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MEXICO: Oaxaca, a Cultural Crossroads

Diego Cevallos

PAPALUTLA, Mexico, Oct 12 2006 (IPS) - “Christ himself brought us alms to repair the church, it’s really miraculous,” said Leobardo Sánchez, who was appointed sacristan by the community assembly of this indigenous municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Sánchez points to the wooden figure of Jesus Christ, no more than 70 centimetres tall, crosses himself, and says that it guides Papalutla, a small town located 26 km from Oaxaca, the state capital. The town is home to 1,800 people, most of them members of the Zapoteco ethnic group, who make a living by farming and making handicrafts.

Sitting in the vestibule of the Catholic church, a 16th century dressed stone building, this 48-year-old small farmer told IPS that he was previously a policeman, and that he might become an alderman or even mayor.

These are all honorary offices, elected by the community assembly, and are fully valid in the eyes of the public institutions and political leaders in Oaxaca who, although they recognise them, also often undermine them with attempts at political infiltration and corrupt practices such as bribery, according to a number of studies.

In the state of Oaxaca, with a total population of 3.5 million, there are 1.1 million indigenous people belonging to 16 different ethnic groups, and 418 out of the 570 municipalities are governed by local habits and traditions, or “customary usage”.

Many indigenous assemblies, where party politics do not carry electoral weight, have declared their support for the social uprising that began in Oaxaca in May with a teachers’ strike. The protesters camped out in the state capital are demanding the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has controlled the state since the early 20th century.

In Papalutla there was no consensus to support the protest, but the community is keeping the schools closed, one of the measures decided on by the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) to put pressure on the authorities.

“We’ll see what happens later on, but the protest has hurt us, because tourists aren’t visiting, the children are wasting their time, and there are no sales. But we’ll trust in God that everything turns out alright,” said the sacristan.

“About 30 years ago our church was collapsing, but the Holy Christ himself (the statue of Jesus) was taken out in procession throughout the state, and he worked the miracle of getting enough alms money to restore the building,” Sánchez said.

“He has worked many miracles and we venerate him every October with a good ‘fiesta’,” he said, while several other residents tend the garden around the church and clean the floors, in preparation for the celebrations, which will include religious processions, fireworks and bullfights, as well as copious amounts of mezcal (the local spirits).

Neither Sánchez nor his assistants in Papalutla, which means “where butterflies abound”, receive wages for their work. The same applies to all the municipal authorities elected according to traditional indigenous law.

The positions last for a period of three or four years, and those appointed cannot refuse to serve. It is mandatory for all men over 18 in the indigenous municipalities to work as community policemen for three years. After completing this duty, they may be elected to any higher position.

“Being sacristan is a nuisance for me, in a way, because I can’t work, but what can I do? I was chosen and I have to do the job. If I said ‘no’ I would be punished, I would lose all support and the neighbours would look down on me. That’s why it’s better to accept the duty. Nobody here refuses,” Sánchez explained.

About four kilometres from Papalutla, down a dirt road flanked by small plots of maize, onions, alfalfa and other crops, is the municipality of Tlacochahuaya. Here, in the middle of a field of garlic, Avelino Guzmán, 70, complains that his neighbours are not united.

“Many people from outside the area are coming in, local residents are selling their lands, and the assembly is doing nothing about it,” the elderly indigenous man told IPS.

“The new people (arriving from other states) even give up farming and build houses instead. Imagine what’s going to happen to us a few years down the road. The only good thing is that I won’t be alive to see it,” said Guzmán, who has six hectares in the area, “some in the hills and others down here on the plain.”

According to a report by Services for an Alternative Education in Oaxaca (EDUCA), a non-governmental organisation that has carried out projects to support indigenous people since 1994, many municipalities governed by “customary usage” are being infiltrated by political parties and persons from outside the communities.

In 2004, elections for “municipal presidents” were held in the 418 indigenous municipalities of Oaxaca. In 66 of them “conflicts broke out, either because of failure of governance, poor administration of municipal funds, or the imposition of authorities,” EDUCA noted.

Recognition of indigenous customary law was granted in August 2005, when the state legislature approved legal reforms, but it only extends to elections for municipal authorities. Elections for the national president, state governors and legislators are carried out according to the national laws.

APPO, made up of more than 350 social organisations from Oaxaca, maintains that the local government has manipulated, bribed and used force against many rural communities over the past decades.

This umbrella group of civil society organisations is demanding Ruiz’s resignation, and also a thorough institutional reform that will guarantee the free exercise of indigenous government by customary usage, and find ways to effectively overcome poverty.

Along with neighbouring states Chiapas and Guerrero, Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in this country of 104 million. In Oaxaca, 80.3 percent of the population lack basic sanitation services, street lighting, piped water and paved streets, according to the Oaxacan Human Rights Network.

“I know nothing about APPO, perhaps because I’m unmarried and don’t have children in school. But it’s a very sad situation, and I’m suffering a lot,” Santiago Sánchez, 40, an indigenous craftsman who sells straw hats and mats, complained to IPS.

“I’m ashamed even to tell you how much I sell, it’s barely 50 pesos (about 4.60 dollars) a day, or nothing some days. It’s getting worse all the time, it’s not enough even to survive on,” he said.

Santiago Sánchez, who has a speech impediment, walks for two or three days at a time around the rural areas in the vicinity of Papalutla and Tlacochahuaya, going from door to door to sell his goods. At other times he sells his wares in squares and markets.

“I sleep in the market, or pay for a small room at nights, and then I go back home on the bus,” he said. He lives 40 kilometres away from Tlacochahuaya.

The craftsman, who carries a bag with some 20 hats and several mats, said that because he is a bachelor he is not invited to, nor does he often participate in, the assemblies in his municipality.

“I’m like an outsider, they don’t take any notice of me. When someone has children he’s more responsible, and he is seen that way. But God didn’t send me a wife,” he said.

Research by the Study Centre for Change in the Mexican Countryside showed that in some Oaxacan indigenous communities, women and persons with a disability or a particular social condition do not participate with full rights in the assemblies.

In some cases these persons may attend the assemblies but may not vote. In others, they may be appointed to office even though they do not vote, and there are also communities in which they are excluded from any participation at all.