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May 1, 2001
Narco News 2001
Narco News 2001Mobilizations
Planned May 1 in Mexico
Indigenous
Manifesto
Indigenous
National Congress Speaks
FIRST OF MAY, 2001
WHEREAS, that 509 years of history have meant exploitation, discrimination and poverty for our first peoples; and that the Mexican Nation, born of our seed and of our hearts, has been built by the powerful, denying our existence and denying our supreme right to walk our own path, without eliminating the country founded with our blood.
REMEMBERING, that the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture, signed on February 16, 1996, correspond only to the First Table of Dialogue between the Federal Government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and are promises and proposals joined together that both parties agreed to in order to guarantee a new relation between the indigenous peoples of the country, of Society and of the State. And that these proposals together, that were sent to the places of national debate and decision, were collected by the Concord and Peace Commission (COCOPA) - constituted by legislators from the different national political parties - in a bill that was presented as the Constitutional Reform Initiative. And that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) accepted them, as did the Indigenous National Congress, on November 29, 1996, not without noting the omissions it presented but recognizing it as the first step toward constitutional recognition of our rights.
RECOGNIZING, that the San Andrés Accords, as well as their legislative and constitutional interpretations that are expressed in the Constitutional Reform Initiative elaborated by the Concord and Peace Commission (COCOPA), reflect the majority consensus of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, of the government, and of national society on the issue of indigenous rights and culture.
CONSIDERING, that the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture, according to the COCOPA initiative, as part of the three signals demanded by the EZLN, is the firm step toward the construction of a just and dignified peace in Chiapas.
CONSIDERING, that the march of the 1,111 Zapatistas to Mexico City in September 1997, and the results of the National Consultation on Indigenous Rights and Culture realized in March 1999, ratified the national consensus represented by the San Andrés Accords and the Constitutional Reform Initiative elaborated by the COCOPA.
REMEMBERING, that our peoples, convened and reunited in the Third Indigenous National Congress realized in Nurío, Michoacán, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th days of March of this year, agreed unanimously to demand: the constitutional recognition of the rights of the indigenous peoples, consistent with the COCOPA initiative; the constitutional recognition of our inalienable right to free determination, expressed through autonomy as part of the Mexican State; and the constitutional recognition of our territories and ancestral lands that represent the totality of our habitat where we reproduce our material and spiritual existence as peoples.
OBSERVING, that the International Treaty of Civil and Political Rights, like the International Treaty of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both binding upon the Supreme Law of our country, establish that all peoples have the right to free determination and that by virtue of this right freely establish their political condition and provide at the same time for their economic, social and cultural development.
OBSERVING, at the same time, that Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (OIT) on Indian and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, also binding upon the Supreme Law of Mexico according to our living constitution, establishes the right of our peoples to assume control of their own institutions, forms of life, and economic development, and to maintain and strengthen their identities, languages, territories and natural resources within the law of the State in which they live.
DENOUNCING, that once more our word and our sense has only been used to for the mockery and cruelty of the powerful; that the first voice of our peoples and the majority voice of Mexican society expressed during February, March and April of the year 2001 in the March for Indigenous Dignity led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation is not listened to by those who say they are the depositories of the popular will; that the political and economic interests who control power try, once again, to impose upon the very first peoples of these lands, of our towns, of the Indigenous peoples, who stand last in line without being recognized for their fundamental rights, who are prisoners of looting, ethnocide and the forced integration of our nation outside of our history and our common sense, that today they try to take everything from everyone.
THE PEOPLES, COMMUNITIES AND ORGANIZATIONS THAT BELONG TO THE INDIGENOUS NATIONAL CONGRESS STATE THAT:
FIRST: We reject absolutely the Initiative of Indigenous Law approved by the Congress of the Union, because it not only violates the popular will and is unconstitutional, but also is profoundly regressive in disowning fundamental rights of our peoples, granted by the same Constitution, as well as the international treaties, pacts and agreements that Mexico has adopted and that are binding upon the Supreme Law in agreement with our living Constitution. In particular, the approved initiative incorporates in a partial and distorted form some concepts and rights guaranteed by Convention 169 of the OIT, and omits many others that are fundamental.
