66 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 MEXICO 1

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1 66 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 MEXICO 1 In 2010, the National Institute for Statistics, Geography and Computing (INEGI) conducted the 13 th Census of Population and Housing, which indicates that there are a total of 15,703,474 indigenous people in the country, a figure that is obtained by adding 6,695,228 Indigenous language speakers and Population aged 0 to 4 years living with a head of household that is an indigenous language speaker to the 9,008,246 on the registry of Population in indigenous census households. This population size makes Mexico the country with the largest indigenous population on the American continent, and the greatest number of native languages spoken within its borders, with 68 languages and 364 different dialects recorded. The country ratified ILO Convention 169 in 1990 and, in 1992, Mexico was recognised as a pluricultural nation when Article 6 of the Constitution was amended. In 2001, as a result of the mobilization of indigenous peoples claiming the legalization of the San Andres Accords negotiated between the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional - EZLN) in 1996, the articles 1,2,4,18 and 115 of the Mexican Constitution were amended. From 2003 onwards, the EZLN and the Indigenous National Congress (Congreso Nacional Indígena - CNI) began to implement the Accords in practice throughout their territories, creating autonomous indigenous governments in Chiapas, Michoacán and Oaxaca. Although the states of Chihuahua, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo and San Luís Potosí have state constitutions with regard to indigenous peoples, indigenous legal systems are still not fully recognised. 1 Mexico voted in favour of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in A s President Enrique Peña Nieto s first year in government came to an end, the Special Programme for Indigenous Peoples Development had still not been published. This is supposed to contain the policies, programmes and actions for the period proposed by the National Commission for Indigenous

2 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 67 2 Peoples Development (CDI) and approved by the federal executive. Referring to the lack of attention to social conflicts, a high-level official within the Ministry of the Interior noted that: Demands both old and new are creating the conditions for conflict to emerge in relation to rural, educational, religious, labour and social affairs. The disadvantaged conditions historically faced, for example, by the native peoples are a case in point. Their needs and disputes could result in social conflict. Data from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy 2012 (CONEVAL) and from the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure (ENIGH) 2012 shows that more than half of the country s indigenous population live in disadvantaged or highly disadvantaged municipalities; 8 out of 10 of them are poor and half of them are extremely poor; 70% of 6 to 24-year-olds are illiterate or not attending school; and more than half lack basic infrastructure. And all this despite the progress made in indigenous reforms and legal recognition of the pluriethnic and multicultural composition of our nation. 2

3 68 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 In actual fact, during the last year of Felipe Calderón s presidency and the first year of Peña Nieto s, conflicts old and new have intensified, as has repression of indigenous protest, brutal dispossession of their lands for mining concessions (generally Canadian, or transnational companies registered in that country), abuses of justice, constant harassment of the Zapatista territories, complaints of deaths caused by medical negligence, ill-treatment of indigenous and Central American migrants and a failure to implement aid programmes for victims of natural disasters. During Peña Nieto s first year in government, the creation of the Commission for Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples was announced, headed by Jaime Martínez Veloz, a former member of the first Commission for Concord and Pacification (COCOPA), which participated in the signing of the San Andrés Accords between the Mexican government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) on 16 February He stated that: 2014 must be a defining year for the indigenous reforms demanded by the country. The Commission made known that an initiative of great significance could be ready by February 2014 that would pick up on the San Andrés Accords and include new national and international legislation on indigenous peoples. 3 After stating that there were powerful political and economic sectors opposed to approving the COCOPA initiative, he maintained that those who were against the initiative in 1996, because there were technical legal loopholes and it was going to fragment the country were those who had handed over almost half of the national territory, or 96 million hectares, to mineral exploitation. The much discussed poverty level and its reduction through the use of certain kinds of partial indicator, however, unquestionably demonstrates the disadvantaged situation indigenous peoples find themselves in, both in terms of moderate and extreme poverty. Thus in CONEVAL s level of poverty according to ethnic belonging, which compares the indigenous population (IP) with the non-indigenous population (NIP), the following data was recorded for 2012: IP in moderate poverty (47%) NIP (35%); IP in extreme poverty (30.6%) NIP (7.6%); IP lagging behind educationally (34.1%) NIP (17.6%); IP with inadequate access to social security (81.0%) NIP (59.1%); IP with inadequate access to food (34.4%) NIP (22.1%); and, finally, IP with income below the minimum well-being line (74.5%) and NIP (49.2%). 4 Although the decline in mortality rate and increased life expectancy (both general and indigenous) over the last half century demonstrate the significant

