Mexico: Evictions of indigenous communities fuel displacement in Chiapas

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Outskirts of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, popularly called: “La Nueva Maravilla”, where many IDPs settled down, blending with the host communities.
Arild Birkenes/IDMC, Nov 2007

In the Mexican state of Chiapas, 5,500 people are still internally displaced, in addition to an unknown number who have sought anonymity or remain dispersed, more than a decade after the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) led an uprising of indigenous communities against socio-economic exclusion and lack of access to land.

Up to 40,000 people were displaced as a result of the “Zapatista” rebellion in 1994, around half of them indigenous farmers supportive of the government. In 1995, the national army launched a counter-attack which caused the displacement of up to 20,000 supporters of the Zapatista movement, and at the same time paved the way for the return of displaced supporters of the government. This aggravated social divisions within the indigenous communities which have yet to be resolved.

A 1996 agreement recognising indigenous rights and culture and in particular the right to land has never been implemented. A de facto state of war reigns between the Zapatista movement and supporting indigenous communities on one side, and the government and affiliated indigenous communities on the other. There is no national or international response to the internal displacement situation, mainly due to the absence of an obvious humanitarian crisis and the lack of implementation of the 1996 peace agreement. In response to poor state services, the Zapatista movement has established “autonomous” municipalities in areas under their control with health and education facilities which also provide services to the IDPs.

The unresolved conflict reflects wider competition between government and private supporters of regional free trade agreements wishing to exploit the regions’ abundant natural resources and applicable free trade agreements, and indigenous communities reliant on traditional agriculture for their livelihoods. Since the elections in late 2006, the state authorities have reportedly started systematically to evict indigenous populations from land they occupied from large-scale private landowners in 1994, while paramilitary groups sharing the authorities’ objectives have used illegal means to force people from this land. This combination of paramilitary and state action against Zapatista communities may lead to armed confrontations and displacements of a larger number of people unless the parties negotiate an agreement. (...)



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Jens-Hagen Eschenbächer
Head of Monitoring and Advocacy Department
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
Norwegian Refugee Council
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CH-1219 Châtelaine (Geneva)
Tel.: +41 (22) 799 07 03
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www.internal-displacement.org