IV.
MEXICO

Source: Yves Materne, ed., The Indian Awakening in Latin America (New York: Friendship Press, 1980, 113-127).

THE FIRST INDIAN CONGRESS

At the time of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Brother Bartolome de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican, bishop of San Cristobal (State of Chiapas) and protector of the Indians, the First Indian Congress of Mexico took place. It was held at San Cristobal de Las Casas from October 13 to 16, 1974, and included the participation of several hundred Indians, mostly of Mayan origin (600 Ts'eltals, 400 Tzotzils, 150 Tojolab'als and 200 Ch'ols) as well as of 300 whites (including the governor of the State of Chiapas, some journalists, missionaries and anthropologists). The meeting was placed under the auspices of the Mexican Government and of the "Brother Bartolome de las Casas Committee."

1. OPENING ADDRESS: A Summary of the Life of Bartolome de las Casas (by a Young Tzotzfl)

Bartolome de las Casas was born in Seville, across the sea, in 1474. He was bishop here in the city of San Cristobal.

First there came to these shores a gentleman named Christopher Columbus. After crossing the sea, he saw many Indians, was well impressed with our customs and the good earth of the elders. He went back to tell his friends who lived on the other side of the sea. He told them the land was good.

In those days our elders had good organizations. They had doctors, engineers, lawyers, builders. They had the authorities that we wanted.

Friar Bartolome de las Casas saw that what his companions were doing was very evil and began to defend the Indians. He did so because, even though we too are Indians, we are Christians just as much as we are Indians and Caxlans. Since there were a lot of ladinos, they even tried to kill Friar Bartolome because he defended us.

It was right here in San Cristobal de Las Casas that Friar Bartolome made his defense of the Indian. I think we all know that church which stands next to Santo Domingo above the labor union office; that was where Friar Bartolome said mass.

For us Indians the time has come to begin to reflect whether we really have the freedom that Friar Bartolome de las Casas left us. Why do we who are Tzotzil, Ts'eltal, Tojolab'al and Ch'ol Indians live in the mountainous regions while all the ladinos live in the city and possess fine farmhouses and lands? But if we want to demand a right or claim our land, we cannot. They have done away with our old organization. That is why they now designate our authorities for us, even at the federal level. In Chamula, for example, they put us in jail for defending our right to elect our municipal chairman. The authorities send soldiers to scare us. That is also why there are troubles with the plantation owners, as in Altamirano, where the Indians' houses were burned down by the soldiers merely because they asked for land. There are conflicts because our customs are not respected. The authority is not as we desire it. Where, then, is the freedom that Friar Bartolome left us?

For 500 years we have been suffering injustice, and it still goes on. Injustices continue to beset us. They always want to manipulate us like animals because we are Indians. Or they think we have no rights.

My friends, Friar Bartolome is no longer living today. We are holding this congress in his name, but he has died and we can no longer hope for another like him. Who will defend us against injustice and secure our freedom? I do not think the ladinos are going to defend us. The government? Maybe yes, maybe no. Then who will defend us?

I believe that if we Indians all organize ourselves we will achieve freedom and do our work better. We all have to be Friar Bartolome. Then through a common organization we will all defend ourselves. For in union there is strength.

II. RESOLUTIONS

A. The Land. A Common Vision.

1. The Problems

Our four Indian groups-Tzotzils, Ts'eltals, Tojolab'als and Ch'ols-do not have enough land. In general our Indian lands are the worst lands. The problem is growing worse, because what little land we have must be divided more and more to provide for our descendants. From one hectare (2.47 acres) we are left with only a few furrows.

Add to this the ignorance that prevails on farming matters and the Agrarian Reform Law, as well as the lack of economic resources.

Our four groups demand enough land to be able to live, and the agricultural education necessary to maintain and profitably use our holdings.

Problems Peculiar to the Indians a) Institutional Oppression by the Agrarian Agencies

We are victims of exploitation and deception on the part of some officials of the DAAC, the Mixed Agrarian Commission, SAG, and the judges and agents of the federal bureaucracy. They demand of us large fees for the smallest service. Especially the surveyors. And they always favor the one who pays the most, not the one who is right.

