Autonomy for Mexican Indians OKd

The Mexican Congress on Saturday overwhelmingly approved broad constitutional reforms granting autonomy and other rights to millions of indigenous people, although last-minute changes to the measure raised doubts that it will satisfy Indian rebels in Chiapas state.

The lower Chamber of Deputies voted 386 to 60 in favor of the reform package three days after the Senate unanimously approved the bill. The vote, which ended the frenetic legislative debate that ensued after President Vicente Fox put the issue of Indian rights back on the table last December, came a full five years after negotiators first agreed to grant Indians greater rights and thus resolve the Chiapas conflict.

The constitutional reforms still need to be ratified by a simple majority of Mexico’s 32 states, although their approval is considered likely. But anger over the legislature’s changes to the original proposal could generate considerable protests along the way.

A key question will be the reaction of the Zapatista rebels of Chiapas, who had made approval of Indian rights a key condition for resuming negotiations that could formally end the rebellion in Mexico’s poorest and southernmost state.

The rebels staged a brief shooting war in January 1994 before agreeing to a cease-fire that has been punctuated by periodic violence. They mounted a 16-day caravan from Chiapas to Mexico City last month to pressure Congress to adopt the reform, concluding with a dramatic appearance by the masked guerrillas in the same chamber where Saturday’s vote occurred.

Rebel leader Subcommander Marcos has said the Zapatistas would not accept changes to the substance of the bill submitted by Fox a few days after his Dec. 1 inauguration. Marcos returned to his jungle stronghold and did not comment immediately Saturday on the reforms approved by Congress.

The original bill embodied a February 1996 agreement between the rebels and congressional negotiators, known as the San Andres accord. Fox’s predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, refused to submit legislation to enact the accord, fearing that the autonomy it grants could balkanize the nation and undermine individual rights.

The constitutional reforms could have consequences far beyond Chiapas, reshaping the relationship between the state and the nation’s 62 indigenous groups, who account for about 10% of Mexico’s nearly 100 million people.

“The reform opens a new phase in the new Mexico,” said Deputy Jose Feliciano Moo y Can, a Maya deputy from the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which joined Fox’s National Action Party in approving the measure. “It permits Mexican society to address the inequalities that exist by recognizing autonomy for indigenous people in the constitution and giving us the capacity to govern ourselves.”

The new rights of autonomy and self-determination for indigenous peoples include the power to:

* Decide on forms of “social, economic, political and cultural organization.”

* Apply the community’s norms in resolving conflicts, as long as other rights in the constitution such as the dignity of women are not violated.

* Elect authorities by traditional customs, such as open community assembly, rather than by secret ballot, the norm in Mexico.

* Enjoy the preferential use of natural resources in indigenous groups’ territory.

* Preserve and promote indigenous language and culture.

The legislation also contains a ban on discrimination that could have ramifications well beyond the indigenous communities in areas such as gender and age bias.

However, changes made by the Senate to the original proposal sparked controversy at the last minute and deprived the legislation of the unanimous approval that would have virtually guaranteed its acceptance by the Zapatistas. While the changes are in some cases technical and their impact difficult to assess, the fact that the original proposal was tinkered with at all raised hackles among hard-liners.

The Senate added a clause saying state legislatures will be responsible for adopting laws that recognize Indian peoples, based on ethno-linguistic criteria and physical location. Opponents argued that states should have no authority over defining indigenous peoples and that this provision would limit the capacity of the larger Indian groups, which often span several states, to win integral recognition of their entire multi-state territory.

The Senate also limited the right to exploit collectively the natural resources in indigenous territories, saying such use must respect other people’s private property rights within Indian areas.

This change was applauded by those who had worried that Indian autonomy could end up trampling the rights of non-Indians who live in heavily Indian areas.

The left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, endorsed the bill in the final Senate vote Wednesday, giving it unanimous approval in the upper chamber. But as objections mounted from pro-Zapatista groups, the PRD unsuccessfully sought to have the lower chamber postpone its vote to allow time for a compromise.

Even Marcos Matias, the Fox-appointed director of the National Indigenous Institute, came out against the bill Friday, saying that “the changes reflect neither the essence nor the spirit” of the 1996 agreement that the bill attempted to embody.

Hector Sanchez Lopez, an Indian from Oaxaca state and a PRD deputy, argued that the revised bill “does not offer the recognition that the indigenous people are demanding. Everything is left to secondary laws and the state governments.”

Sanchez tied a black ribbon around the microphone when he addressed the chamber to oppose the bill, saying: “With this measure, we kill the aspirations of millions of indigenous people. The word ‘indigenous’ is in mourning.”

But the next speaker, Arturo Escobar y Vega from the pro-Fox Environmental Party, tied a green ribbon above the black one, saying, “I believe we are celebrating a day of hope for Mexico’s Indian people.”