4 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 69 progress that has been made, the outlook for indigenous health is far from encouraging. The general trend is towards a significant increase in chronic-degenerative illnesses, while high rates of infectious-contagious diseases persist. A study conducted by the PUMC-UNAM, in coordination with the Pan-American Health Organization-Mexico, analysed official unpublished information differentiating between IP and NIP in the 10 states with the greatest concentration of indigenous inhabitants (Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán) and confirmed the above: diabetes mellitus, ischaemic heart disease, cirrhosis and other chronic diseases of the liver, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, nephritis and nephrosis, lower acute respiratory infections, violence (murder) and malnutrition all contribute significantly to indigenous mortality. 5 Although influenced by current economic trends, indigenous migration (national and international) continues to be an important factor that is modifying traditional structures in terms of population movements, the incorporation of the economically active population into new labour markets, the search for basic comforts and even in terms of the transformation of epidemiological patterns. One relevant factor remains the financial support sent home by Mexicans living abroad. Over the last decade, this has amounted almost consistently to more than 20 billion dollars a year (as recorded by the Bank of Mexico). EZLN With the silent march of 21 December 2012, it seemed that the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) was commencing a new stage in its autonomous political history. In August 2013, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) was relaunched; regional meetings were held in Campeche in October and December, and in Jalisco, Chihuahua and Morelos in November. In addition, it announced their little school Freedom according to the Zapatistas for travelling companions in Caracol Morelia. 6 In other words, it confirmed that it would be constructing a school for internal cadres while at the same time coordinating and promoting a national indigenous front with its allies. Although this is in the strategic plan, constant harassment and hostility from the police, paramilitary groups and roving gangs from different sectors of Chiapas society are a daily occurrence

5 70 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 in the life of the grassroots communities. It should be recalled that both the EZLN and the CNI have continued to promote, defend and apply ILO Convention 169 and the international instruments that protect human rights in general and indigenous rights in particular, along with the national agreements aligned with these, such as for example, the San Andrés Accords. On 3 September 2013, however, a majority within the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) approved recognition of the fact that the human rights contained in the international treaties to which Mexico is a party are of constitutional ranking but, should the constitution restrict any of these rights, then this latter text shall prevail. 7 In other words, for indigenous issues, the existing provisions shall prevail over the provisions of the San Andrés Accords and other documents in relation, for example, to consultation and free, prior and informed consent. Conflicts over water Water is increasingly appearing as a focus of social conflict involving the country s indigenous peoples. In its session held in San Miguel Allende (Guanajuato) on 20 September 2013, the Permanent Court of the Peoples, Mexican Chapter, considered the devastation of the country s water sources. 8 The Independencia Aqueduct in Sonora continues to be an area of dispute for the Yaqui people. This structure, 132 km long and which carries water to Hermosillo, affects 45,000 indigenous people who, by Presidential Decree, have rights over 50% of the flow, 9 along with another one million people from the Yaqui River Basin. In 2012, the Supreme Court (SCJN) granted the Yaqui a protection order and called a halt to the extraction of water and to the structure itself. The National Human Rights Commission also issued a recommendation against the construction (No. 37/2012). On 27 September, the Yaqui delivered a petition to the Federal Ombudsman for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) containing more than 9,000 signatures and calling on the institution to comply with the SCJN s resolution. 10 On 29 May, faced with a lack of compliance and indifference from the institutions (PROFEPA, CONAGUA and SEMARNAT) and the Sonora state government, the Yaqui brought the main highway to the north-west of the country, the México-Nogales highway in Vicam, to a halt. A spokesperson for the Yaqui, Toma Rojo Valencia, commented: If necessary, the Yaqui will engage in armed conflict to defend what is rightfully ours.