We suffer also from the bureaucratic slowness that makes us lose much more time and money. The worst of it is that. many of our Indian officials follow their bad examples and themselves engage in exploitation within our own communities.

b) Daily Oppression by the Big Landowners

Our lands are invaded by the big landowners and despoiled by them. We become slaves of the landowners, who for our daily work, when they feel like it, pay us hunger-level wages. For example, they may pay us 3.50 pesos a week and be in arrears as much as 40 weeks in paying us for our work. Sometimes they pay us with liquor, which we consume more and more until we fall further into debt. On loans we have to pay interest up to 100 percent for seven months.

The big landowners use force and commit crimes to get their way with us, because they know very well that they will never be punished. They freely dispense the money with which they can buy themselves right and innocence.

Since we cannot do very much against these forms of oppression, we act as though only some of us do wrong, causing the number of land disputes between. our communities to increase more and more. But if the problem is not only ours but also the government's and the landowners', then surely that is where the solution must be.

2. Agreements About the Land

We are in full agreement with what the Governor said concerning our customs and his support in solving our land, commerce, education and health problems. We also agree with what he said about our being free to seek out the road that suits us best.

We see that his government is moving in a favorable direction, since we now have more freedom to discuss our problems, and we see that it is more interested than its predecessors in cooperating in our material projects.

a) The Land Is His Who Works It

1. We all want to solve the land problems but we are divided, everyone going his own way, so we feel powerless. To gain power we must get organized in all our groups, for in union there is strength. We are going to communicate the things we have talked about in this congress to our comrades who are not yet aware of what is happening with our Indian movement.

2. We demand the return of the communal lands that were taken away from our forebears.

3. The employees of the Agrarian Department must settle quickly the cases now pending. We demand an end to the extortion by engineers, regional administrators and forest rangers.

4. There should be a branch office of the Agrarian Department in San Cristobal to deal with our farm matters. Members of our four Indian groups should work there. Most importantly, the office should have full authority to settle our agrarian questions.

5. The problem of the Tulilja dam must be resolved fairly, taking our interests into account.

6. Indians who work on the farmlands and in the cities should be paid the minimum wage, and they should receive all the allowances required by the law.

7. Unfertile lands should not be taxed. Taxes should be fair.

8. We demand that the government should not use the army to settle our problems. Let the problems be settled with the community, not the army.

b) Tzotzils

1. Everyone wants the land problems straightened out.

2. But organization is necessary.

3. An organization by and for the Tzotzils themselves.

4. An organization that includes all the groups so that it will be strong.

5. An Indian agent should be named who truly helps us.

c) Ts'eltals

1. We all demand that the land be returned to the Indians.

2. There must be an organization of all the groups so it is strong.

3. All the groups should be represented.

4. Our organization should be continued after this congress.

1. We know that we are not yet strong enough to get anywhere.

2. Our comrades who are not yet familiar with this movement must be informed.

3. First of all, we must get organized.

2. We must unite with other groups to gain strength.

3. The Tulilja dam should not be built, since it would destroy the best farm land.

B. Commerce

a) Exploitation Through Prices

-The Indian peasant works hard and is always exploited, selling his products cheap and buying them at high prices. Thus the merchant gets both our money and our labor. (All groups)

-For us the traders and the monopolies are a great scourge. (All)

-Commercial exploitation extends from small things to large and valuable ones. We are always at a disadvantage. (All)

-The "middle-men" seize control of our products in the markets and on the highways and pay whatever they want to. (All)

-The hog buyers cheat us, for example, buying the animals from us at a very low price and filling them with grain. (All)

-When we buy or sell products, many times they cheat us with weights and measures. (Tojolab'als)

-There are itinerant buyers and sellers who exploit us. (Tojolab'als)

-We know that there are very powerful businessmen who take advantage of conditions and get rich by stealing products of great value or paying very low prices for them. (Ts'eltals and Ch'ols)

1. We condemn:

-The big dealers in palm leaves.

