI/ANIPA contrasts sharply with legislative proposals advanced by the state until October 1995 with regard to indigenous rights and communal land tenure. Where state proposals call on particular state agencies to validate the ability of indigenous communities to exercise basic rights through certifying their legitimacy, the proposal of the movement for indigenous autonomy calls for indigenous peoples to participate in choosing members of state legislatures, the national senate, and their judicial officials and police. Where state proposals such as that for regularizing indigenous communal lands rely on trait lists to determine the meaning of indigenous ethnicity, the proposal for autonomy calls for the inclusion of "mestizos'' as well as indigenous groups in pluri-ethnic regions, expanding the notion of ethnicity beyond its sole identification with Indians. The proposal for the creation of autonomous pluri-ethnic and mono-ethnic regions directly challenged the hardening position of the state. It's most radical proposal of all is a redefinition of what ethnicity means--particularly in the form of "pluri-ethnicity.

conclusions: ethnicity, nationalism, and their ironies

Designations such as "indio" and "mestizo" that are used in today's discourse of ethnicity in Mexico are products of colonial history and the republican period that came afterward. Throughout Mexico's history, different social groupings have experienced, used, constructed and reconstructed the meanings of "indio ' and "mestizo' according to their positions in the social order. The continuing debate over the meaning and content of these terms and their legal, political, economic and social implications is, of course, at the heart of the differing proposals for indigenous rights and autonomy put forward by actors and agencies of the state, the EZLN and the movements to establish autonomous pluri-ethnic and mono-ethnic region in
Mexico. What is of most interest are the ways in which the various present-day constructions would result in very different futures for Mexico's indigenous citizens in' terms of their integration into national power relations and their share of national resources. In short, these competing visions of ethnicity and the nation foreshadow different results.

On paper, the state's definition of ethnicity is tied to traditional ways of certifying whether or not one belongs to a particular ethnic group hosed on evidence of shared language, custom, territory or form s of social organization. Rather than looking at the expression and practice of ethnic identity in action and the processes of identify construction, state-based concepts of ethnicity rely on trait recognition and their certainly by experts. Particular cultural and linguistic traits are used by indigenous groups in the self-construction of ethnic identity. The particulars of local and regional ethnic histories and power relations, however, are the relevant criteria for how ethnicity is lived and experienced. Language is still critical to self-definitions and boundaries in m any parts of Oaxaca while it is not the only or primary ingredient of ethnic identity in eastern Chiapas. Second and third generation Tojolobales may not speak their own language yet they have a strong sense of ethnic identity. I n other parts of Mexico, indigenous people understand, but don't speak their language and use other measures of their identity, most often rooted at the level of community.

The 58 municipalities that declared themselves to be autonomous pluri-ethnic regions in Chiapas dispensed with the notion of ethnic identity based on any one or set of distinguishing traits such as language, dress or customs. The shared identity that people have within the autonomous regions in Las Cañadas, for example, is not necessarily based on language or generations of shared customs of social organization. Since many of the people came to the region within the past 40 to 60 years, their shared culture and identity is built out of their political experience and participation in a range of peasant, indigenous and now guerrilla organizations. While the proposal for autonomous pluri-ethnics regions is perhaps the most radical for severing ethnic identity from a list of distinguishing traits, it does however invoke one of the classic ways of staking an ethnic claim by hanging the unity of pluri-ethnic regions on the peg of territory. But instead of claiming their right to territory hosed on primordial rights of association, they staked their claim based on political unity and a common political strategy and culture. The hook of territory is being used in these regions as a way to create democratic units with in the nation in hopes of gaining greater control over policy that affects people's I Ives and additionally as a way of staking land-claims.

The narrow definition of indigenous ethnicity reflected in the draft document of the Agrarian Attorney for clarifying the relationship of indigenous communal land to Article 27 seems aimed at narrowing the percentage of the rural population which can stake claims to land protected under Article Four and ILO Convention 169. Many indigenous communities in Mexico appear to be a mixture of what the Agrarian Attorney's document labels "indigenous" and "non-indigenous." If exhibition of so-called "non-indigenous" characteristics such as "selling labor," "living close to cities," "mi- | grating," using modern medicine" and "parceling land" leads people to lose their status as "real Indians" then their lands are no longer protected. Insistence by the government on the continuation of so-called "tradition" to guarantee land rights provides a window into why territory is an important issue in the movement for indigenous autonomy.

Since the government declared "ancestral territory" (following ILO Convention 169) as one of the few remaining ways of staking a claim to land (particularly following the reform to Article 27 which ends further land redistribution), tieing your identity to a specific piece of territory a sensible strategy whether you identify as part of a mono-ethnic community or as pan of a pluri-ethnic region. In the case of recently-colonized areas where few people have staked ancestral claims (one of the reasons the government encouraged colonization there in the first place), "traditional" occupation of land is open to many interpretations. Because both state-based and in some cases "traditional" indigenous systems of government and land allocation no longer could accommodate them, people in many parts of Chiapas begun creating their awn political organizations and struggled for land which they believed they constitutionally had a right to. The state's refusal to use the term "territory" and to incorporate issues of land rights into the peace accord process is reminiscent of refusals elsewhere. As noted by Van Cott (1995 :16), "Most Latin American governments...avoid using the word 'territory' in relation to Indians for the same reason they avoid calling Indians 'peoples'--these two words carry certain connotations| ~ of sovereignty that challenge the jurisdiction of the nation-state."