SECOND: The Indigenous Law Bill approved by those who say they represent the popular will does not incorporate the spirit nor the letter of the San Andrés Accords and it substantially changes the Constitutional Reform Initiative elaborated by the COCOPA, signaling that the recognition of indigenous peoples and communities will be made in the laws and constitutions of the states, a situation that, in reality, implies that constitutional recognition of our peoples and their rights will not be recognized. The approved initiative represents an obstacle to renewing the dialogue between the Federal Government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation with the goal of constructing a just and dignified peace. The vote of the legislators was not a vote for peace.
THIRD: This constitutional counter-reform represents a mockery of our peoples and a major affront to Mexican society, who decided to back our just cause, because it leaves in the hands of the Federal States the definition of indigenous autonomy and the mechanisms for its realization, nullifying our rights of free determination expressed by autonomy inside the law of the Mexican State and the aspirations of our peoples for their plain recognition.
FOURTH: The initiative approved reduces the application of our autonomous rights to the municipal level. It does not resolve our access to, and administration of, municipal resources that correspond to our peoples, nor does it make possible the construction of authentic indigenous municipal reservations.
FIFTH: The constitutional counter-reform delivers to indigenous communities, in the form of charity and pity, the character of a state of public interest and not of public rights as was established in the COCOPA initiative so that, inside the structure of the State and being plainly recognized for its standing, those municipalities that recognize their belonging to an indigenous people can associate freely between themselves with the goal of coordinating their actions of free determination by the indigenous peoples at each of the levels that give value to their autonomy, in agreement with particular and specific circumstances of each federal state.
SIXTH:
In the approved initiative, the possibility of redistricting
the territories inhabited by indigenous peoples is omitted, and
that fact - that the territorial reorganization of districts,
with the goal of propitiating the political participation by
indigenous peoples - is left in a non-binding article of law
and does not accomplish that, but rather affirms the illusory
and regressive character of the imposed constitutional reform.
SEVENTH: The initiative that the Congress of the Union approved
ignores, relative to the territories of our peoples, the legal
right already established by Convention 169 of the OIT, and doesn't
recognize our lands and territories in agreement with the concepts
stated by that Convention. The term "territories" is
grossly substituted by that of "places," and we remain
denied the immediate physical space to exercise our autonomy
and the material and spiritual reproduction of our existence.
EIGHTH: The Indigenous Law that today they try to impose upon our peoples and society reaffirms the individualist concept that inspired the counter-reform of Article 27 of the Constitution in 1992 and is expressed just the same, now that it doesn't recognize the CONSTITUTIONAL right that we have to decide collectively the use and enjoyment of the natural resources that are found in our lands and territories. To the contrary, it restricts, regressively, this exclusive right that we have. And it turns it into a simple right of preference, already limited by the forms and norms of property and tenancy of the land already established by the Constitution and by the rights that have been acquired - generally, through illegal means - by third parties over our peoples. We have demanded the recognition of the right that we have to access the natural resources that are found in the entire habitat that the peoples occupy. And the legislators, to the contrary, decide to reduce rights that we have historically already won, in fact and in law, through ancient titles and agrarian resolutions and with the sweat and blood of our ancestors.
NINTH: The initiative approved, in contradiction to the format of dialogue established between the Federal Government and the EZLN, tries to dodge the agrarian question in the same terms that Article 27 of the current Constitution does, without considering the grand opposition by our peoples to the reform of that Article and forgetting that the agrarian theme must be discussed in the Table of Dialogue together with the theme of Well-Being and Development.
TENTH: At the same time, the Indigenous Law establishes a part "B" in the Second Constitutional Article that, beyond not corresponding its content to an appropriate constitutional text, reproduces the indigenist policies of ethnocide that the Mexican State has historically applied, signaling a series of aid policies that the legislators, in authoritarian form, have supposed will serve our peoples, being that our demand is the effective recognition of the indigenous peoples so that they can define their own development priorities.
ELEVENTH: Today, like yesterday, we say: Never Again a Mexico Without Us!
Never again will the voice of the indigenous peoples be silent before injustice!
In this national hour, we ratify and strengthen this cry against the new aggression that this recent constitutional counter-reform signifies. We will make everyone see that a true Mexico, just and dignified, will exist only when the rights of our people are plainly recognized.