-The big dealers in peppers.

-The coffee dealers.

-The lumber dealers in the Altos de Chiapas and in the forests.

-The cattle dealers.

In the lumber business, for example, they cheat us and, since the community doesn't know how to defend itself or know its rights, they exploit it. They bribe the agents. Formerly they paid us 25 to 50 pesos for each mahogany tree which was worth 10,000 or more pesos. Now they pay us nothing and take the lumber out by day and by night in large trucks.

The dealers set whatever prices they please. Corn, for example, we sell at 50 centavos (half a peso) and buy at three pesos. (Ch'ols and Tojolab'als)

The sale of liquor and beer is a big source of profit. Moreover it is often liquor that has been smuggled in. Thus, Tocoy in Huistan is a place where liquor is produced for contraband sale. (Ts'eltals, Tojolab'als and Ch'ols)

2. We urge:

-That the manufacture and sale of whiskey be prohibited. (Ts'eltals)

-That we take an interest in the sale of our own products and join together for that purpose. (Ts'eltals and Tojolab'als)

-That the authorities really help the peasants in commercial development. (Ts'eltals)

-That the sale of grain-fattened hogs be forbidden. (Tzotzils)

b) Exploitation of Commerce and Labor

-There are plantations where wholesale commercial exploitation is camouflaged. For example, there is a provisions store where whiskey is sold. (Tzotzils)

-Our labor is exploited also on the plantations. We hardly ever earn the minimum wage, even though we work from sunrise to sunset. As we said yesterday, for example, the San Vicente plantation in Ocosingo pays 3.50 pesos a week. (Tojolab'als)

-Our labor is exploited also in work on the highways. They tell us we should contribute our labor to improve the roads. But why don't they tell the landowners the same thing? In that way we would be equal. (Tzotzils, Tojolab'als and Ts'eltals)

We ask that the provisions stores be abolished from the plantations.

CONASUPO often sells articles that are old or useless. (Tzotzils)

We frequently see instances in which CONASUPO or INMECAFE is tied in with those who run monopolies. For example, INMECAFE will not buy our coffee because they say it is not dry. We have to sell it to the monopolist, and he sells it at a standard price to INMECAFE. Thus only the monopolist gets the guaranteed price. (Tzotzils and Ch'ols)

All of us ask:

-That we should have truly guaranteed prices.

-That CONASUPO should sell articles of prime necessity and not help the monopolists.

-That prices should be officially controlled.

2. Taxes

-There are sizable levies that are private businesses. (All) -Taxes in the markets are arbitrary. For example, they charge three or four pesos for a bag of apples. In the San Cristobal market we are taxed for getting off a truck, without the authorities even knowing whether we have brought any merchandise to sell. (All)

-We want to know where our taxes go, because we do not see any improvement in our communities. (All)

-Many times we notice that the big merchants do not pay taxes as we do. (All)

3. Unfair Loans and Exchanges

-Interest-bearing loans are the other major business.

-When we are in need, they take a bag of coffee from us in trade for a bag of corn.

-They pay us 100 pesos for a bag of coffee which is worth 600 pesos.

-The money lenders give us liquor; then when they see we are drunk, they cheat us, they get us put in jail, and we have to pay a fine. Thus, the money lender, the judge and the jailers all profit.

-Loans are made at very high interest rates-like, for example, 100 percent for seven months.

2. Agreements on Commercial Matters

a) Equality and Justice in Prices

1. In every town this side of Rancherias, Colonias and Parajes, we want to have an Indian market where we ourselves do the buying and selling, with the products kept in our warehouses, so that among usTs'eltals, Tzotzils, Tojolab'als and Ch'ols-we can sell each other our various products. Let CONASUPO supply us with our prime necessities, but without exploitation, and buy from us directly at guaranteed prices.

2. We want to organize cooperatives for production and sales to defend ourselves against the monopolists and to keep profits from being taken away from the community.

