STOCKHOLM STUDIES IN POLITICS 115 Department of Political Science MONOGRAPH SERIES 44 Institute of Latin American Studies IINN TTHHEE LLAANNDDSS OOFF OOLLIIGGAARRCCHHSS Ethno-Politics and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Indigenous-Peasant Movements of Guatemala and Ecuador Magnus Lembke Department of Political Science in cooperation with the Institute of Latin American Studies Stockholm University 2006 Doctoral dissertation, 2006 Department of Political Science Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm ABSTRACT Latin America is undergoing processes of ethnic politicisation. Some argue that it makes governments more responsive to calls for social justice. Others reason that ethnic discourses are used by political elites to keep prevailing power structures and draw the poor away from the battle for equality. This study also explores how the struggle for social justice – as fought by indigenous-peasant movements – has been affected by ethno-politics (the strate- gic use of ethnicity for political purposes). It uses a comparative historical socio-political approach focused on structural change and strategic agency. The point of departure is that the activity of the movements in the political arena is ultimately determined by economic and political structures. The literature tends to understand the ethnic politicisation in rela- tion to a continent-wide move from a ‘national-popular’ and ‘corporatist’ socio-political order towards political and economic liberalisation. The shift has supposedly liberated eth- nic identities that previously were blocked due to the way in which indigenous communities were ‘incorporated’ and subordinated politically. This study stresses the need to analyse ethno-politics and social justice in relation to partly enduring, partly changing oligarchic structures. The selection of Guatemala and Ecuador mainly rests on the divergent composi- tion of their oligarchic classes. While Guatemala for much of the past century was domi- nated by despotic agrarian oligarchs, the Ecuadorian oligarchy was divided into a traditional agrarian and a modernist fraction. The study shows that dramatic openings for ethnic politicisation occurred in so- cieties where corporatism had been weak and oligarchic features in relations over land and power endured. Due to the oligarchic legacies, however, the elites were unable to use eth- nicity as a tool for exercising hegemonic control. They could not prevent discourses based on class from being reproduced and those based on ethnicity from being politicised in a way that was dysfunctional to the efforts to disarm the indigenous-peasant movements politi- cally. The movements certainly acted differently. In Guatemala, the continued weight of the agrarian oligarchy made it more focused on the distribution of land and more unwilling or unable to allow itself to be fully integrated into the political arena prescribed by those in control of the state. In Ecuador, the demise of the agrarian oligarchy in the 1970s and the transfer of power to a neo-liberal fraction constituted the framework within which the movement moved away from the land struggle and towards ethno-development and pluri- national political representation. In so doing, it accessed the ethno-political spaces more firmly, but it resembled the Guatemalan movement in keeping its strategy of mass mobilisa- tion and contestation. Key words: ethno-politics, indigenous-peasant movements, oligarchic power struc- tures, political regimes, social justice, strategies, structures. © Magnus Lembke ISBN 91-7155-300-2 ISSN 0346-6620 To Moa, Måns and Madelaine CONTENTS Acknowledgments i Acronyms iii Maps vii 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Outline of the argument 5 The indigenous peasantry and its new movement 10 The agenda: Class, ethnicity, citizenship and land 17 The roots of indigenous subordination 23 Area focus and the organisation of the study 28 PART I: STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES 2. RURAL TRANSFORMATION AND OLIGARCHIC STRUCTURES 37 Political regimes 38 Populist regimes 40 Oligarchic power structures and oligarchic regime-types 44 The politico-agrarian transformation of the 1960s onwards 50 Approaches to the rise of new indigenous movements 53 Oligarchic structures and indigenous-peasant movements 57 3. INSTITUTIONALISATION, MOBILISATION AND ETHNO-POLITICS 61 The political performance of social movements 62 Ethno-politics 70 Oligarchic power structures and movement strategies 76 PART II: GUATEMALA 4. OLIGARCHIC AUTHORITARIANISM AND RURAL MOBILISATIONS 81 Coffee, land and agrarian oligarchs in Alta Verapaz 82 The first mass mobilisation phase of the rural poor 86 The oligarchic authoritarian regime-type 89 The agrarian transformation and the oligarchic structures 91 A changing balance of rural forces 93 Concluding remarks 98 5. OLIGARCHIC