6 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 71 These people maintain that the Aqueduct is not intended to benefit the population of Hermosillo but rather the beer, fizzy drinks and cross-border plants and is also aimed at enabling the expansion of the Ford factory. Transferring this water from the Yaqui River to Hermosillo would result in the Yaqui losing more than 50% of their sowing season. With all domestic appeals exhausted, Mario Luna (Yaqui) announced on 26 July that they were putting together a case to take to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the International Labour Organization and the United Nations. Another serious conflict has emerged between the Guarijío or Makurawe people and the state government, Irrigation District 038 and the agro-industrial companies of the lower basin, who are all promoting the construction of the Pilares dam on the Mayo River. Three percent of the land necessary for this dam belongs to the Guarijío. There are serious and justified complaints of corruption among the state officials and the Flores y Asociados firm of consultants regarding the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The Guarijío and their advisors have received death threats for denouncing the attempts made to take over their lands. 11 On 11 August 2013, they published a Statement on Violation of the Collective Rights of the Guarijío people of Sonora due to the Management of the Bicentenario Dam project. 12 The Guarijío offered to sell 973 hectares at 1,500 dollars a hectare but the government and Irrigation District 038 offered only 350. The Guarijío were evacuated from 167 ha of Mesa Colorada on the promise (never kept) that they would be provided with lands, roads, a school and a hospital for 1,200 indigenous people elsewhere. The area to be flooded forms the capital of the Guarijío community, and the place where its annual rites are conducted and where its sacred sites and cemeteries are to be found. 13 The High Commissioner for Human Rights and the IACHR are aware of the situation but the national institutions are currently offering no solution. Conflicts over water continue in other parts of the country, including in the Costa Chica in Oaxaca, Paso de la Reina, 14 and in the Sierra Norte in Puebla, where the Totonacos from the Ajajelpan River basin, through the Tiyat Tlali Council, have denounced proposals for three hydroelectric dams made by the Grupo México and Comexhidro companies which, under the guise of selfsufficiency, are aimed at supplying energy to their mining concessions in the region.

7 72 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 Organised crime Another issue related to national security and the indigenous peoples that emerged during 2013 was that of organised crime (the trafficking, sale and production of illegal drugs) and its links to illegal mining and logging in various parts of the country. The previous government s failed war on organised crime and its inability to maintain a presence across wide areas of the national territory have created a de facto situation that has enabled and facilitated the growth of the Community Police (PM) and a proliferation of Self-Defence Groups (GAD). These two social phenomena should not be confused as they have different origins and perspectives but an analysis of this is beyond the scope of this article. In Guerrero, the Regional Coordinating Body of Community Authorities - Community Police (CRAC-PC) is seeking to reconvene 18 years after it was originally founded because it is now divided up between the 20 founding peoples and the CRAC, which operates out of San Luis Acatlán. Its challenge is not only to reunify but to rebuild the Community System of Security and Justice. 15 At the start of the year, the Union of Organised Peoples from Guerrero State (UPOEG) emerged with its Civic Security System and it is coordinating and negotiating with the Commission for Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples, a body recently created by the federal government. The CRAC-PC has denounced the UPOEG as a group that has been promoted to bring about their own demobilisation. In Cherán (Michoacán), where the Purépecha people have thrown out the political parties, they have had to confront drugs traffickers and illegal loggers and so have created their own system of authority, defence and justice. 16 This is now the only municipality that has no clashes with organised crime. 17 In Michoacán state, a number of Purépecha communities are having problems with drugs traffickers who form part of what is known as the Knights Templar Cartel. Along with the criminal group known as the Michoacán Family, this cartel is raiding the area to obtain iron through extortion, robbery and removal of the metal, which it ships out for sale in China through exporters at Lázaro Cárdenas port (Michoacán). In some cases, the self-defence groups have been denounced as government creations with paramilitary features. It is believed that these groups have expanded in the states of: Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima, Tabasco, Estado de México, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Morelos and Jalisco In Chihuahua, indigenous people from Choreachi are denouncing the murders being committed by groups of

8 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 73 drugs traffickers, who are also involved in illegal logging. They operate as roving groups for the logging companies, who are trying to rob them of their land. 20 In the Metropolitan Zone of the Valle de México (ZMVM), in the Nahua community of Milpa Alta, illegal loggers are operating with the support of criminal groups from Michoacán. Through their organisation, the United Peoples Front, the Otomí people of San Francisco Magú (municipality of Nicolás Romero, Mexico state) are confronting the Bosques del Paraíso real estate development and accusing the government body for environment and natural resources, SEMARNAT of violating the law and their collective and individual rights to their forests. REDD+ Fifty-eight percent of the country s woods and forests are owned by cooperatives and indigenous communities. However, Mexico has taken out debts of more than 678 million dollars with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank in order to include the country s woods and forests in REDD+ with the aim of conservation and reforestation. However, by making payment for environmental services possible, the international REDD+ mechanism is [also] commercialising the green areas and privatising oxygen. 21 The International Indigenous Environmental Network maintains that REDD+ is being used as a means to prepare for the biggest misappropriation of lands of all time. Continental summit of indigenous communicators Approximately 1,500 communicators, most of them indigenous Latin Americans, met in Santa María Tlahuiltoltepec, a Mixe community in Oaxaca, from 7 to 13 October last year. Convened initially by indigenous organisations including the National Indigenous Council of Cauca, the Andean Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations, the Indigenous Media Communication Association of Colombia, the International Indigenous Press Agency and Radio Jëmpoj, the Second Continental Summit of Indigenous Communication of Abya Yala took place. The work agenda was ambitious and proposed, among other things: the production of strategies for participating in and building issues such as inclusive legislation for indigenous media; access to radio bandwidth; defence of the territories; the con-