3. We demand that INMECAFE not do business with the monopolists, but rather do its buying at guaranteed prices through the community's elected representative.

4. We want to study carefully the problem of alcoholic drinks, for we know that drinking is evil when it becomes a means for exploiting people. By using drink they have robbed us, they continually cheat us, they degrade us and they destroy our health. We want to study the matter thoroughly in groups.

b) Tzotzils

1. We need to get more organized commercially. For the buying and selling of our goods we need to be banded together in our own community, with other communities and with the town organization.

2. We should have an Indian market in every town and we should be able to sell our Indian products tax-free within our Indian towns. If the ladino merchants come in to sell their goods they should pay taxes.

3. Instead of doing a poor business by selling our products in San Cristobal, we should have people come and buy them in our towns.

4. CONASUPO should continue, but to sell items of prime necessity.

c) Ts'eltals

1. We need to organize our commercial activity, but the organization needs to come out of our ranches, farms and centers so that we join together in selling our products.

2. We should have a storehouse for accumulating our own products.

3. CONASUPO should exist, but without exploiting us.

4. We should stop the traffic of the liquor and beer sellers.

6. We must have roads so that we can take our products to market.

d) Ch'ols

1. We need to organize to solve our commercial problems, and the organization has to come out of the farm colonies.

2. Prices should be fixed and they should be fair for our products: coffee, beans, rice and corn.

3. Traffic in spirits and beer should be forbidden.

4. Among our four groups we must help each other in commerce.

e) Tojolab'als

1. Among our four groups-Tzotzils, Ts'eltals, Tojolab'als and Ch'ols-we need to organize with an Indian market.

2. We need an Indian storehouse for our products.

3. CONASUPO should exist for prime-necessity consumer products.

4. Let there be fair selling and buying prices.

5. Let no alcohol be brought into any community, because it is an evil business.

C. Education

a) Tzotzils

-We should be better organized to help our community.

-We do not want ladino teachers who do not know our language.

-We want Indian teachers.

-We want the teacher to respect community customs.

-The teacher should not impose a fine when a girl who is in school marries.

-The teacher should not get drunk or set a bad example.

-A complaint should be made immediately when the teachers misbehave and set a bad example for the community.

-An independent committee should monitor the teacher's work and behavior in the community.

-There should be a Tzotzil-language publication to keep us informed and give us communication with the other groups.

b) Ts'eltals

-There should be no teachers who do not teach the communities well.

-Those who do teach should know how to respect our communities.

-The schools should teach agriculture, giving us knowledge of how to till the soil.

-There should be a monitoring committee chosen by the community to see that the teacher does his job and respects the community.

c) Ch'ols

-Education is very necessary, but it should respond to the needs of the community.

-There should be more INI teachers like the ones that are working at Tila and Tumbala, because they are doing very well and showing respect for the community.

-There should not be any ladino teachers, because they only teach things that are of no use to the community, which is not true education.

-We want Indian teachers who respect our culture, because our culture is not something bad.

-There should be education for adults which relates to their work.

-We do not want teachers who engage in business.

d) Tojolab'als

-We want a social assistance center where we can get various skills like tailoring, carpentry and agriculture.

-This center should help the Indians to organize.

-Let our teachers be Indians and let them teach in our language as well as Spanish.

2. Agreements Concerning Education: Renewal of Our Children's Education

a) We want Indian teachers to be trained and to teach in our language and according to our customs as well as teaching Spanish.

b) We want teachers who respect our communities and their customs. We want the community to be taught its rights. We don't want teachers who engage in business. We don't want teachers to get drunk. We don't want them to set a bad example.

We don't want them to impose a fine when a 15-year-old girl who is in school marries. We don't want them to be lazy. We want them to be dedicated to serve the community.

c) We want our communities to be better organized, with a committee not dependent on the teachers but chosen by the community to monitor the teacher's work.

d) Education is very necessary, but it should contribute to the improvement of our living conditions and respond to the needs of the community in such areas as animal husbandry, tilling the soil, social adjustment, tailoring and masonry.

e) There should be an Indian publication in our four languages.

