MEXICO CITY (dpa) – Latin America’s native Indio peoples no longer want to be second-class citizens.
Between Mexico to the north and Chile in the south, the subcontinent’s 35 million indigenous inhabitants are more and more loudly demanding an end to the centuries-long discrimination, legal recognition of their national identities and an improvement of their social situation.
In many countries, the Indios’ organizations have developed into important political instruments.In Mexico, a country where as early as 3,000 years ago the first highly developed Indian cultures were flourishing, the Zapatistas have made international headlines since their uprising in 1994.The guerilla movement in the southeastern state of Chiapas demonstrated that in the land of the original Aztecs and Mayas, the pre-Spanish cultures are glorified but that the modern-day Indios themselves mostly live in great poverty.In late April, after a tour by the Zapatista commanders in the capital Mexico City, the country’s Congress passed a law for the self-determination rights of the 62 ethnic groups in the country. But the guerrillas broke off talks with the government after the senators introduced changes to the original draft legislative.The governments in the Andes countries, the location of the erstwhile Inca culture, are also faced by often militant Indio movements.In Ecuador, protesting aboriginals joined forces with young military officers in January 2000 to force then-president Jamal Mahuad to step down.In the battle against price increases, subsidy cutbacks and privatization, the powerful federation of indigenous peoples CONAIE, led by Antonio Vargas, has succeeded time and again in paralyzing the country with street blockades and protest marches.Similar to the situation in neighbouring Peru, where Indio ethnic groups have their own legally recognised identity, Ecuador also has it written down in the constitution that the country is a multicultural state, with Quechua being the official language alongside Spanish.A particularly radical organization has evolved in Bolivia, called the Movement of Indigenist Pachackuti (MIP).Its leader, Felipe Quispe, is demanding not only effective equal rights status with the whites, but also is challenging the state’s existence itself. The MIP sees Bolivia as the mere creation of large-scale landowners of Spanish ethnic origin.Last year, the MIP staged nationwide road blockades, frightening the political establishment in La Paz. Next year, it plans to run in the country’s elections.“The Bolivians should know that not only has a sleeping giant awakened, but that it is also now already marching in giant steps,” an MIP spokesman warned.Politicians like Quispe who challenge the state boundaries and even dream of restoring an Inca empire are the exception among the Latin American Indio activists.Most are only opposed to the fact that 200 years after their countries’ independence, the on-paper equality of all citizens under the law has not changed the reality that people of white and brown skins are treated unequally.As a sign that they feel they belong to the nation, the Zapatistas always raise the green-white-red Mexican flag.But at their congress in Mexico City, Zapatista guerrilla commander Esther said Mexico must become a country “in which our being different, our way of speaking, dressing, praying and organizing becomes recognized”.
