Peace Talks, But No Peace

Shortly after the 1994 New Year
rebellion, the Zapatistas and the
government negotiated a cease-fire.
Four years later, Chiapas has become
militarized, alternating between
negotations and violence-never truly
at war but never truly at peace.
The first four years of the Zapatista rebellion were
framed by two very different events. Shortly fol-
lowing the cease-fire which ended the open mili-
tary confrontation of the first days of the uprising of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), high-level
peace talks were held between the rebels and representa-
tives of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
The talks were held in the cathedral of San Crist6bal de
las Casas in February 1994 and mediated by a commis-
sion headed by Bishop Samuel Ruiz. Four years later, dur-
ing Christmas week 1997, a pro- On December 29,
government paramilitary group 1997, Mexican soldiers
massacred 45 unarmed Zapatista “visit” Zapatista sympa- thizers who were supporters in the highland town of forced to flee their
Acteal. In the years between these homes in Puebla,
events, the state of Chiapas has Chenalh6 due to
undergone a dramatic militariza- paramilitary violence.
tion, alternating between negotiations and violence-
never truly at war but never truly at peace.
There was general agreement that the scope of the
February 1994 talks between the Zapatistas and the
government had to be as broad as the Zapatista agenda
itself, which included not only economic demands but a
call for social and political reform. The calls for democ-
ratization at the local and national levels were crucial to
the Zapatista’s agenda-as long as ruling-party politicians
were not accountable to Mexican citizens, they could eas-
ily rescind any agreement reached at the negotiating table.
Remarkably, Manuel Camacho, former mayor of Mexico
City and head of the government’s negotiating team,
appeared to agree with the rebels’ analysis, publicly
recognizing that peace required “a commitment to
democracy”-a commitment that has been virtually
nonexistent in Chiapas over the past decades.’
Regardless of Camacho’s sincerity, however, there were
deep divisions within the ruling party, which were revealed
most clearly a month later when the PRI’s presidential can-
didate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated in Tijuana.
These divisions and the pressures they placed on Camacho
VoL XXXI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1998
Karen Kampwirth is assistant professor of political science at Knox College. She wrote this article while she was a Visiting
Research Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the
University of California, San Diego. Her forthcoming book is
entitled Feminism and Guerrilla Politics in Latin America.
15REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA
Subcommandante Marcos is accompa-
nied by mediators Bishop Samuel Ruiz
Garcia and Congressman Juan Bafuelos
on his way to negotiations with the gov-
ernment on July 29, 1996 in San
Crist6bal de las Casas.
to limit the scope of the talks resulted in a set of agree-
ments which addressed some of the regional economic
and social issues raised by the Zapatistas, but made no
connection between these inequities and the existence of
single-party rule at the national level. 2 The Zapatistas
brought the agreements back to their communities for con-
sideration. After three months of deliberations, they
rejected the accords, arguing that they completely ignored
their demands for democratization.
There would be more rounds of negotiations over the
next few years, but the most important political
events would not occur at the negotiating table. One
such key event was the 1994 national and gubernatorial
elections. While the election of the PRI’s Ernesto Zedillo
as president was generally perceived to be clean, in many
cases, local-level elections were widely believed to have
been fraudulent. This was the case in Chiapas, where the
PRI’s Eduardo Robledo was elected governor. The
Zapatistas rejected Robledo’s victory and, after months of
futile protests, issued a call for the creation of a
Transitional Rebel Government. On December 8, the man
many believed had received the majority of the votes in
the August election, Amado Avendafio, was inaugurated
as governor in an open-air ceremony that took place at the
same time as the official, invitation-only inauguration
of Robledo. AvendafHo, editor of the Chiapas daily El
Tiempo, was an outspoken defender of indigenous rights
for years before he first entered politics in 1994 as the
gubernatorial candidate of the Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD). The rebel government headed by
Avendafio would “govern” from an office in a 26-build-
ing complex in San Crist6bal that was owned by the
National Indigenous Institute (INI) until the day of the
inaugurations, when it was seized
by a coalition of unarmed indige-
nous groups.
Without firing a shot, the
Zapatistas were consolidating their
presence in Chiapas and extending
their influence in civil society at the
national level. Notably, while most
Mexicans generally opposed the
Zapatistas’ use of violence, they did
not oppose their goals. A survey
conducted on January 7, 1994,
showed that 61% of the residents
of Mexico City supported the
Zapatistas’ goals. That percentage had risen to an impres-
sive 75% by February 18, just as the peace talks were
getting under way. 3
Following their rejection of the government’s peace pro-
posal, the Zapatistas had set in motion a series of politi-
cal alliances to strengthen their own bargaining position.
