The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy 9780822398301

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THE CHIAPAS REBELLION

Neil Harvey

THE CHIAPAS REBELLION The Struggle for Land and Democracy Duke University Press Durham and Lcndon I998

Fifth printing, 2005

© I998 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

00

Typeset in Carter and Cohn Galliard with Gill Sans extra bold display by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Frontispiece photograph by Neil Harvey Translation OfEZLN quotation on poster: Amid this darkness we need some tenderness to see a little light, to make duty and responsibility the orders by which we act.

This book is dedicated to Wendy, with love and thanks.

Hechos son amores) y no buenas razones.

CONTENTS

List of Tables, Maps, and Photos ix Acknowledgments xi Glossary of Acronyms xv Introduction

1

The Right to Have Rights 6 2 Colonialism, State Formation, and Resistance 36 3 Leaders and Base in the Lacandon Forest 68 4 Mobilization and Repression in Simojovel and Venustiano

Carranza 91 5 National Movements, Local Factionalism II8 6 From Plan Chiapas to the New Zapatismo 147 7 Neoliberalism and Rebellion

169

8 The Zapatista Opening 199 Conclusions 227 Appendix A; Chronology of Peasant Movements in Chiapas 243 Notes 247 Bibliography 263 Index 287

LIST OF TABLES, MAPS, AND PHOTOS

Tables 3.1. Indigenous Population in Chiapas, 1990 71 3.2. Indigenous Population in Diocese of San Cristobal de Las

Casas, 1990 72 5.1. Evolution of UNO RCA Membership, 1983-85 128 5.2. Evolution of cNPAMembership, 1979-85 134 6. I. Certificates of Nonaffectability Issued in Chiapas, 1934-87 154 7.1. The Social Sector in Chiapas, 1988 174 7.2. Land Use in the Social Sector 174 7.3. Principal Crops in the Social Sector 175 7.4. Availability ofInputs in the Social Sector 175 7.5. Distribution of Coffee Producers by Plot Size

178

7.6. Indices of Poverty in the Lacandon Forest 184

Maps I. I.

2. I.

2.2. 2.3.

3. I . 3.2. 5.1. 5.2.

6. I.

Area of the Zapatista Rebellion and Location of Chiapas in Mexico 7 Location of the Lacandon Forest, Simojovd, and Venustiano Carranza 37 Areas of Rebellion in 1712 and 1867 41 Departments ofChiapas in 19II 49 Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas 70 Area of Presence of Union de Uniones in 1980 85 National Presence of CNPA and UNORCA in 1985 130 OCEZ Zonas in 1987 140 Marques de Comillas and the Chiapas-Guatemala Border 151

x 6.2. 9.1.

List of Tables, Maps, and Photos Subregions of the Lacandon Forest 163 Chol Region and the Lacandon Forest 232

Photos Banner of OCEZ-CNPA 137 2. The CNPA protesting in the Zacalo 189 3. Zapatista soldiers at the National Democratic Convention 4. Graffiti, Tuxtla Gutierrez 213 5. Zapatista Women, Oventic, Chiapas 224 1.

206

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people have made this book possible. I would particularly like to thank: the members of the Organizacion Campesina Emiliano Zapata, the Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos, and the Union de Uniones Ejidales y Grupos Campesinos Solidarios de Chiapas for spending the time to talk with me and for offering such wonderful hospitality in their homes and communities. I would also like to thank: Walda Barrios, Antonio Mosquera, Juan Balboa, Maria Eugenia Reyes Ramos, and Andres Aubry for their invaluable help and encouragement during the initial stages of my research. Marisela GonzaJ.ez generously shared her knowledge, personal letters, and documents pertaining to the peasant movements in Chiapas, for which I am especially grateful. In Mexico, I also benefited greatly from the friendship, work, and support of Luis Hernandez, Humberto Carton de Grammont, Armando Bartra, Sergio Zermeno, Silvia Gomez Tagle, Carlos Heredia, Antonio Garda de Leon, Julio Moguel, Enrique Semo, Aida Hernandez, and Sonia Toledo. I am particularly indebted to Jan Rus and Tom Benjamin, whose comments, suggestions, and criticisms greatly improved the quality of this book. Reynolds Smith at Duke University Press has also been a constant source of encouragement and expert guidance. I also thank Sonya Manes for her excellent work in copyediting the manuscript. My interest in Mexico and Chiapas was sparked by my undergraduate professors at Portsmouth Polytechnic, particularly Gerald Martin and Tessa Cubitt. Their enthusiasm and commitment to Latin American Studies are greatly appreciated. At the University of Essex, I was fortunate to have been a graduate student of several scholars who have influenced this work, including Joe Foweraker, Ernesto Laclau, Alan Knight, and Christian Anglade. I am especially grateful to Joe Foweraker for his enthusiastic support of my work and his stimulating graduate research seminar in 1983 to 1984, where many of the ideas contained in my work first took shape.

