July/August 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Indigenous Land Struggles in Michoacán, Mexico: "We've fought for the land since time immemorial"

Chris Tilly is Professor of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and former chair of the board of directors of Grassroots International. Marie Kennedy is Professor of Community Planning (retired) at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a member of Grassroots International's Board of Advisors. They are spending seven months in Mexico with the support of a Fulbright Fellowship.

Map courtesy www.worldatlas.com

The Mexican state of Michoacán, located in the center of the country, is known outside Mexico - if it is known at all - for being the world capital of avocado production, and the Mexican state that sends the most migrants to the United States. Few would associate it with indigenous rights movements like those that have convulsed the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, where the Zapatista movement exploded in 1994 and has continued to mobilize.

But in fact, indigenous people are actively demanding and defending their rights across Michoacán - above all, rights to control land, water, and natural resources. Only 3.5 percent of the state's population speaks an indigenous language (compared to 7.2 percent for Mexico as a whole). However, many of Michoacán's Indians are concentrated in predominantly indigenous communities, especially Purépecha Indian towns in the center of the state. The Purépechas are the descendants of the once-mighty Tarasca federation, which successfully repelled Aztec marauders from the east, but eventually succumbed to the Spanish. Today, Michoacán's indigenous people confront modern versions of the Spanish invaders - land-hungry developers, settlers from other regions, and politicians willing to sell out on long-standing commitments to the tribes.

Blue Lake, Green Mountains, Silver Pesos

The most dramatic current struggle is unfolding in the lakefront Purépecha town of Zirahuén. Silver-blue Lake Zirahuén, unlike nearby Lakes Pátzcuaro and Cuitzéo, remains free from contamination (the lake's name means "mirror of the gods" in Purépecha). In a bid to keep it that way, the Purépecha community last October declared themselves an autonomous community. This tactic, pioneered by the Zapatistas, asserts the community's independence from official government structures and its right to manage its own resources. As a woman selling home-made cheese in the town square commented, "The lake is the only thing we have."

The threat of contamination is imminent. Developers have proposed a massive resort development, including 2000 cabañas, a golf course, and docks for motorboats and jet-skis. The governor stated that, "If it damages the environment, it will not be approved." But after 400-plus years of broken promises, the Purépechas are not inclined to take this commitment at face value.

The Indians of Zirahuén, like many across Mexico, have an important political asset. They are officially recognized as an indigenous settlement by the Mexican government. This means that by law they hold the land communally, and land can only be sold with the approval of the community - in the case of Zirahuén, via a community-wide assembly. The hitch is that although Zirahuén's Purépechas hold a land title going back to 1733, that legal claim has not kept the local caciques - political bosses - from stealing, selling, or giving away chunks of the land over the years. Today, 37,000 acres are in contention in Zirahuén and surrounding areas. This situation is not uncommon; experts estimate that half the land in Mexico lacks a definitive title, and there are conflicting claims on over 1 million acres in Michoacán alone.

Zirahuén's other powerful asset is a long history of community self-government through the assembly, its executive committee, and the committee's leader, the Commissioner of Communal Property - currently a soft-spoken farmer named Marcos Paz Calvillo. Mexico's law of usos y costumbres allows recognized Indian communities to govern themselves in traditional fashion. Again, however, the indigenous self-government and the "official" government of the county-sized municipio may end up making conflicting claims of authority - and that is precisely what's happening in Zirahuén.

The Zirahuén struggle didn't begin with the current resort scheme. Just when it began depends on whom you ask. Jesús Mendoza Patricio, a grizzled Purépecha elder, remembers joining the fight in 1935 when federal land reform redrew land boundaries. Efrén Capiz Villegas started even earlier: "Of my 80 years, in 75 of them I have participated actively and consciously in the struggle for the land." Marcos himself, interviewed as he sliced fresh habanero pepper into fish soup at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant owned by his extended family, said, "The indigenous community has been fighting for its land since time immemorial." However, he dated the current mobilization back 35 years, when the community organized themselves to reassert demands for recognition of their title to the lands. In 1979, Zirahuén indigenous activists along with others across Michoacán formed the Unión de Comuneros Emiliano Zapata (UCEZ) to coordinate and garner support for such fights. "We've had demonstrations, sit-ins; we've occupied government agencies," Marcos said. "We've been imprisoned - Jesús was in jail 30 years ago; I was in last year. We've had to be very determined not to sell out, not to betray the community. There have been a lot of offers from rich people, of money for the land. But no, we're sticking to this fight!"

Although the most visible leaders are men, Marcos pointed to women's involvement as well. "When someone got imprisoned, women would organize to take over the city hall, the state house, the courthouse. Men and women working together is the only way to succeed."