In an appeal to opposition forces nationwide, the EZLN
called for the first of three National Democratic
Conventions to be held in August. Through such appeals,
the Zapatistas were able to quickly transform and unify
the political opposition. Over the next several months, a
wide array of new coalitions and organizations were
formed, including the National Women’s Convention, state
conventions in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos, Veracruz,
Durango, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Guerrero and Michoacdn,
and the Movement of National Liberation, headed by for-
mer presidential candidate and current governor of Mexico
City, Cuauht6moc Cdrdenas.
It was this growing political threat that led President
Zedillo to change his public stance toward the rebels in
February 1995, when he ordered the arrest of top Zapatista
leaders. Four days before Zedillo broke the cease-fire, the
third meeting of the Democratic National Convention had
come to a close. Unlike the first two meetings, which were
held in the relative isolation of Chiapas, this meeting was
held in the state of Quer6taro, uncomfortably close to the
center of power in Mexico City. That same week, the
National Women’s Convention met for the first time, also
in Quer6taro. As the opposition grew and became better
organized, the federal government increasingly moved
towards a militarization of the conflict.
After the arrest warrants were issued, the army launched
a massive military offensive in Chiapas. They seized a sig-
nificant amount of the territory that had been under
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
CREPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA
Zapatista control, and arrested dozens of unarmed politi-
cal activists suspected of being Zapatista supporters.
Less than a week after the government launched its mil-
itary offensive, there were important changes on the polit-
ical front in Chiapas, which were designed to quell the
ongoing protests against Governor Robledo. Robledo
announced that he was taking an 11-month leave of
absence and fellow PRIista Julio C6sar Ruiz Ferro imme-
diately replaced him as governor. 4 Because the state
Constitution allows the governor to take a leave for up to
11 months, this guaranteed that there would be no new
election. With Robledo out of office, the cries of electoral
fraud were effectively muted.
T he second round of negotiations, which eventually
led to the 1996 San Andr6s accords, took place in
a very different political context than those held in
1994. To be sure, there were continuities-the PRI con-
tinued to dominate national and local politics, and while
the officeholders had changed as a result of the 1994 elec-
tions, the government’s stance on negotiations remained
the same. As one observer put it, the Zedillo Administra-
tion was “willing to talk but not to negotiate, and certainly
not to fulfill promises.” 5 In fact, representatives of the rul-
ing party were eager to talk with the Zapatistas, because
engaging in talks would help to preserve the image of the
Mexican state as reasonable, as preferring talks to vio-
lence, as different from the Central American states that
had faced guerrilla rebellions a few years earlier.
The negotiating position of the EZLN, on the other
hand, had changed considerably since 1994. In February
1994, the Zapatistas controlled large portions of the east-
ern third of the state of Chiapas, but after the 1995 army
offensive, they controlled very little territory. And while in
1994, pro-Zapatista social movements were growing
exponentially, by late 1995, the old government strategies
of divide-and-conquer had proven effective in weakening
those groups. While the Zapatistas wanted to hold the sec-
ond round of peace talks in Mexico City, to emphasize the
fact that their demands were national in scope, the central
government rejected their proposal, threatening to arrest
any Zapatista leaders who left the confines of the state of
Chiapas. And in contrast to 1994, when the talks were held
in the spectacular colonial cathedral of San Crist6bal, the
1995 talks took place in temporary shelters hastily erected
on a basketball court in the highland town of San Andr6s
Larriinzar.
Despite the government’s violation of the 1994 cease-
fire, the EZLN nonetheless agreed to start a new round of
peace talks. Congress created the legal framework for new
talks by passing the “Law for Dialogue, Conciliation and
Peace with Dignity in Chiapas” on March 11, 1995. In the
ensuing months, the Zapatistas and the government met
to work out the details of the talks, including the location,
the ground rules, and who would participate. Finally, on
October 1, the two sides sat down at what was supposed
to be a series of working groups. 6
The outcome of the first working group was a set of
accords on indigenous rights and culture that were signed
on February 16, 1996. The accords called for increased
autonomy for indigenous communities through a series of
legal and political reforms, including a promise that the
Congress of Chiapas would pass new agrarian reform leg-
islation. 7
At the request of the EZLN, photographers were not
allowed at the official ceremony because the Zapatistas
suspected that the government was more interested in the
photo opportunity than in the content of the accords them-
selves. Their suspicions proved correct. In subsequent
President Zedillo
has proven
willing to talk
but not to
truly negotiate
with the
Zapatistas.