The refusal by those who want to establish autonomous pluri-ethnic regions to confine discussions of ethnicity to "the Indians" begins to reveal the constructedness of "the Indian." The inclusion of "mestizos " as part of pluri-ethnic communities and regions racializes all Mexicans and partially removes the stigma from Mexico's indigenous peoples of being racialized others who are not part of the Mexican melting pot that has been promoted as national culture. The differing realities of indigenous communities, however, complicates this adoption throughout the nation. Communal indigenous autonomy in places like Oaxaca, for example, requires a self-conscious naturalization of the particular practices of everyday life in specific ethnically defined communities--Mixe, Huave, Zapoteco, etc. This self-promoted ethnic essential is". on the part of groups like the Mixe is a historical reality that resonates with Mixe people and thus co-exists with the more hybrid example of pluri-ethnic regions in eastern Chiapas. The struggle for autonomy revolves around incorporating both visions without creating a hollow concept that results in few concrete rights and no access to resources.

The various proposals coming from the government regarding the future of Mexico's indigenous population clearly contain a notion of the Mexican nation that contains within it a diverse population but designate he government sod its institutions as the final arbitrators in interpreting the rights of indigenous peoples and even in deciding who they are; Particular rights based in custom or tradition will be respected so long as they do not conflict with neo-liberal plans to make the land and resources of rural Mexico available to private investors where markets for land and resources such s$< hardwoods, gas, and oil exist. The government's preoccupation with protection of Mexican sovereignty most clearly extends to economic development which has repeatedly been excluded from accords on indigenous rights.

The notion of a supposed multi-cultural nation which grants collective rights must co-exist with global economic policies of restructuring that result in increased stratification, extraction of the state from social welfare and production and exchange, and the further individualization of citizen rights. In Mexico, land reform has been declared over. The government will not redistribute more land (except in special negotiations in Chiapas and elsewhere) and is promoting privatization and commercialization of agricultural production. The contradictions of a multi-cultural collective project versus the stratifying individualizing one of late 20th-century global capitalism set the terrain within movements for indigenous autonomy in Mexico must act.

The granting of "Indian" rights in the constitutions of states such as Mexico and Colombia can have other consequences as well. First, the state continues to act as if indigenous rights are rights that are granted to individual citizens belonging to the category of "lndian". The state will not accept the definition of "Indian" according to self-ascription. Secondly, if the route to autonomy is through specific laws that accord rights to people based on being "Indians," the process of gaining "autonomy" involves becoming further incorporated into the administrative and legal functions of the state--being bureaucratized. The legal emphasis on "autonomy and rights" of course does little to recognize the processual aspects of self-determination and leaves out the important work of social movements and the cultural contestation that takes place over the meaning of nationalism.

Without a doubt, the most important outcome of the current struggle over indigenous rights and culture in Mexico has to do with redefining the nation. The differing notions of autonomy and ethnicity which are being projected by indigenous movements in Chiapas and elsewhere are challenges to the hegemonic notion of the "multi-cultural" nation which is currently articulated in the Mexican constitution but provides no specific benefits for indigenous peoples.

One can also question the reality of the "multi-cultural" discourse set forth in the Mexican constitution. In an insightful discussion of the triumph of mestizaje in Nicaragua, Jeffrey Gould concludes that mestizaje became widely accepted in Central America "shortly after it became the official ideology of post-revolutionary Mexico" (1996:22). He agrees with Alan Knight's analysis that the ideology of mestizaje was partially broken down by the indigenismo ttat the Mexican government promoted beginning in the 1 930s. Indigenismo and the Mexican version of mestizaje which celebrates the historic contributions of Indians to the Mexican nation, he maintains, did not erase Indians from popular discourse as occurred in Nicaragua where Indians "had ceased to exist at some time lost in the deepest recesses of historical memory" (1996:23). In reality, the rhetoric of a multicultural nation which provides no specific rights for indigenous peoples, denies them political representation, and control over processes of economic development in effect promotes an undifferentiated mestizo nation made up of abstract individual citizens. The empty multiculturalism currently contained in the Mexican constitution and the actions of the government suggest a backhanded symbolic promotion of mestizaje rather than a true embrace of Mexico's indigenous peoples.

