In Chiapas, The Renewed Mexican Challenge
Summary
During his election campaign, Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox
said he could settle the six-year-old indigenous rebellion in
Chiapas peacefully in 15 minutes. However, Fox will have to move
quickly after his Dec. 1 inauguration to prevent violence in
Mexico's poorest state from escalating.
Analysis
On Nov. 17, Amnesty International reported very worrying signs that
an already volatile situation in Chiapas is rapidly deteriorating.
According to the human rights group, federal security forces have
mobilized, paramilitary groups are threatening to attack displaced
indigenous people, and indigenous communities sympathetic to the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) are resisting army
patrols.
Low-intensity fighting since early 1994 between the EZLN and
Mexican security forces and paramilitary groups has caused
thousands of casualties among Chiapas' inhabitants. Many
have also died in religious clashes between evangelical Christian
Indians and Catholic Indians, in land wars between rich landowners
and poor peasants, and in local political conflicts between leftist
groups like the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the
traditionally dominant Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI).
Fox has several important advantages that favor his efforts to
settle the rebellion in Chiapas peacefully but he also must
overcome daunting obstacles on the road to peace. As the first non-
PRI president in 71 years, Fox can legitimately claim to represent
a true democratic transition in Mexico. Moreover, the August
election of Pablo Salazar as the first non-PRI governor of Chiapas
boosted this legitimacy. Salazar will be the 167th governor in the
176 years that Chiapas has been part of Mexico.
Like Fox, Governor-elect Salazar, who takes office a month after
Fox's inauguration, was the candidate of the pro-business National
Action Party (PAN) and locked in his victory by forging alliances
with other political parties including the leftist Democratic
Revolution Party (PRD). Salazar has a record of being willing to
negotiate with the EZLN. In addition, Fox should benefit from the
EZLNs weakened popularity and a relatively strong economy that
probably will grow 6 percent in 2000 and 2001.
__________________________________________________________________
Find out what Stratfor.com subscribers already know!
stratfor.com
_____________________________________________________________
However, some of the obstacles in his path include a recalcitrant
Zapatista leadership that has remained oddly silent since Fox's
July election, powerful local interests allied traditionally with
the PRI and a military establishment likely to resist the new
government's efforts to demilitarize Chiapas. Fox also faces stiff
opposition from the EZLN and indigenous leaders on the issue of
economic policy. Fox supports free-market solutions for Chiapas,
while the EZLN has an economic vision that stresses collective work
and communal land ownership.
During the election campaign, Fox said that as president his first
action on Chiapas would be to submit a bill to Congress to approve
and enforce the San Andres peace accords, signed in 1996. These
accords would have endowed the indigenous communities of Chiapas
with political and economic self-determination, but were never
submitted to Congress for approval because a majority of the
Mexican political establishment viewed the self-determination
sought by the EZLN as secessionist. Fox also pledged to build
social and economic infrastructure and attract maquiladora
industries from northern Mexico to Chiapas and other impoverished
southern states to create tens of thousands of assembly jobs.
In addition to seeking enforcement of the San Andres peace accords,
Fox probably will seek to reduce the military presence in Chiapas.
During the election campaign he promised to exchange jobs for
soldiers in Chiapas. Military officials say only 19,000 soldiers
are in Chiapas and Tabasco. However, according to the Chicago
Tribune, other sources estimate up to 50,000 soldiers are now in
Chiapas at an annual cost of $500 million or nearly 22 percent of
the military's $2.3 billion budget. The fact the military
leadership has never served a non-PRI president may hinder efforts
by Fox to scale back the army's presence in Chiapas.
According to Raul Benitez-Manaut, a researcher at the National
University of Mexico in Mexico City, the PRI has functioned as the
son of the military since 1929. Until 1946, all Mexican presidents
were military officers. The military supported the president of
Mexico and the PRI-dominated political order in return for complete
autonomy. With the all-powerful PRI a shambles and a new political
order in Mexico still taking shape, many in the military fear the
loss of their privileged status. These fears have increased in
recent years as senior Mexican generals have been arrested for
drug-related corruption.
Chiapas is the greatest and most immediate political challenge
confronting the new Fox administration. If Fox fails to end the
simmering rebellion in Chiapas, the violence will probably escalate
and spread to other poor southeastern Mexico states, such as
Guerrero and Oaxaca. To achieve a lasting peace, Fox must do two
things that are anathema to the traditional political and military
establishment in Mexico. First, he must grant the indigenous
communities of Chiapas a significant degree of self-determination
that goes against the traditional political order that includes the
PRI, PRD and his own PAN party. And second, Fox must demilitarize
Chiapas, a move that many traditionally independent military
leaders will perceive as an infringement of their traditional
autonomy.
If Fox can achieve a deal, any backlash probably will come from the
military and from traditional local PRI caudillos. Local and
regional military commanders with ties to local PRI strongmen,
landowners and paramilitary groups will try to stir up trouble to
block demilitarization and greater self-determination for the
indigenous people of Chiapas.
However, Fox must push forward, since ultimately Mexicans and the
international community will view his success or failure in finding
a peaceful solution for the conflict in Chiapas as a litmus test on
whether he can govern the country effectively as its first non-PRI
president.
_______________________________________________
Find out what Stratfor.com subscribers already know!
stratfor.com
_______________________________________________
(c) 2000 Stratfor, Inc.
_______________________________________________
GET the free, daily Global Intelligence Update. Click on
stratfor.com
YOU can stop receiving the GIU by clicking on
stratfor.com
_______________________________________________
Stratfor.com
504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701
Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025
Internet: stratfor.com
Email: info@stratfor.com |