months, the federal gov-
ernment refused to enact
any of the legislation
necessary to implement
the accords, and paramili-
tary violence in northern
Chiapas continued. To
make matters worse,
President Zedillo made
absolutely no mention of
the accords in his
September 1st state of the
union address. The next
day, the EZLN, prompted
by these blatant demon-
strations of bad faith, withdrew from the negotiations,
seven months after the accords had been signed. 8
The congressional commission that had participated in
the San Andr6s talks made one last effort to save the nego-
tiations. It drafted a document that intended to address the
concerns of both the government and the EZLN which the
parties could either accept or reject, but not modify. On
November 30, the EZLN accepted the document, despite
some serious flaws from the perspective of the rebels. The
same document was presented to the Minister of the
Interior, who accepted it on behalf of the government, but
asked for time to show it to President Zedillo, who was
out of the country at the time. Zedillo sent the document
back with a series of new provisions. Arguing that
Zedillo’s modifications of the document violated the
ground rules of the negotiations, the Zapatistas rejected
the accord on January 11, 1997.9
All of 1997 would pass without a return to the negoti-
ating table. It was in this context that the municipal and
congressional midterm elections were held in July. The
elections were widely heralded-at least in other parts of
Mexico-as a major step toward the institutionalization
of real democracy in the country. Two important political
changes came out of the election. Cuauht6moc Cirdenas
VOL XXXI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1998 17REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA
from the center-left
PRD was elected gov-
ernor of Mexico City,
and the PRI lost con-
trol of the lower house
of Congress to a coali-
tion of opposition par-
ties. Neither of these
changes could have
happened without the
sweeping electoral
reforms that were
passed in July and
August of the previous
year. The electoral
reforms increased the
autonomy of the elec-
toral tribunal as well
Just weeks before
the Acteal massacre,
Chiapas governor
Julio CUsar
Ruiz Ferro gave
$575,000
to the so-called
“Peace and Justice”
paramilitary group.
as the resources available to the opposition parties, which
had always been outspent by the ruling PRI. The reforms
also opened the office of governor of Mexico City–a
position that in the past had always been appointed-to
electoral competition.10 In northern and central Mexico, a
more democratic era appeared on the horizon. But amidst
the excitement that was sweeping most of the country,
many forgot that in the southern states, little had changed.
The Zapatistas, fearing more electoral fraud, announced
that they would not vote, but encouraged their supporters
to vote their conscience if they thought that conditions for
a fair election existed in their municipalities. Many
Zapatista supporters blocked roads and burned ballot
boxes rather than let the ruling party enjoy the stamp of
electoral approval. In places where the elections did take
place, some observers noted the old-style PRI at work
making sure that their supporters voted early and often.
The great irony is that while the Zapatista uprising was a
factor in prompting the electoral reforms, these had little
if any impact on political life in Chiapas itself.
The Acteal massacre last December was only the
most dramatic of a steady stream of violent inci-
dents in the region between 1994 and 1998.11 In
fact, violence against those who work for social and polit-
ical change-often with either overt or covert support
from state and national authorities-was a fact of life in
Chiapas long before 1994. Private police forces known
as the white guards, for instance, were created in 1961
when the state governor granted ranchers legal permis-
sion to carry arms and hire private police forces. The
white guards enforced the rule of the ranchers and big
landowners, especially in those parts of Chiapas where
public authorities had a weak presence. While official
support for the white guards was rescinded in the early
1990s as part of the process of agricultural moderniza-
tion that led to the NAFTA accords, those private police
forces continued to exist, occasionally joining forces
with the police and the army to battle peasants in
disputes over land. 1 2
By the 1990s, the presence of the white guards in
Chiapas had diminished, but this was not the end of
extralegal armed groups in the region. After the military
offensive of February 1995, paramilitary groups were
created-with significant support from local PRI politi-
cians-to fill the vacuum. One of the most notorious
groups, ironically named Peace and Justice, was openly
led by local PRI deputy Samuel Sdinchez Sinchez. 1 3 Just
weeks before the massacre at Acteal, Peace and Justice
received a grant of $575,000 from Chiapas governor
Julio CUsar Ruiz Ferro. 1 4
Paramilitary groups have been most active in contested
areas of the north and central highlands, where support
for the Zapatistas is high but where the Zapatista army
could offer much less protection than it could in the
Lancand6n jungle. In contrast to the EZLN’s jungle
stronghold, where the government had little presence,
the north and central highlands were areas in which there
had been a high degree of government penetration. While
Lacandonean communities were united in their anger at
the government’s broken promises, the north and central
highlands were deeply divided. Some of the indigenous
residents of those regions were threatened by the
Zapatista agenda, since they had something to lose if the
PRI’s hegemony were to break down. These regions,
marked by high rates of landlessness and unemployment,
were ripe for the mobilization of pro-PRI paramilitary
groups. Many marginalized young men in these com-
munities were easy to recruit into such groups, even to
attack their fellow villagers. 1 5
For the PRI, the strategy of organizing and funding para-
military groups had one great advantage over utilizing the
military or police forces-plausible deniability. The semi-
autonomous nature of the paramilitary forces allowed their
funders to denounce paramilitary violence in a way that
would not have been possible had the same acts been car-
ried out by the military or police. As long as paramilitaries
killed only two or three people at a time, they were only
a marginal political liability for the government, even
though over 500 people had been killed by paramilitaries
in the state of Chiapas in 1997 alone. 1 6 But their partial
autonomy also meant that, if they decided to kill many
people at once-as they did in Acteal-there was little
that the state and federal authorities could do about it.
