Remunicipalization in Chiapas

REMUNICIPALIZATION IN CHIAPAS POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL IN TIMES OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY Edited by Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor Foreword by Armando Bartra – Translated by Tim Trench Chapters by Sonia Toledo, Araceli Burguete, Jaime Torres, Xochitl Leyva, Luis Rodríguez, Neil Harvey, María del Carmen García and Jesús Solís 1. 1. REMUNICIPALIZATION IN CHIAPAS POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL IN TIMES OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY Edited by Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor Foreword by Armando Bartra Translated by Tim Trench Chapters by Sonia Toledo, Araceli Burguete, Jaime Torres, Xochitl Leyva, Luis Rodríguez, Neil Harvey, María del Carmen García and Jesús Solís REMUNICIPALIZATION IN CHIAPAS: POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL IN TIMES OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY Editors: Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor Foreword: Armando Bartra English translation: Tim Trench With the collaborations of: Sonia Toledo, Jaime Torres, Luis Rodríguez, Neil Harvey, María del Carmen García and Jesús Solis Editing and proofreading: Diana Vinding, Xochitl Leyva and Tim Trench Cover, typesetting: Jorge Monrás Cover painting titled: “Feeding the Universe” by © Juan Chawuk E-mail: [email protected] – Facebook: Juan Chawuk Copyright: © Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, CIESAS 2011. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-607-486-152-5 Printed in Mexico City First edition (September 2007): La remunicipalización de Chiapas. Lo político y la políti- ca en tiempos de contrainsurgencia. Edited by Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Bur- guete Cal y Mayor. México City: CIESAS, Editorial Miguel Angel Porrúa, and Cá- mara de Diputados-LX Legislatura “Colección Conocer para decidir”. Distributors: Mexico: CIESAS, Juárez 87, Colonia Tlalpan, 14000, México City – www.ciesas.edu.mx Europe: IWGIA, Classensgade 11E, DK Copenhagen 2100 – www.iwgia.org North America: Transaction Publishers, 390 Campus Drive, Somerset, New Jersey 08873 – www.transactionpub.com CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES Y ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES EN ANTROPOLOGIA SOCIAL Calle Juárez 87, Col. Tlalpan, Del. Tlalpan C.P.: 14000, Mexico, D.F. Tel: (55) 54 87 36 00 - Fax: (55) 54 87 36 43 E-mail: [email protected] - Web: www.ciesas.edu.mx INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS Classensgade 11 E, DK 2100 - Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: (45) 35 27 05 00 - Fax: (45) 35 27 05 07 E-mail: [email protected] - Web: www.iwgia.org Table of Contents Preface to the English Translation Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor .....................................8 Foreword Armando Bartra ....................................................................................................12 Introduction Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor ...................................26 Chapter 1 Remunicipalization in Chiapas: Between Peace and Counter-Insurgency Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor and Xochitl Leyva Solano ...................................36 Chapter 2 San Andrés Duraznal: The Political Game of Remunicipalization Sonia Toledo Tello ..................................................................................................48 Chapter 3 Aldama: Disputes over the Restoration of a Municipality Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor and Jaime Torres Burguete ..................................76 Chapter 4 Remunicipalization in Santiago El Pinar: A Limited Empowerment Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor and Jaime Torres Burguete ................................104 Chapter 5 Disputed Spaces and Clientelistic Networks in the Formation of the Municipality of Maravilla Tenejapa Xochitl Leyva Solano and Luis Rodríguez Castillo ............................................128 Chapter 6 Marqués de Comillas and Benemérito de las Américas: Local Responses to Remunicipalization Neil Harvey .........................................................................................................160 Chapter 7 Montecristo de Guerrero: The Unsettled Business of Remunicipalization María del Carmen García and Jesús Solís Cruz .................................................190 Chapter 8 An Overview Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor .................................220 Bibliography .............................................................................................................230 About the Contributors ............................................................................................248 Abbreviations and Acronyms .................................................................................251 8 REMUNICIPALIZATION IN CHIAPAS: POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL IN TIMES OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY Preface to the English Translation Xochitl Leyva Solano and Araceli Burguete Cal y Mayor he book that you have in your hands has been slow to reach maturity. The Tfieldwork began back in July 2000 and went into 2001. Later came the writing up of the different chapters, and the revision and review stages, which took us up to October 2005. The manuscript then found a place in a collection edited by the Mexican Chamber of Deputies called Conocer para Decidir (Knowledge for Taking Decisions), and was eventually published in Spanish in 2007 (Leyva and Bur- guete 2007). In 2011, we managed to publish this version in English thanks to a translation done by our colleague Tim Trench, as well as the editorial support of the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). The principal reason that moved us to publish this work in English was to share a collective piece of research that details historically how and why state-led counter- insurgent policies resonate with certain local groups. The first question that a reader might ask is: What national or international relevance could such a study have that deals with a “remunicipalization program” carried out in the context of a political and military conflict, an unfinished peace process and a severely questioned democracy? The reader will no doubt make up his or her own mind, but we would like to think that by placing the histories and interpretations of local actors at the foreground of the story, we manage to go beyond government discourse and practices and open up a privileged space for thinking collectively about the Mexican political system and key issues such as institutional design, corporatism and client networks and civic participation and electoral rights, as well as “municipal development”. All this was very relevant in 2007 because as a country we had just been through a very controversial electoral process in which the difference between the official “winner” and the official “loser” was half a percent. The problem did not lie so much with the narrow margin, but with the countless irregularities that the different parties tried to draw attention to, appealing to the respective institutions. All this stirred up considerable inconformity and led to a severe question- ing of the party system and of the institutions charged with upholding electoral democracy. It was in this context that this work was first published in Spanish, PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION 9 deconstructing and revealing the ways in which the Mexican political system worked on local, regional and state levels. But the contributions of this collective work do not end there. There is another aspect that perhaps in 2011 seems a little further away than in 2007 but neverthe- less remains relevant: the peace accords that the Mexican government committed itself to, before the nation and the Ejército Nacional de Liberación Nacional (Zapa- tista Army of National Liberation – EZLN). Part of this history is included in the book, obviously taking “remunicipalization” as the thread, and we show how it represented a fundamental element of the counter-insurgent policies deployed by the Mexican government against indigenous autonomy (Zapatista as well as the independent indigenous peasant movement in general) in Chiapas at the end of the twentieth century. The government remunicipalization offer, made by the first Peace Commissioner after the 1994 Zapatista armed uprising, opened up many possibilities and multiple demands emerged for the creation of new municipalities or the restoration of municipal status in those cases where it had been lost for some reason. This restoration of municipal powers was what became known in the local political jargon as “remunicipalization”. This term (“remunicipalization”) soon became a political touchstone for the national indigenous movement, but it acquired different meanings in the context of Chiapas after the armed uprising. Thus, while in other states in the country (such as Guerrero, Michoacán and Veracruz) the demand for remunicipalization was deployed by indigenous organizations with a view to self-determination, local self- government and had an autonomous character, in Chiapas, as we shall see in this book, the opposite occurred. This is why the EZLN systematically rejected the government proposal to create new municipalities, clearly understanding it as a government policy that contained counter-insurgent strategies aimed at the Zapatista de facto autonomy proposals. Despite the Zapatista rejection, the remunicipalization offer was taken to the negotiations that took place in San Andrés Larráinzar, ending up as part of the “commitment between the parties” in the San Andrés Accords that were signed in February 1996 between the Mexican government and the EZLN. Counter-Insurgency

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