TheNewsMexico.com
April 10, 2002

Responding to thousands of legal challenges, the Supreme Court will decide in June on the constitutionality of the controversial Indian Rights law Congress passed last year.

The Indigenous Culture and Rights Law was expected to be the culmination of a long process of negotiations between the federal government and indigenous rebels in the poverty-stricken, southernmost state of Chiapas.

But instead of granting a greater degree of political autonomy and the guarantees for better living conditions to Mexico's marginalized indigenous communities, critics argue the new law only makes it easier for the government to exploit the natural resources found in Indian lands.

A Supreme Court ruling against the law would add significant pressure on lawmakers to draw up a new bill on indigenous rights.

Last month, Hector Sanchez, president of the Committee on Indigenous Affairs in Congress, said 160 deputies back a new initiative that "recaptures the spirit" of the San Andres Accords -- a 1996 agreement between the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the government's peace commission.

The EZLN took up arms against the government in 1994 in the name of indigenous rights.

Originally, the EZLN was hoping the law would be modeled after the San Andres Accords. In March 2001, EZLN leaders and their supporters made an unprecedented appearance before Congress in an effort to exert pressure on lawmakers to pass the indigenous bill.

But after the Senate struck key land and natural resource autonomy provisions from the bill, the Zapatistas broke off all contact with the government.