However, the alternative imagined communities of Mexico are talking back from many corners of the nation. While the government promotes a hollow multiculturalism, Mexico's indigenous peoples are busy forging a national movement for indigenous autonomy. What we see is a dialectic between the efforts of the government to create a unifying and homogeneous national identity versus the resu Its of specific indigenous movements with significantly different histories, economies, and cultural constellations coming together conjucturally to create an alternative vision of Mexico from the bottom up. "The nation" is being actively redefined by those actors who for centuries had been relegated to the "glorious indigenous past." Their struggle and specifically that of the Zapatistas and the national movement(s) for indigenous autonomy have provided important models that have had repercussions in indigenous movements throughout the world. The use of the internet, video, and the creation of international solidarity committees by the Zapatistas in dozens of countries to support their movement has given the EZLN and the autonomy movement a truly international profile. Perhaps the greatest success of the Zapatistas and the movement(s) for indigenous autonomy in Mexico has been their global outreach. Whether or not these movements will produce a new hegemonic ideology tat results in a truly multicultural state that grants representation and autonomy in decision-making in areas that affect local and regional indigenous population remains to be seen. What is certain, is that in the wake of the Zapatista uprising and the decades of organizing that preceded it in Chiapas and elsewhere, Mexico's Indians will be heard in the next century.

notes

Acknowledgments Previous versions of this this paper were presented at the. Seminar on Peoples and States sponsored by the M.I.T. Anthropology Archeology Program, at a colloquia in the Anthropology Department at Princoton Uníversity, and at the seminar series at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. l wish to thank Jean Jackson, Jonathan Fox, Jane Hindley, Kay Warren, David Myhre, and Julio Miguel und Hector Díaz Polanco for their helpful comments and criticisms.

Grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Grant il5746), and the yido Reform Project of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies for related research helped to support the fieldwork.

1The indigenous population of Mexico is calculated in the census as those who speak an indigenous language. In the 1990 census there wore 6,411,672 speakers of indigenous languages out of a total population of 81,249,645. Indigenous inhabitants defined by this criteria are 7.89 percent of the total population. Many anthropologists and indigenous activists have questioned this criteria and par' the number higher, at 10-l5 percent of the population. The state of ORXRCR has the highest percentage of indigenous speakers with 36 percent of the state's population speaking an indigenous language (1,018,106 speakers of indigenous languages out of a total population of 3,019,560). The state of Chiapas has the second highest m~mber of indigenous speakers with 22 percent of the state's population speaking an indigenous language (716,012 speakers of indigenous languages out of a total population of 3,210,496) (Lopez y Rivas 1995: 9S,101).

2 See Collier (1994) and Benjamin (1995) for goad general and historical descriptions.

3 The Medellín conference is hest known for creating a plan of action for implementing the "preferential option of the poor." Seeing poverty as a sin and its solution as something that should not wait until the hereafter, teams of priests throughout Latin America set forth to help the poor organize for social, economic, and political justice. In many cases this involved paying l particular attention to ethnic identity and the way in which indigenous ethnicity was expressed I within organizational structures.

4 These included Ejido Union "United in Our Strength" (Quiptic Ta Lecubtec, UEGTL in Ocosingo), Ejido Union "Land and Liberty (Tierra y Libertad UETI, in Las Margaritas), and ejido Union "Peasant Struggle" Lucha Campesina. UELC in Las Margaritas) (Harvey 1994: 29).

Ejidos were created after the Mexican Revolution to satisfy the demands of landless peasants who had seen their communal village lands eaten up by large agricultural estates and/or who served as laborers on these estates. An ejido is a communal form of land tenure to which members have use rights, usually in the form of an individual plot of land. ejido land is documented through a separate process from communal land. Most ejido or agrarian reform communities received official tilling of their land (not individual titling) after the Mexican Revolution during the 1930s under the administration of Lazaro Cardenas. Communal lands were tilled both colonially and later in the 1940s as put of comunidades agrarias.

5 While Echeverria's government called this the First Congress of Indigenous Peoples, other congresses with similar titles had been held in Mexico as early as the 1930s when Lazaro Cárdenas was president.

6 Mayordomias are cult celebrations of locally-identified saints and virgins that involve the appointment of sponsors for the saints. Responsibilities of the sponsors include throwing several large parties in honor of the saints, carrying for them and their alters throughout the year, and paying for masses in their honor (See Stephen t991.)

7 The 600-member General Council ha~ an executive committee with 24 members and 12 working commissions including education and culture, health, dissemination, justice und human rights, land and territory, councils of elders, women, ecology, finances, press and promotion, social development and relations with indigenous peoples outside of Mexico. The General Council is represented in the Democratic state Assembly of the People of Chiapas. It also includes many representatives from indigenous and peasant organizations with a long history in the state.

8 After the zapatista rebellion, indigenous and peasant organizations began a series of what ~hey called land recuperations (not invasions) taking over lands nt local ranchers and large land-holders They claimed to have taken over 100,000 hectares at the height of the mobilizations in the spring of 1994. Other estimates put the amount of land reclaimed at 40,000-50,000 hectares (Carlota Botey i99s, personal communication).

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