La Jornada
October 16, 2001
By Armado G. Tejeda

The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) "is at that moment not disposed to contact president Vicente Fox, in order to discuss the counterreform" on indigenous rights and culture, assured Larisa Ortiz, representative of the Congress, who is in Spain to "spread the version of the Mexican Indigenous" against "Fox' mendacious declarations before the European spaces".

The CNI commissioner learned before her departure to Madrid of president Fox' declarations, maintaining that the constitutional indigenous reforms would be modified next year, to which she comments: "There is great skepticism in Mexico that Fox is going to do anything. In fact the indigenous movement is not arranged at that moment to contact the President in order to discuss what he calls a counterreform, because the political conditions have not changed.

Fox played upon the separation of powers and said the Congress would decide independently about where the reforms went, but now he tells us, that he is the one who is going to lead this new counterreform. Besides we do not think that the Mexican sectors that voted in favor of the modifications are disposed to review them. It seems irresponsible to me, that the president makes such a declaration, without having discussed the possibilities of a counterreform with anyone. Therefore, when Fox says he has already fulfilled everything, and that it was now up to the EZLN to sign the peace, we remind him that the subject is not finished, because not even the reform of the first table has been achieved", she maintained.

Larisa Ortiz, originating from the municipality of Molcaxac, will participate these days in the Forum for Cultural Diversity, which developed parallel to the International Congress of the Spanish Language in Valladolid, and attempts "to give a voice to the peoples, who share the same language with us, but belong in addition to different cultural and linguistic identities".

The CNI named Ortiz as "commisioner" to spread the version and the legal lawsuits undertaken by the Mexican indigenous peoples, who have presented 329 constitutional controversies to the Court and four demands to the UN, against the violation of Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) through the Mexican government.

"We want the Spanish society to have the direct version of the indigenous peoples and not only that of the President of the Republic, especially since Fox has proved to be very contradictory; in Mexico we therefore received the news that they were going to modify the recent constitutional reforms with great incredulity. We don't believe it", said Larisa Ortiz before a group of Mexican correspondents in Madrid.

The constitutional reforms, recently approved by the Congress and ratified by decree by the Executive on last August 14, are "neither the solution to the conflict in Chiapas nor to the basic problem of the Mexican indigenous", the commissioner explained, who added: "The CNI declares three things: First, we do not forget that Fox has claimed he would solve the problem of Chiapas in 15 minutes and did not fulfill it. Second, that we will continue insisting on the fulfillment of the San Andre's agreements, which are established principles to modify the relation between the indigenous peoples and the society in general, but mainly with the governments. Third, with or without constitutional reforms, the reconstruction of the indigenous peoples in Mexico will continue".

Ortiz explained that in order to fortify the indigenous peoples as collective subjects of rights, a "legal recognition in the Constitution" was necessary, which would change the "status of the indigenous peoples, allowing them to stop being subject of the social attention" to become peoples with rights.

"They must stop treating us as if we were legally incapable, and the State must stop imposing its form of living and organizing. For this to happen there must be a collective recognition of their his fundamental rights; the principal one is the right to free determination as a people, which when exercised in the interior of a State or nation, is called autonomy. We believe that without autonomy it will be very difficult for the indigenous people to really decide their own destiny", the commissioner emphasized, who will talk with the spokesmen of all parliamentary groups of the Cortes de Arago'n, with the leader of the United Left coalition, Gaspar Llamazares, and with members of the zapatista support committees of Madrid, Zaragoza, Pamplona and Valladolid.

- Could this discontent of the indigenous peoples with the constitutional reforms cause other peoples to decide to chose armed warfare?

- There has been definitely neither now nor before a proposal for an armed movement in the CNI the CNI to obtain the reforms we are promoting; we have made this very clear, but that does not mean that we do not support the EZLN, because they have their own logic which has taken them so far. The red centers have always existed and the government has identified them, but as indigenous movement there is no other, except of the EZLN, who have always presented their arguments before the society.

As far as Fox's repeated invitations to industralists worldwide to invest in the Puebla-Panama Plan are concerned, Ortiz explained that the CNI is already in "alert", because "we can perhaps not prevent it's implementation, but we can change the rules under which it is going to be established, so that the great investors do not arrive in our regions to destroy not only the cultural structures of the communities, but also to continue robbing the peoples of resources they have left".