Fox Offers Bill to Expand Rights of Mexican Indians

President Vicente Fox on Tuesday submitted a bill that would dramatically expand the rights of Mexico’s indigenous people, addressing a key demand of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas state.

Adoption of the bill, Fox’s first legislative initiative, would pave the way for resumption of peace talks to end the nearly 7-year-old conflict between the government and Maya Indians in Mexico’s southernmost and poorest state.

Fox’s action sets the stage for a Senate debate on a package of sweeping constitutional amendments that would recognize political, judicial and social rights of Maya and other indigenous peoples.

Subcommander Marcos, the whimsical, pipe-smoking Zapatista leader, has said he would lead a delegation of 25 rebel commanders to Mexico City in February to argue for the legislation. It would be his first appearance in the Mexican capital since the uprising on Jan. 1, 1994.

Tuesday’s move was Fox’s second major step on the Chiapas issue. On Friday, moments after he took office, he began pulling back army troops and shutting down military roadblocks in the mountain highlands and jungle where the Zapatistas have a strong presence.

In response, Marcos on Saturday agreed to resume peace negotiations, stalled since 1996, with three conditions: adoption of an Indian rights bill, withdrawal of army troops from seven bases in Chiapas and release of all Zapatista “political prisoners.”

Fox’s bill would translate into law the San Andres accords of 1996, worked out by the rebels and a government negotiating commission but shelved by Fox’s predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo.

Passage is by no means assured. Some members of Fox’s own center-right National Action Party, or PAN, have suggested that they might oppose the bill. Part of Zedillo’s Institutional Revolutionary Party might also share the former president’s objections that the accords could violate constitutional guarantees, including women’s rights and the right to a secret individual ballot.

If the legislation does move forward, it could end a stalemate in Chiapas that has inflamed tensions and spurred periodic outbreaks of violence ever since a bloody 10-day shooting war ended in a sullen cease-fire. While the army cordon has had no trouble containing the militarily insignificant rebels, the conflict has remained an uncomfortable symbol of ethnic and class divisions in Mexico.

Most of Mexico’s nearly 100 million people are of mixed white and Indian blood, while about 10% are pure Indian, including Maya in the far south, Zapotecs in Oaxaca state and Huichol in the northern state of Chihuahua. Those indigenous peoples remain at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. Fox has created a special office in the presidency to foster Indian rights, headed by special advisor Xochitl Galvez.

Emilio Zebadua, a respected scholar who will be secretary of government in the new broad-based coalition government in Chiapas state, said in an interview that he doubted the bill will have trouble winning congressional approval.

“I think it would be an act of tremendous irresponsibility on the part of a minority if they indeed attempted to stop what seems to be the most important element in creating peace in Chiapas--and therefore in Mexico,” said Zebadua, a Chiapas native.

Zebadua said the combination of new national and Chiapas state governments committed to peace “helps create a radically different political environment in the state that contributes to resuming the dialogue. . . . The momentum in Mexico today is in favor of peace.”

Fox declared in a preface to his bill that “the legal situation of the indigenous people is still profoundly unsatisfactory, and their social condition is a matter of deep national concern.”

Luis H. Alvarez, the veteran PAN leader who is Fox’s chief negotiator on the Chiapas conflict, told reporters that the proposed constitutional amendments recognize “the autonomy of the indigenous peoples and foresee mechanisms to guarantee [they] have access to political representation, to material resources, to legal defense, to education and to protection of rights compatible with their practices and customs.”

Anticipating potential criticism, Fox stressed that the proposals were devised “without undermining national sovereignty.” He said the bill’s references to indigenous “territories” did not imply separate jurisdictions.

The bill would revise seven articles of the constitution, allowing indigenous communities to elect local authorities and exercise forms of local government according to their traditions, as long as women’s rights are respected; acquire their own media outlets; and participate with education officials in designing bilingual school systems.

In addition, the bill says indigenous judicial practices will be respected as long as they are consistent with the constitution. For example, Indian convicts could serve their sentences near their homes.

Government development plans would have to take into account indigenous peoples’ needs, and state legislatures could redraw municipal boundaries to reflect traditional Indian community lines.

Under the bill, state governments would determine what functions Indian people would control and would make funds available to carry out those functions.