D. Agreements in the Area of Health

Health is life.

1. We need to organize our community so as to provide health care.

3. We ask that clinics be set up in the larger Indian towns and that the smaller communities be served by Indian paramedics who know both kinds of medicine-the pills and the plants. In that way, medicine will be available to all.

4. The commercial sale of medicine should be forbidden, because people are often cheated with high prices or stale medicines.

5. Tuberculosis exists in many of our living areas. We call for an effective campaign against this disease.

6. Health education should be given, including hygiene and illness prevention as well as the importance of not mixing the two kinds of medicine.

III. CONTINUING ZAPATA'S STRUGGLE

(Once the resolutions on education were completed, the steering committee gave the floor to Armando Soriano, Nahuatl peasant from Xoxtla, Morelos, who, as representative of the peasant action groups of central Mexico, gave a message in Nahuatl and then spoke as follows in Spanish.)

I come from the land of Emiliano Zapata, Ruben Jaramillo and Jose Solis, all Indian peasants who fought for the poor and for our land and, having fought, are now dead.

Their ideas, however, did not die; they live. They are the ideas which I bring you. This message brings you the thinking of the peasant Indians of Morelos.

Like you, we had our gods, our customs, the lands and the water until the white man, the Spaniard, came and took away our customs, changed our gods and took away our lands and waters. Then Emiliano Zapata came in 1910 and rose up with arms.

Along with him rose up all the Indians of the region of Morelos and they joined him to recover the lands. Unfortunately the supporters of Carranza* were victorious, and Zapata was betrayed and killed. And for the Indian, the peasant of Morelos, nothing was done.

Until Lazaro Cardenas* came. He gave us lands; he enlarged our lands and gave us water. But later foreign companies came and took advantage of the needy plight of the Indians and peasants, buying the lands cheap. And they began to establish chicken farms, and our drinking water was used for the chickens. Those foreign companies made a business out of their chicken raising, and still do.

Then came the new rich created by the Mexican Revolution of 1910. They began to buy properties to make country estates, stealing the water to make big gardens and building swimming pools in their houses so they could swim on weekends. We Indian people in Morelos began to find ourselves without water and to suffer thirst. As a result, we began to fight among ourselves, Indian against Indian, poor man against poor man, people against people, and we began to get divided. Until we realized that we had to unite and get organized and, organized and united, to fight; and we stopped quarreling among ourselves.

And united we went to see the government. And the government told us that the water belongs to the nation, which administers the water and collects for it, and the rich paid for the water while we Indianspoor people, peasants-were not paying for the water. The rich had the water for their pools, their gardens and their chickens because they paid for it, so it was quite legal. We said that such laws were unjust.

They never took us into consideration. Those laws were not just and we do not intend to honor them, because they let the rich have water, and not the poor.

After spending much energy and money and struggling for many years, we had gained nothing but promises and papers. Then we got together and said: "What are we going to do?" Then the people said: "We will cut off the water. We will cut off the water to the rich people, because the water is ours. If we do not take it, who will give it to us?" The united people went and severed the water mains.

The rich men went to see the government. The government came to see us and told us that we were breaking the law and were outlaws. We told them that our people were thirsty and if that was being an outlaw, then we did not intend to do differently. They should make their jails bigger, because there were ten thousand of us Indians and we wouldn't all fit in the small jails they had. The government did not enlarge the jails or put anyone in them, because we were united and organized.

Comrades, now that you are getting organized, I tell you that our people-Indians like you-will know it. They will know what you are doing, they will know about your problems like the Chamulas', they will know you are struggling; we will inform them of it.

Comrades, we Indians are pleased to know that there are Indians in other places who are getting organized. The Indian will be respected when he gets organized and shows the courage to claim his rights.

Comrades, my only desire for you is that you get organized and go forward.

*President of Mexico in 1917. (Trans.) 'Governor of the State of Michoacan, then President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. (Trans.) *Governor of the State of Michoacan, the President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. (Trans.)