La Otra Frontera: Exiles, Engineering, and State Power in the Chiapan Borderlands Aaron Margolis University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected]
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University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2015-01-01 La Otra Frontera: Exiles, Engineering, and State Power in the Chiapan Borderlands Aaron Margolis University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Margolis, Aaron, "La Otra Frontera: Exiles, Engineering, and State Power in the Chiapan Borderlands" (2015). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 1094. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/1094 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LA OTRA FRONTERA: EXILES, ENGINEERING, AND STATE POWER IN THE CHIAPAN BORDERLANDS AARON MARGOLIS Department of History APPROVED: Samuel Brunk, Ph.D., Chair Sandra McGee Deutsch, Ph.D. Jeffery Shepherd, Ph.D. Guadalupe Rodríguez de Ita, Ph.D. Charles Ambler, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © By Aaron Margolis 2015 Dedication To Natalia and Sofia. LA OTRA FRONTERA: EXILES, ENGINEERING, AND STATE POWER IN THE CHIAPAN BORDERLANDS by AARON MARGOLIS, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements or the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2015 Acknowledgements I want to thank all the great faculty and the fellow students at The University of Texas at El Paso for their scholarly support. Special thanks goes my chair, Sam Brunk, for his patience in advising me through the process. Finally, thanks to my family, friends, and an infinite thank you, hug, and promise of a vacation soon to Natalia. v Abstract This dissertation examines the political, cultural, and economic history of the Chiapan borderlands from its political incorporation into the post-independence Mexican state in 1821 until the arrival of Guatemalan refugees in the 1980’s. This history is explored through the directives, interactions, and policies of officials from Mexico City as the borderlands drifted in and out of the orbit of the priorities of the changing governments of independent Mexico. A large part of the dissertation examines how the post-revolutionary Mexican state re- discovered and conceptualized the borderlands as a both a threat to national security and a potential site of energy derived from its natural resources, especially the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers. Utilizing national archives the narrative traces how the growing federal bureaucracy sought to control the borderlands through demographic commissions, increased border patrols, and finally the many arms of national security apparatus. Meanwhile, Mexican diplomats and engineers viewing the history of their interactions with the United States through optimistic lenses, sought to engage their traditional rival of Guatemala in transboundary cooperation. For decades Mexican officials presented plans for shared demarcation and management of borderland rivers to their Guatemalan counterparts, a necessary step for Mexican engineers to build planned massive hydroelectric dams on rivers that began south of the boundary line. Finally, the dissertation examines the reaction by key departments of the Mexican state, such as the military, to the arrival of thousands of Guatemalan refugees fleeing the brutal counterinsurgeny of the 1980’s. As Mexican officials sought to close the border, the influential Dioceses of San Cristobal de las Casas, led by Bishop Samuel Ruiznon-government institutions in the absence of moral state power. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................v Abstract.......................................................................................................................................vi Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................vii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..1 Historiography……………………………………………………………………...........11 Structure of the Dissertation………………………………………………………….......18 Chapter One: A Stateless Land: 1821-1882…………………………………………….........23 Post-Independence Borders and the Struggle for Chiapas………………….....................27 Coffee and Matías Romero……………………………………………………................39 Newspapers and Chiapan History………………………………………………………..50 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….67 Chapter Two: The State Approaches: Logging, Revolution, and the Demographic Commission: 1882-1956 ……………………………………………………….........................................69 Logging and the Revolution……………………………………………………………...75 Cárdenas and theBorderlands………………………………………………....................90 Controlling the Border…………………………………………………….......................99 Corruption in the Borderlands……………………………………………….................104 Guatemalan Immigration post-1950……………………………………………………108 Neglected Borderlands………………………………………………………………….110 Chapter Three: Engineers Come to the Borderlands…………………………….....................113 First Efforts: Presidential Commission on the Study of the Southern Border………….114 International Park……………………………………………………………………….119 Modus Vivendi and a Bridge over the Suchiate………………………………………..122 Managing Water………………………………………………………………..............139 Demarcation…………………………………………………………………………….141 Diplomacy, Threat of War, and the Formation of CILA……………………………….146 Dams and Energy on the Border…………………………………………………..........161 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...........170 Chapter Four: Exiles in the Borderlands: Generals, Intellectuals, and the October Revolution: 1944-1954……….…………………………………………………………...............................174 1944-1950: Protecting the Revolution………………………………………………….179 1950-1954: Árbenz, the United States, and the Coup…………………………..............191 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...............201 Chapter Five: Students, Guerrillas, and the First Wave of Revolution: 1960-1972................203 Student Problems and Border Contraband……………………………………………...208 Gaspar Ilom and the End of the First Wave …………………………………….............220 The Kidnapped Hunters…………………………………………………………….......223 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...........228 Chapter Six: Guerrillas, Refugees, and the Church…………………………………………230 The Guerrilla Army of the Poor and the Second Wave of Insurgency…………............233 A Guatemala Supported Revolution in the Chiapan Borderlands…………………….....237 Scorched Earth and Refugees…………………………………………………………...241 The Church and Chiapas………………………………………………………………..245 The Church, Refugees, and National Security………………………………….……....250 vii Arrival…………………………………………………………………………………..252 National Security and State Control…………………….………………………........... 256 Campeche and Quintana Roo…………………………………………………………...263 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...270 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...273 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………283 Vita………………………………………………………………………………………...300 viii Introduction: Glimpses of the Chiapan Borderlands Mexico’s southern border stretches for seven hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic; the Chiapan borderlands comprise four hundred of those miles. Most of the border, like its northern counterpart, is defined by water. The Suchiate river plays the role of the Rio Grande, the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers those of the Colorado and Tijuana. Starting from the Pacific, and going against the current, the Suchiate runs east past the Chiapan borderland’s most populous region, Soconusco. It passes by refurbished German coffee plantations now part of heritage tours and carries the brisk illegal exchange of people and goods back and forth between Guatemala and Mexico on pieced-together homemade lanchas that threaten to disintegrate into the water. The Suchiate then heads northeast, moving under recently completed bridges connecting towns with dueling nationalistic names, such as Tecún Umán, Guatemala and Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico. The Suchiate then rises into the Sierra Madre of Chiapas. There the Tacaná Volcano, the source of the Suchiate, marks the northern end of an active range of peaks stretching south into Guatemala. As the border continues east, the high peaks of the Sierra Madre descend into the cattle-grazing plains of the region known as La Mesilla; the markets of the main urban center, the city of Comitán, attract Guatemalan and Mexican traders. 1 The plains stop at the Lacandon Jungle. For years the jungle remained a blank spot on the map, home to countless plants and animals, Mayan temples, and the decayed remnants of the hastily built structures of the nineteenth-century loggers and chicleros who braved its isolation in the pursuit of riches. 1 In 1915 the city changed its name to Comitán de Domínguez to honor its native son, the revolutionary martyr Belisario Domínguez. Elected to the Senate in 1912, his public speeches denouncing President Victoriano Huerta caused his death at the hands of Huerta henchmen, on October 13, 1913. The text reflects the common usage in the region and refers to the city simply as Comitán. 1 Figure 1“Mapas geográficos.” Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, Accessed March 19, 2015 http://www.chiapas.gob.mx/mapas/#territoriales These Chiapan borderlands are relatively new. Guatemala only officially