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Acknowledgments

I acknowledge the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain, which provided funding for doctoral research in 1985 to 1987 and for postdoctoral work in Mexico in 1990 to 1992. The Nuffield Foundation provided a small grant for research in the summer of 1990. I am grateful to the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of London, particularly Leslie Bethell and Victor Bulmer-Thomas, for the opportunity to develop my work on Mexican politics as a research fellow during 1989 to 1992. I also thank Wayne Cornelius and the Center for U.S. -Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, for offering me a visiting research fellowship during 1988 to 1989. The Center's Ejido Reform Research Project has also generously provided support for fieldwork in Chiapas in 1994 and 1996. Parts of this book have been presented at various seminars, workshops, and panels organized by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. I am grateful to all those who participated in these meetings for their comments and suggestions, particularly David Myhre, Keith Pezwli, Maria Lorena Cook, Ilan Semo, Jonathan Fox, Jeffrey Rubin, Paul Haber, Juan Ramirez Saiz, Gabriel Torres, Magda Villareal, Horacio Mackinley, Kevin Middlebrook, Richard Snyder, Luin Goldring, Lynn Stephen, Rosario Pisa, Pieter de Vries, Monique Nuijten, Daniel Nugent, Sergio Zendejas, Gail Mummert, John Gledhill, and Peter Ward. I also thank Michael Redclift, Jutta Blauert, Alison MacEwen Scott, Bob Jessop, Paulo Speller, Christine Eber, Charlene Floyd, and Gil Joseph for their enthusiastic support of this project at different stages. I would also like to thank the interest shown in my work by Tom Skidmore at Brown University and Elizabeth Mahan at the University of Connecticut during 1992 to 1994 and to acknowledge the students at both universities who participated so enthUSiastically in courses on social movements in Mexico and Latin America. I learned a great deal from our interaction, and many of those classroom discussions are reflected in these pages. I am also fortunate to have found a stimulating and supportive environment at New Mexico State University. I would like to thank all the faculty, staff, and students associated with the Department of Government, particularly Nancy Baker and Bill Taggart, who generously offered their advice and guidance, and the students who contributed with their

Acknowledgments

xiii

comments to the revision of the first draft. My deep appreciation goes to Chris Halverson, as well, who created all the maps for the book. Several parts of this work have been published elsewhere. A section of chapter 5 first appeared in "The New Agrarian Movement in Mexico, 1979-90:' Research Paper 23 (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1990). Parts of chapter 7 have appeared in three separate publications: "Rebellion in Chiapas: Rural Reforms, Campesino Radicalism and the Limits to Salinismo:' pp. I -49 in The Transformation of Rural Mexico) NO.5, 2d ed. (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1994); "Rural Reforms and the Zapatista Rebellion: Chiapas, 1988- I 995:' pp. 187-208 in Neoliberalism Revisited: Economic Restructuring and Mexico)s Political Future, edited by Gerardo Otero (Boulder: Westview, 1996); "Rebellion in Chiapas: Rural Reforms and Popular Struggle" Third World Quarterly 16 (I) (1995): 39-73. Part of chapter I is also forthcoming in the journal Social Politics (Oxford University Press). I am grateful to the publishers of these books and journals for permission to reproduce sections of my work here. A great deal of encouragement has also come from my family and friends. My mother, Sheila Price, has always shown a keen interest in my studies and research. Bob Curtis has been a great source of intellectual stimulation, as well as a wonderful friend. I appreciate the support of my father-in-law, Eduardo Ontiveros Soto, and the memory of Maria Elena Ontiveros N evares. For my wife, Wendy, I give my very special thanks for her love, encouragement, and critical eye, which made this book more worthy of the people whose story it tells. I appreciate her accompaniment and help at different stages of the research, including the first interviews, which we did together in Chiapas in the summer of 1987. Our two daughters, AlheH and Jazm(n, have been a source of inspitation and wonder. Unfortunately, at this stage they associate Chiapas with their dad being somewhere far away. Hopefully, when they are old enough to read this, they will see why it had to be that way now and again. The writing of this book has been a rare privilege, not only for the story it tells, but also for the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing on the way, many of whose names I have not been able to include in these brief acknowledgments.

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

ACIEZ

ACR AEDPCH

ANAGSA ANClEZ

ANlPA

ANOCP ARlC BAN RURAL BCCH CCA CCH CCl CCRl

CCRI-CG

CDLl CDP CDP

(Chihuahua) (Durango)

CECVYM

CEOlC

CEPAL

CEPCO

CFE CIOAC

Alianza Campesina Independiente Emiliano Zapata Alianza Campesina Revolucionaria Asamblea Estatal Democratica del Pueblo Chiapaneco Aseguradora N acional Agricola y Ganadera Alianza Nacional Campesina Independiente Emiliano Zapata Asamblea Nacional Indigena Plural por la Autononu'a Asamblea Nacional Obrera Campesina Popular Asociacion Rural de Interes Colectivo Banco Nacional de Credito Rural Bloque Campesino de Chiapas Comite Comunitario de Abasto Comite Coordinador Huasteco Central Campesina Independiente Coordinadora Campesina Revolucionaria Independiente Comite Clandestino Revolucionario IndigenaComandancia General Comite de Defensa de la Libertad Indigena Comite de Defensa Popular (Chihuahua) Comite de Defensa Popular (Durango) Coalicion de Ejidos Colectivos de los Valles Yaqui yMayo Consejo Estatal de Organizaciones Indigenas y Campesinas Comision Economica para America Latina y el Caribe Coordinadora Estatal de Productores de Cafe de Oaxaca Compaiiia Federal de Electricidad Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos

xvi CLCH CNC CND CNOC CNPA CNPI CNTE COCEI CODECOA COMA CONACAR CONASUPO COFOLASA COPARMEX COPLADE COPLAMAR DAAC DPI EPR ESPAZ EZLN FCI FCP FDN FIPI FLN FNCR FNDP FOCECH FOCED FROM FPZ FZLN

Glossary of Acronyms Coordinadora de Luchas de Chiapas Confederacion Nacional Campesina Convencion N acional Democr