n December 22, 1997, heavily armed and uni-
formed men approached a group of worshipers at
the entrance to a chapel in the indigenous town of
Acteal. Opening fire with their high-calibre weapons, they
killed a few villagers in the chapel, while the others fled
18 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA
into the mountains. Their
attackers had no trouble fol-
lowing them-they were from
the area and knew the terrain
well. The autopsies would later
show that the vast majority of
their 45 victims were shot in
the back. 1 7
At 11:30 that morning, just
an hour after the killings began,
three villagers sought help
from the commander of a local
police station. But instead of
investigating the reported mas-
sacre in progress, Commander
Ricardo Garcia Rivas detained
the three villagers. Police
patrols continued their rounds, some of them stationing them-
selves at a school no more than
700 yards from the chapel. For
six or seven hours, they stayed
there without advancing fur-
ther. Their response to the sounds of the massacre in
progress was to fire shots into the air, but they did not inter-
vene or try to stop the killings.18
At noon, the police were once again informed of the
events in progress, this time by several people who had
escaped the paramilitary bloodbath. Again they were
ignored. Seeing that they would get nowhere with the
police, the Acteal residents called the Catholic Church’s
human rights office. The vicar of the archdiocese,
Gonzalo Ituarte, called the secretary general of the state
government. About a half an hour later, a call was made
to the telephone booth of Acteal, apparently by someone
in the central government, who told the villager who
answered the phone that a police patrol would be inves-
tigating the shooting. He promised to call back in ten
minutes but he never did. Throughout the day, Catholic
Church officials continued their calls to government offi-
cials in the capital, who assured them that there was no
reason for alarm. 1 9
Finally, at about 5:00 in the afternoon, a group of
women told Cornelio P6rez, one of the people who had
first tried to alert the police patrol, that there were many
dead and wounded. With night falling fast, P6rez
requested to be freed in order to attend to the wounded.
Commander Garcia Rivas gave P6rez and three women
permission to visit the scene of the massacre, but refused
to provide any protection or support. “We can’t go there,”
he said. “What if they are still there and they shoot us in
the head?” 2 0
The massacre in Acteal created a huge public relations
problem for the state and federal governments. While
Chiapas had disappeared from On January 28, 1998,
the international press after the protesters blocked the
peace process came to a halt in San Crist6bal-Palenque road, demanding the early 1996, it was once again withdrawal of the making international headlines. Mexican army from The massacre had received far indigenous communities
too much attention to be ignored in Chiapas.
by the government, as had been
the case with earlier paramilitary atrocities. In the days
that followed, more than 40 men were accused and
detained, including the former municipal president of
Chenalh6, Jacinto Arias Cruz of the PRI. Within two
weeks, both the minister of the interior and the governor
of the state of Chiapas had stepped down. But while their
replacement might have reflected a new way of con-
ducting politics, the way in which the replacements were
carried out was a classic example of centralized PRI
power at work.