For all that has been said, WE CALL:
To all the indigenous peoples, communities and organizations of the country to unite with our belief, our paths and our voice with the goal of demanding the constitutional recognition of our rights in agreement with the COCOPA initiative, and TO ORGANIZE FROM EVERY CORNER OF THE COUNTRY THE MOBILIZATION AND RESISTANCE AGAINST THE NEW MOCKERY BY THE FEW THAT CONTROL POWER IN THIS COUNTRY AND WHO HAVE KIDNAPPED THE CONGRESS OF THE UNION AND THE WILL OF THE NATION THROUGH THE MOST REACTIONARY POSITIONS THAT EXIST IN OUR COUNTRY, REPRESENTED BY DIEGO FERNANDEZ DE CEVALLOS AND MANUEL BARTLETT. WE CALL FOR THE EXERCISE OF POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY THAT ARTICLE 39 OF THE CONSTITUTION DELIVERED TO US, NOW THAT THE CURRENT LEGAL ORDER HAS VISIBLY BEEN OVERTHROWN THROUGH THE APPROVED UNCONSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVE.
WE WILL UTILIZE ALL EXISTING LEGAL, NATIONAL
AND INTERNATIONAL MEANS: SO THAT THE VOICE AND THE PRESENCE OF
THE VERY FIRST PEOPLES, THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, IS LISTENED TO
AND IS FELT BY THE ENTIRE NATION.
To the workers of the town and the city and to the entire Mexican
people, to organize a mass national movement that brings us to
the unity of action and at the same time permits us to construct
consensus and overcome weaknesses with the goal of achieving
the constitutional recognition of the rights of our peoples and
the cancellation of the neoliberal policies that today destroy
the entire nation.
Mexico City
May 1, 2001
NEVER MORE A MEXICO WITHOUT US!
FOR THE INTEGRAL RECONSTITUTION OF OUR PEOPLES!
INDIGENOUS NATIONAL CONGRESS
April 27 Communique of CNI
CONGRESO NACIONAL INDÍGENA
CONGRESO NACIONAL INDÍGENA
TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, COMMUNITIES
AND ORGANIZATIONS OF MEXICO.
TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY.
TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS.
Mexico City, April 27, 2001
In compliance with the resolutions and agreements of the 3rd Indigenous National Congress realized in Nurío, Michoacán on March 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and the session of the CNI coordinating committee on April 21st of this year, all the indigenous peoples of Mexico are convened to mobilize and realize actions of civil resistance this Tuesday, May 1, together with the workers and the people in general in every state of the nation.
Whereas the Legislative Branch (Senators and Deputies) represent the will of the Mexican people, we demand of the different factions and the political parties the strict respect to the original edit of the Initiative of Constitutional Reforms elaborated by the COCOPA.
The indigenous law approved by the Senate eliminates substantial parts of the COCOPA intitiative, such as: recognition of indigenous territories; the use and collective enjoyment of the natural resources in those territories and the possibility of associations of indigenous communities and municipalities.
The indigenous law approved by the Senate of the Republic reduces indigenous autonomy to the municipal level and passes the recognition of the indigenous peoples to the State constitutions and laws, nullifying their constitutional protection.
This law legitimizes the strategy of ethnocide that historically has been expressed in the indigenous policies of the Mexican State.
Because of that we express our rejection of the Indigenous Material Bill approved by the Senate of the Republic last April 25th, and sent to the House of Deputies for their revision on the 26th, because it does not correspond what the federal government and the EZLN signed in San Andrés SakamChem de los Pobres, Chiapas, in October 1996, and embodied in the Initiative of Constitutional Reforms presented by the COCOPA in November of that year.
At the same time, we demand the passage of the COCOPA initiative - and not a different one - on the part of the Legislative Branch (House of Deputies and Senate of the Republic) and by the local congresses, to be elevated to a Constitutional Amendment, as part of the three signals demanded by the EZLN and the CNI for the renewal of dialogue.
Upon complying with these three signals a space will be given for the next steps that permit arriving at a peace with justice and dignity. That this is clear: not before.
Coordinating Commission
Indigenous National Congress
Never Again a Mexico
Without Us