As of mid-2004, plans for how to function as an autonomous community were still vague. "We'll have agencies to perform all the functions of government," Marcos declared, but admitted, "We need to have more meetings to plan this." The goal is clear, however: "We want development projects based on natural resources, tourism, forest resources - but ones that will benefit local people." To its credit, the Purépecha community of Zirahuén has already implemented a series of projects with its own sweat. They have reforested 2300 acres of land with millions of trees, put in place 20 thousand cubic meters of filtering dikes to cleanse water flowing into the lake, and have built a technical junior high that is their pride and joy. "It has electricity, water, bathrooms, and a functioning kitchen," Marcos beamed.

When asked how people in the United States could best support the Purépechas of Zirahuén, Marcos replied, "We don't ask for economic support, but moral support. Send messages to the Governor asking him to support us, not to steal from the community of Zirahuén." (Governor Lázaro Cárdenas Batel can be contacted at Palacio De Gobierno, 1er. Patio Planta Alta; Av. Madero Poniente # 63, Centro; Morelia, Mich. CP58000; México; fax (011-52)-443-312-6110, telephone (011-52)-443-312-2032/2033. Governor Cárdenas ran as a progressive with the slogan, "Un gobierno diferente.")

From the Highlands to the Coast

Although Zirahuén has the highest profile, indigenous communities across the state wrestle with similar issues. Ocumicho, on the plateau northwest of Zirahuén known as the Meséta Purépecha, is known across Mexico for its comical clay sculptures of devils, saints, and sinners. But Ocumicho's Purépechas are also locked in a bitter land struggle over 1200 acres of prime farmland.

The tangled history of Ocumicho is similar to that of Zirahuén and of many other indigenous communities. The community's right to its land was recognized by the Spanish as early as 1540, but over the centuries settlers from nearby Tangancícuaro encroached on the land. At the time of the Mexican Revolution in 1917, Ocumicho's indigenous peoples asked for a judicial ruling on the land boundaries. Eighty-seven years later, they are still waiting. In 1932, in the context of national land reform, President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río reaffirmed the Ocumicho community's title, but the settlers persisted, and in 1965 President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz reversed earlier rulings and granted the land to the settlers. The Ocumichans refused to leave, but in 1981 armed settlers accompanied by police and military forces ousted them and burned their houses to the ground.

Working with the UCEZ and other organizations, the Ocumicho comuneros attempted to retake the land in 1985 (unsuccessfully) and again in 1999 (they held it for three months, but were driven off and 75 of them jailed). In 2002 they initiated an encampment at the entrance to the property, and won the governor's commitment to a judicial review of the land title and a government-brokered dialogue. The promised deadlines passed without resolution of the conflict, and in April 2004 the Indians briefly blocked access to the land. They were dispersed by 80 armed settlers along with police, but at the time of this writing in June 2004 were maintaining their peaceful encampment at the entrance while continuing to negotiate with government agencies. Juan Chavez Alonso, Ocumicho's Commissioner of Communal Property, told the newspaper La Jornada, "The struggle in Ocumicho is a fight for the land, for indigenous rights and culture, for autonomy, and against neoliberalism. It's a fight for the concept that we indigenous have of the land, and against the domination of the market."

Hundreds of miles away on the Pacific coast of Michoacán, Nahuatl communities descended from the Aztecs are also struggling to hold onto their land. In Maruata, where dramatic cliffs meet white sand beaches and black sea turtles come each year to lay their eggs, Leo, a Nahuatl innkeeper, described how Mexican power-broker and former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari tried to buy a huge strip of indigenously-owned coastal land for a modern resort development. "Our community assembly voted no," Leo reported. Remarkably, they were able to hold off Salinas. Then the problem was to get support for alternative, community-controlled development. However, after years of being starved for resources, Leo reported that in the last few years they have been able to get government-sponsored grants and low-interest loans. He pointed proudly to the sturdy complex of thatched huts that represents Maruata's version of ecotourism.

"Zapata Lives. The Struggle Continues."

Indigenous communities in Zirahuén, Ocumicho, and Maruata all pointed to the Zapatista movement of faraway Chiapas as a source of inspiration. Emiliano Zapata, the early 20th century Mexican anarchist revolutionary who fought for poor people's rights to land until he was gunned down in 1919, is a secular saint among Mexicans demanding their land rights today, and they credit the Zapatistas (who adopted his name) with renewing his struggle. At a June meeting to support the Zirahuén community, participants, including those directly affiliated with the Zapatistas, chanted, "Zapata vive. La lucha sigue" (Zapata lives. The struggle continues). Indigenous activists from Zirahuén and Ocumicho have taken part in national Zapatista congresses and marches. Leo, from Maruata, concurred that, "The Zapatistas in Chiapas have suffered the same problems as we have."

The Zapatista uprising has in fact found echoes in many parts of Mexico. Similar struggles are unfolding in the states of Morelos, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.

The combination of strong local roots and far-flung national and even international ties strengthens the hand of the Purépechas of Zirahuen and their counterparts across the country.

In these communities, Zapata truly does live on.

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