DEMOCRACY, NEO-LIBERALISM AND CONIC 101 Neo-liberalism and the oligarchic democratic regime 101 The resuscitation of the indigenous-peasant movement 103 Operating in the terrain of ‘legality’ 109 The struggle for land in the local stronghold of CONIC 113 Concluding remarks 123 6. ETHNO-POLITICS AND THE LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL TERRAIN 125 The openings of spaces for ethno-politics, 1994-1999 126 CONIC and the post-war struggle for land, 1996-2003 133 The local-national linkages 139 Concluding remarks 145 PART III: ECUADOR 7. OLIGARCHIC POPULISM AND RURAL MOBILISATIONS 149 Agrarian oligarchs, clergymen and Indians in Chimborazo 150 The oligarchic populist regime-type 153 Agrarian transformation and agrarian reform, 1964-1972 161 Changing oligarchic power structures, 1972-1979 165 The rise of an indigenous-peasant movement 171 Concluding remarks 177 8. FROM LAND TO POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 181 Oligarchic democratisation and neo-liberalism 182 The formation of CONAIE 185 The re-intensification of the social struggle 188 The decline of the struggle for land redistribution 193 Concluding remarks 202 9. A DECADE OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONALISATION 205 Accessing the state through party politics 206 Accessing the state by means of ethno-development 214 State access as the result of popular pressure 219 Concluding remarks 226 PART IV: CONCLUSIONS 10. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ETNO-POLITICS IN THE LANDS OF OLIGARCHS 233 References 249 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As I near completion of my eight-year-period as PhD-candidate, I conclude that its most rewarding aspect has been the presence of friends, colleagues and informants who have taken time of their often busy schedules to assist me. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my tutors Ishtiaq Ahmed and Björn Beckman for their thor- ough and constructive criticism of my often confusing drafts. Their assistance has been absolutely essential. I also thank the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University for accepting me in the PhD-programme. Within the de- partment, I have been fortunate to belong to the enthusiastic research environment of the Politics of Development Group (PODSU). Presenting parts of my manu- script in seminars and conferences arranged by PODSU has been awarded with the thoughtful comments by researchers and PhD-candidates like Eva Hansson, Henrik Angerbrandt, Lasse Lindström, Mats Wärn, Merrick Tabor and Sofie Tornhill. Within the department and PODSU, I owe special thanks to Anders Sjögren, Christina Alnevall, Diane Sainsbury, Henrik Berggren, Johan Lembke and Ulf Mörkenstam for reading early pieces of my text and providing useful advice. I have also been privileged to be part of the vivid research community of the Institute of Latin American Studies (LAIS), Stockholm University. I am grateful for the friendship, collegiality and consistent support of its staff. I owe special debt to the director, Professor Mona Rosendahl, and the research co-ordinator, Profes- sor Jaime Behar. I am also indebted to Alejandro Gonzáles, Ayako Miyako, Birgitta Genberg, Britt Johansson, Charlotta Widmark, Dag Retsö, Karin Paulsen, Margareta Björling, Maria Osorio, Mary Pinzón, Mirtha Osorio, Paulina Rytkönen, Silje Lundgren, Staffan Löfving and Thais Machado-Borges. Most of all, I bene- fited from the countless and always interesting discussions with my dear friends and supportive colleagues Akhil Malaki, Andrés Rivarola, James Wardally, José Curtó, Matilda Baraibar, Rickard Lalander and Weine Karlsson. To all of them, I extend my deep gratitude and affection. I thank Anne Cleaves for her diligent work with the language editing. My acknowledgement also goes to the Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for sponsoring my field trip to Guatemala and Ecuador in 2001. In Guatemala, I had the good fortune in 2001 to be offered a place to write in the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). I am grateful to ii René Poitevin, the director at the time, for his generous support and to Víctor Gálvez and Jorge Solares for sharing their knowledge of the Maya movement. Nor can I forget to acknowledge Olga Pérez at the San Carlos University for giving me insights in the Guatemalan social movement sector and for helping me to get in contact with other key informants. Many people in the indigenous-peasant move- ment deserve my gratitude, especially the local activist Juan Tzib with whom I travelled between the communities in the municipality of Tucurú, Alta Verapaz. In Ecuador, I would like to express my appreciation to the director of CEDIME, Jorge León, for practical help and for valuable comments on the mobili- sation of the indigenous people. I owe a debt of gratitude to Roberto Gortaire for getting