Activist Tells of Struggle in Mexico

For Rosario Ibarra, one of Mexico’s most prominent human rights activists, the struggle for a better life among indigenous people in her country knows no boundaries.

On Saturday, the fiery 71-year-old former member of the Mexican Senate spoke at Loyola Law School, urging support of a plebiscite in her country sponsored by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. The measure to be put before voters demands better treatment of the impoverished and largely Maya population of Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state.

“In what country of the world is there not poor people who can understand the demands of the Zapatistas?” asked Ibarra, who has become an international emissary for the rebel movement. “Demands that deal with hunger and poverty are universal.”

Zapatista guerrillas focused international attention on long-standing issues of poverty and repression in Chiapas when they launched a bloody, two-week uprising on New Year’s Day 1994.

The plebiscite, or consulta as it is called in Mexico, will be held across that country March 21. The vote will not be binding but is meant to express the will of the population and pressure the Mexican government to honor a 1996 agreement signed by government and Zapatista negotiators, supporters say.

Among the provisions of that accord, known as the San Andres agreements, was the creation of autonomous indigenous villages in Chiapas.

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo has rejected the agreement, in part because he said it threatened the integrity of the Mexican state. Officials at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles could not be reached Saturday for comment.

But until Mexico honors the accord, the country cannot call itself a true democracy, Ibarra told more than 100 supporters who came to hear her speak. The fight for indigenous rights, she said, is just one more step in Mexico’s long and sometimes tumultuous history.

“This struggle for democracy goes a long way back. It is tied to the Mexican Revolution [of 1910], and it continues today with workers in every field of the country,” said Ibarra, who became politically active after her son disappeared when Mexican security forces arrested him in 1975. “Whoever thinks we have democracy in Mexico does not know the truth.”