9 74 IWGIA THE INDIGENOUS WORLD 2014 struction of a continental plan for communicator training; strategies for continental networking; and indigenous women s participation in communication processes. Within a framework of dialogue, reflection and proposals, all participants were called upon to contribute to the strengthening and strategic empowerment of the communication processes of the continent s native peoples. By means of a final statement, the Summit participants agreed to: take up the necessary task of identifying, monitoring and publicising threats of exploitation and looting; demand, as a right, the legislation and implementation of public policies focusing on the issue of indigenous peoples communication, which can thus form a strategic tool of political influence; work to construct and implement a training plan for communicators, known as the Travelling School, which will fully respect diversity and will establish a communicator s profile with the characteristics of identity, commitment, solidarity and research capacity, with the aim of reviving culture; and to build a joint plan to lobby the forthcoming World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. However, it is important to note that the Summit organisers were strongly challenged over their inclusion of the Mexican government sector in the financing of this summit and also regarding the invitation extended to the country s President to open the proceedings, which was considered contradictory given that it is the government that has closed, harassed and persecuted various indigenous media and has not included the communicators in the sector s legislative actions. This resulted in various organisations withdrawing from the preparations and refusing to attend the event itself. 22 Notes and references 1 You can find the full article at 2 Ministry of the Interior, Programa Sectorial de Gobernación , Diario Oficial de la Federación, Mexico, 12 December 2013, p La Jornada, En febrero, iniciativa de gran calado para pueblos indígenas: Martínez Veloz, Mexico, 12 December National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL), Medición de la pobreza en México. Anexo estadístico 2012, Mexico, CONEVAL, Zolla, Carlos and Carolina Sánchez García, Pueblos indígenas e indicadores de salud en los estados del Sur-Sureste, Mexico, OPS/OMS-PUMC/UNAM, Raúl Zibechi El arte de construir un mundo nuevo: la libertad según los zapatistas, Americas Program, 29 August 2013, Arranca EZLN Congreso Nacional Indígena en defensa de territorios y autonomía de pueblos, 7 La SCJN: el premio y la paradoja, in 6 December 2013.

10 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 75 8 Permanent Court of the Peoples (TPP), Mexican Chapter, see at 9 José Ramón Cossio Díaz et al Derecho al agua y el conflicto yaqui, in Doctrina y Jurisprudencia pp , 10 Where specific quotes are not given regarding the issue of water it means that the documents can be found in the Database of Water on Indian and Black Territories of Latin America; see at 11 Jesús Robles Maloof La defensa del río Mayo por los guarijíos, at 13 August Declaration of La Sexta Chilanga, 13 Ulises Gutiérrez Ruelas, La Jornada, Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 October 2013, both notes on page Ana María García Arreola/Angélica Castro Rodríguez/Miguel Ángel Vasquez de la Rosa Informe Público Paso de la Reina, EDUCA, Oaxaca, José Luis Santillán La reconstitución de la CRAC-PC: voz a los fundadores, org/article html, 11 August See IWGIA The Indigenous World 2012, chapter on Mexico. 17 Michoacán arde, pero Cherán no at 19 November Autodefensas se expanden a 10 estados del país, afirma estudio; sólo en GRO hay al menos 20 grupos at 22 September Natalie Southwick Knights Templar Control Mexico Iron Mines Supplying China at insightcrime.org/ December 2013; Michael Lohmuller Criminal Onslaught Sees Mexico Mining Companies take to the Skies at January L. Díaz y P. Mayorga Asesinan narcos a jefes indígenas por tierras, acusan at mx, 16 November Elva Mendoza México se endeuda con 678 millones de dólares por Redd+ at info/ 16 September All related notes can be found at: enradioycomunicacionindigena.blogspot.mx José del Val is an ethnologist and teacher of social sciences. He has previously been director of the Inter-American Indigenous Institute and is currently director of the Multicultural Mexican Nation University Programme (PUMC-UNAM). Nemesio Rodríguez Mitchel.is an Argentine anthropologist specialising in the socio-environmental impacts of megaprojects on the indigenous and black regions of Latin America. He is head of the Oaxaca office of PUMC-UNAM. Carlos Zolla is a researcher in medical anthropology, indigenous peoples health and traditional medicine. He is PUMC-UNAM s research coordinator. Juan Mario Pérez Martínez is PUMC-UNAM s coordinator of communication and distribution. His areas of study relate to indigenous peoples communication processes.