Legally, the legislature of the state of Chiapas should
have selected a new governor. Instead, news of Ruiz
Ferro’s “personal decision” to step down, and of the
appointment of Roberto Albores Guill6n as his replace-
ment, was released in Mexico City hours before legisla-
tors in Chiapas were formally notified. Like Ruiz Ferro,
Albores Guill6n represents the old school of PRI poli-
tics-the school of the big landowners, the ranchers, the
people who would stop at nothing to annihilate the
Zapatistas. This is certainly not the only school of
thought within the PRI, but as the Christmas massacre
demonstrated so clearly, it continues to be the dominant
one in the state of Chiapas.
Peace Talks, But No Peace
1. Tim Golden, “Mexican Rebel Leader Sees No Quick
Settlement,” The New York Times, February 20, 1994.
2. See Thomas Benjamin, A Rich Land, A Poor People: Politics and
Society in Modern Chiapas (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1996), pp. 263-269.
3. Tim Golden, “Rebels Battle for Hearts of Mexicans,” The New
York Times, February 26, 1994.
4. Alonso Urrutia and Candelaria Rodriguez, “Robledo se fue
cuando estaba mas fortalecido que nunca: ganaderos,” La
Jornada (Mexico City), February 16, 1995.
5. Luis Hernandez Navarro, “Entre la memoria y el olvido:
Guerrillas, movimiento indigena y reformas legales en la hora
del EZLN,” in Neus Espresate, ed., Chiapas, Vol. 4 (Mexico City:
Ediciones Era, 1997), p. 85.
6. Luis Hernandez Navarro, “Entre la memoria y el olvido,” pp. 74-
75.
7. Rosa Rojas and Elio Henriquez, “Acuerdos de Larrainzar sobre
reconocimiento constitucional del sistema juridico indigena,”La
Jornada (Mexico City), November 17, 1996.
8. Luis Hernandez Navarro, “Entre la memoria y el olvido,” pp. 82-
85.
9. Luis HernAndez Navarro, “Entre la memoria y el olvido,” p. 88.
The original text and the federal government’s subsequent
changes are reprinted in COCOPA/Ejecutivo, “Balance compara-
tivo entre la propuesta de reformas constitucionales presentada
por la COCOPA y las observaciones del Ejecutivo,” in Neus
Espresate, ed., Chiapas, Vol. 4.
10. Ricardo Becerra, Pedro Salazar and Jose Woldenburg, La reforma
electoral de 1996: Una descripcidn general (Mexico City: Fondo
de Cultura Econ6mica, 1997), pp. 9-10.
11. Between 1994 and March 8, 1996, 100 PRD activists were
assassinated in Chiapas. Center for Information and Analysis of
Chiapas (CIACH), Coordinator of Nongovernmental
Organizations for Peace (CONPAZ), and Processed Information
Services (SIPRO), Para entender Chiapas: Chiapas en cifras
(Mexico: Impretei, 1997), p. 100.
12. CIACH, “The Covert War Waged by Gunmen, White Guards,
and Paramilitary Forces,” La Opini6n, No. 79 (November 11,
1997), pp. 1-6.
13. CIACH, “The Covert War Waged by Gunmen,” p. 2.
14. Julia Preston, “Feuding Indian Villages Bringing Mexican Region
to Brink of War,” The New York Times, February 2, 1998.
15. Andr6s Aubrey and Ang6lica Inda, ” Quienes son los ‘paramil-
itares’?” La Jornada (Mexico City), December 23, 1997.
16. Angeles Mariscal, “En tres aios, 11,443 desplazados; en 1997,
500 muertes violentas,” La Jornada (Mexico City), December 31,
1997.
17. Angeles Mariscal, “Detenidos por la matanza declaran su fil-
iaci6n priista,” La Jornada (Mexico City), December 26, 1997.
18. Jes0s Ramlrez Cuevas, “Jamas atendib la policla estatal los Ila-
mados de auxilio: testigos,” La Jornada (Mexico City), December
30, 1997.
19. Jesis Ramirez Cuevas, “Jamas atendi6 la policda estatal los Ila-
mados de auxilio: testigos.”
20. Jesis Ramlrez Cuevas, “Jamas atendi6 la policla estatal los Ila-
mados de auxilio: testigos.”
21. Julio Hernandez L6pez, “Astillero” and “Chiapas: Recambios en
el Vacio,” La Jornada (Mexico City), January 8, 1998; Juan
Manuel Venegas, “Madrazo: En Acteal, conflicto intercomuni-
tario,” La Jornada (Mexico City), December 27, 1997; and Juan
Manuel Venegas and Angeles Mariscal, “Albores Guill6n susti-
tuye a Rulz Ferro; riesgo de choques,” La Jornada (Mexico City),
January 8, 1998.