MEXICO:
A Naked Call for
Indigenous Peoples’
Right to Land
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS)
- Every year, some 300
indigenous people from
the eastern Mexican
state of Veracruz march
naked through the
streets of the capital
to demand land. But
while their unusual form
of protest certainly
attracts attention,
there is little chance
that it will achieve
their goals.
The protesters, most of
them from the Nahua
indigenous community,
are members of an
organisation known as
the Movement of 400
Peoples. The
organisation suffered a
heavy blow in 1992 when
the police evicted them
from a parcel of over
2,000 hectares of
private land in Veracruz
that they had occupied
in 1988.
Following the eviction,
they began to
demonstrate in the
capital to air their
grievances.
First they demanded the
release of 100 members
of the group imprisoned
on charges of squatting,
theft, assault and
murder. Once this had
been achieved, they
began to call for the
restitution of the land
they originally occupied
or to be granted
ownership of other land,
as well as punishment
for the authorities who
evicted them 15 years
ago.
In 2002, during one of
their annual visits to
the capital, where they
spend two or three
months living in tents
set up between the busy
downtown thoroughfares
of Reforma and
Insurgentes Avenues,
they decided to take off
their clothes as a form
of protest. Since then,
they have continued to
stage their nude
demonstrations every
year.
"They stole everything
from us, they took our
land and locked us up in
prison, and that’s why
we march naked, just as
we are," Nereo Cruz, one
of the group’s leaders,
told IPS.
Cruz explained that the
organisation’s name
dates back to the 1970s,
when it grouped together
400 different indigenous
campesino communities.
"It’s hard to protest
naked, but we are
Indians committed to our
cause, and we will keep
on doing it until we get
attention," said Cruz,
who spent seven years in
prison after 1992.
Along with other members
of the group, Cruz was
accused of theft,
squatting and a
homicide, which he
maintains was a
trumped-up charge "to
try to silence me."
The 2,000 families who
now make up the Movement
of 400 Peoples are among
Mexico’s 20 million
rural dwellers, of whom
75 percent live in
poverty.
Of the country’s total
31 million hectares of
farmland, the growing
export agriculture
industry is concentrated
on less than one million
hectares. The rest is
largely used by
indigenous and other
campesino (peasant
farmer) families to grow
their own food.
The majority of
campesino families own
their own land through
the ejido system, a
collective or
cooperative form of land
ownership which also
allows for individual
agricultural or
livestock production.
Through the agrarian
reform process initiated
in 1917 at the end of
the Mexican Revolution,
roughly 100 million
hectares of land --
equivalent to over half
of the country’s total
land area -- were
distributed among
millions of rural
dwellers. Over the
years, many of these
lands have been absorbed
by towns and cities,
while others have been
sold and put to other
uses.
Nevertheless, some 70
million hectares are
still ejido or
collectively owned
lands.
Much of the land
distribution under the
agrarian reform process
was subject to the
discretionary powers of
the governments of the
day, a situation that
led to the emergence of
a number of large
campesino organisations,
including the 400
Peoples.
In 1992, after 75 years
of land distribution, a
legal reform opened the
way for the
privatisation of
collectively owned lands
and brought an end to
the granting of land
under cooperative
ownership.
This change in
legislation authorised
the sale of communal or
ejido land. Moreover,
from that point forward,
in order for the
government to distribute
rural property, it would
have to purchase it
first.
The leaders of the
Movement of 400 Peoples
maintain that in 1989,
then president Carlos
Salinas (1988-1994)
offered the organisation
a parcel of land that
was never turned over to
them.
At the time, the
campesinos who made up
the movement included
both land owners and
non-owners, such as the
children of former ejido
land co-owners. Their
goal was to obtain
ownership of the land
occupied in Veracruz in
1988.
In the end, however,
Salinas allowed for a
portion of the land to
be granted to campesinos
loyal to the ruling
Institutional
Revolutionary Party
(PRI), while the rest
remained in the hands of
its original owners, a
family of former large
landholders.
Most of the campesinos
in the Movement of 400
Peoples are Nahua
Indians, the largest
ethnic group in Mexico.
Out of a total
population of 7.1
million, close to a
million of the
inhabitants of Veracruz
are impoverished
indigenous people.
Many of the indigenous
cultures of southern
Mexico and Central
America have their roots
in the Nahua people,
including the Aztecs,
who achieved significant
cultural and economic
development and control
throughout central
Mexico.
In recent years, 70
percent of the members
of the Movement of 400
Peoples have received
parcels of between two
and three hectares per
family, where they
primarily grow citrus
fruits. The remaining
one-third continue to
fight for land of their
own.
In Veracruz, which ranks
fourth among the states
with the highest degree
of marginalisation (out
of a total of 31
states), one-third of
the labour force works
in the agricultural,
forestry and fishing
sectors.
For the 400 Peoples,
exhibiting their naked
bodies is the best way
to draw attention to
their demands. "Land is
an essential part of
life for campesinos, and
that’s why we won’t rest
until we get it," said
Cruz.
When the protesters
staged their first nude
demonstration, it
understandably shocked
the residents of Mexico
City. But as the years
have passed, the naked
demonstrators have
practically become part
of the daily scenery in
the capital.
Nevertheless, they
continue to draw the
attention of some of the
city’s authorities,
federal lawmakers and
the Attorney General’s
Office.
With regard to the 2,000
hectares of land that
the protesters continue
to demand, the
authorities say that one
part is already owned by
other campesinos and the
former owners, and that
no more land can be
granted for now.
But the protesters
persist in their demand
for land rights. At the
same time, they are
calling for punishment
for Dante Delgado,
governor of Veracruz
between 1988 and 1992
and currently a federal
legislator, accusing him
of brutally cracking
down on the 400 Peoples.
However, a Senate
committee formed to
study the case concluded
in April 2007 that
Delgado ordered the
eviction of the group’s
members in compliance
with a court order,
which means there are no
grounds for the
accusation.
Sources consulted in
Veracruz claim that the
Movement of the 400
Peoples has declined
significantly in power
and importance in the
past decades. While its
original membership was
estimated at around
13,000 families, by the
1980s it had shrunk to
roughly 8,000 families,
of whom only 2,000
remain today.
"I only hear about them
when I go to the
capital. They’re the
naked ones, right?"
commented Father Alfredo
Zepeda, a Catholic
priest and member of the
church-based Cultural
and Educational
Promotion Group, which
has carried out
communications and
community support
projects with indigenous
people in Veracruz for
35 years.
For his part, Dante
Martínez, an indigenous
town council member in
Ixhuatlán de Madero,
remarked: "They’ve
really dwindled. I think
that now, more than a
social movement, they’re
like an agency that
works on exerting
pressure to get land and
money."
Ixhuatlán de Madero,
located in the
mountainous area of
Veracruz, borders on the
areas of influence of
the 400 Peoples, which
occupy lowlands along
rivers and the Gulf of
Mexico coast.
"Our neighbours are
indigenous people, but
they have lost a lot of
their culture, and many
of them are merchants
and have even used the
lands issued for
business purposes," said
Martínez.
Cruz, one of the
organisation’s leaders,
refutes these
accusations: "We are
poor like all Indians.
Otherwise, why would we
make the effort to come
here to the capital ever
year and protest naked?"
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