San Andrés Agreements

The San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture is a document that the Mexican government signed with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation on February 16, 1996 to commit to modifying the national Constitution to grant rights, including autonomy, to the indigenous peoples of Mexico and meet the demands for justice and equality for the country's poor.

The signing of these agreements occurred in the town of San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas, after several years of negotiations as a result of the Zapatista uprising of January 1, 1994, with Jaime Martínez Veloz being president of COCOPA at that time.

Background

Indigenous peoples in Chiapas, and throughout the Republic, share a history of inequality, discrimination, and exploitation. Since the Zapatista uprising in January 1994, the EZLN sought to fight against these situations. Thus, at the time the San Andrés Accords were signed, the main purpose was to end the political exclusion of indigenous peoples. For this reason, in 1995 the Congress of the Union approved the Law for Dialogue, the Reconciliation and Dignified Peace in Chiapas, which opened the door to negotiations.

Larráinzar was the first municipality in the Chiapas Highlands where the EZLN managed to recruit a broad base of support. Due to the strong roots of the uprising in the municipality, in addition to having been one of the few where there were no violent confrontations between supporters and non-supporters, Subcomandante Marcos proposed and obtained that the negotiations with the government take place in San Andrés.

Related dialogs

The San Andrés dialogue can be compared to the Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, held in Matías Romero, Oaxaca, in 1989. The meeting was a confirmation of conditions in at least 25 indigenous regions of the country and a request for support, correspondence and common identities. Another comparable dialogue reference is the National Indigenous Forum of San Cristóbal de las Casas in January 1996, which was an alternate, non-exclusive response from a broad sector that no longer trusted the consultations promoted by the government. The Forum's approaches went beyond those of the agreements, but they were closely linked to the first dialogue table in San Andrés and both spaces reinforced each other.

Process

Between 1995 and 1996, San Andrés Larráinzar, renamed San Andrés Sakamch'en de los Pobres by the Zapatista army, would be the scene of one of the most democratic exercises in recent memory in Mexico's history. The government and the EZLN would build, between push and pull, but with a view to society, the proposals that would later have to be turned into agreements to sign peace. To do this, both the government delegates and the Zapatistas, with the supervision of Cocopa and Conai agents, were accompanied by expert advisors for each of the issues at the tables; namely:

1. Indigenous rights and culture.

2. Democracy and justice.

3. Well-being and development.

4. Women's rights in Chiapas.

The year 1996 would arrive with the EZLN's political response regarding the results of the ''Consulta por la Paz”, a consultation that asked civil society if they agreed with the EZLN leaving weapons, and with the signing of the agreements of the first of the four tables. These commitments would become known as the ''Acuerdos de San Andrés''. The second table, concerning Democracy and Justice, took place during the year, but was not signed. The last two had to be carried out between the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1997; ultimately, they did not occur.

Table One

The negotiation process of Table One on Indigenous Rights and Culture began in October 1995 and lasted just over four months. The negotiations involved broad sectors of civil society, in addition to the EZLN and the government as the main actors. Table one placed the indigenous issue at the center of the national agenda and culminated in the signing of the San Andrés Accords, which would be sent to instances of national debate. For the EZLN, the commitments regarding indigenous rights and culture were a triumph and a space for legitimization.

Table Two

From the signing of the Accords, a period of progress followed in Table Two on Democracy and Justice, which lasted until September 2, 1996, when the EZLN suspended the negotiations, arguing that the government had not complied with its commitment to legislate on the subject.

Contents of the Agreements

The San Andrés Agreements are made up of three documents, which are:

1. “Joint submission that the federal government and EZLN will send to the national debate and decision-making bodies.”
2. “Joint proposals that the federal government and the EZLN undertake to send to the national debate and decision-making bodies, corresponding to point 1.4 of the rules of procedure.”
3. “Commitments for Chiapas of the state and federal government and the EZLN, corresponding to point 1.3 of the rules of procedure.”

The Federal Government assumed the following commitments, which pointed to constitutional modifications in terms of indigenous rights: recognize indigenous peoples in the general Constitution; expand participation and political representation; guarantee full access to justice; promote cultural manifestations of indigenous peoples; ensure education and training; guarantee the satisfaction of basic needs; boost production and employment and 8) Protect indigenous migrants.

The new relationship adopted the principles of pluralism, self-determination, sustainability, consultation and agreement, and democratic decentralization, which would fit into a constitutional framework.

In conclusion, "the Federal Government assumes the commitment to build, with the different sectors of society and in a new federalism, a new social pact that fundamentally modifies the social, political, economic and cultural relations with indigenous peoples. The pact must eradicate the daily forms and public life that generate and reproduce subordination, inequality and discrimination, and must make effective the rights and guarantees that correspond to them: right to their cultural difference; right to their habitat: use and enjoyment of the territory, in accordance with article 13.2. ILO Convention 169; right to their community political self-management; right to the development of their culture; right to their traditional production systems; right to manage and execute their own development projects.”

Proposed law and non-compliance

The bill (which would be prepared by COCOPA, a commission of legislators from the two federal chambers and the local congress) would mean, among other aspects, the constitutional recognition of indigenous communities and peoples as entities of public law, offering the possibility that for the first time in the history of the so-called Independent Mexico, the indigenous peoples could freely and democratically elect their representatives, as other sectors of the population had been doing, among other aspects of the recognition of indigenous rights. However, the bill presented by the Concord and Pacification Commission of the Congress of the Union, the aforementioned COCOPA, did not fully include the San Andrés Agreements, signed by both the government delegation and for the Zapatista; the legislators told both parties that what was presented was the best they could do. The EZLN, making it clear that it was not entirely satisfied with the proposal but showing political will, accepted it at an early stage of its development.

For its part, the federal Executive, through the then Secretary of the Interior, Emilio Chuayffet, accepted, but reserved the last word for President Zedillo, who at the beginning of December 1996 asked for time to consult the proposal with the jurists and Instead, he presented a proposal outside the agreement, alleging that the terms of the agreement "endangered the unity of the country." In January 1997, the Zapatistas rejected the president's proposal, as well as reopening the negotiation. The dialogue stalled and the solution to the demands was postponed indefinitely.

Cocopa-EZLN-CNI Law

Later, on December 5, 2000, Vicente Fox sent the Cocopa-EZLN-CNI Bill to the Senate, retaking the commitments of the San Andrés Accords. The legislative opinion resulted in a version of the indigenous law that public opinion was not aware of and was accused of cutting and betraying the 1996 Agreements. The new bill did not have a legal structure that contemplated the autonomy and self-determination of indigenous peoples, despite the fact that Mexico had ratified ILO Convention 169. The ILO agreement forced Mexico in 1991 to reform Article 4 of the Constitution, where it recognized the multiculturalism of indigenous peoples and guaranteed effective access to the jurisdiction of the state. Once again, the EZLN rejected the new law and canceled all possibility of negotiations.

Transcendence

The significance of the Agreements was to put the indigenous situation at the center of the national debate at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. The scope and claims for non-compliance with them are still valid. In the middle of 2015, Manuel Velasco Coello, governor of Chiapas, even indicated that the agreements must be fulfilled and that they must be embodied in the federal Constitution.