Mexican Labor Bibliography

III. Rural Workers and Indigenous People

Hector Diaz-Polanco. La Rebelion Zapatista y la Autonomia. Mexico: Siglo-Veintiuno Editores, 1997.

Hector Diaz-Polanco, a researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social (CIESAS) in Mexico City and an advisor to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), has been one of the foremost interpreters of autonomy movements in Latin America and one of the strongest advocates of regional, territorial and political autonomy for the Indian peoples of Mexico. A Dominican by birth, Diaz-Polanco spent time in Nicaragua as an advisor to the regional indigenous movements there.

In this book Diaz-Polanco argues that the EZLN-led Chiapas rebellion of 1994 put the issue of autonomy at the top of the political agenda in Mexico. As Diaz-Polanco sees it, one of the greatest contributions of the EZLN was to link the Chiapas Indians' demand for autonomy with the national struggles for democracy and social justice, and to link the guerrillas and the Indian movement to the broader struggles of Mexican civil society.

This comprehensive book discusses the history of the indigenous peoples' autonomy struggles in Mexico since the conquest, the contemporary social and economic situation of the Indians of Mexico, and the political struggle between the Indians and the Mexican state. Diaz-Polanco examines the autonomy agreements between Greenland and Denmark and between Nicaragua and its costal regions as models for future autonomy agreements in Latin America and other parts of the world.
Finally, Diaz-Polanco follows the current negotiations between the Mexican government and the Zapatistas from the uprising of January 1, 1994 to the San Andres Larrainzar agreements. I found this book particularly helpful in correcting some of my own political misunderstandings about the autonomy issue. Diaz-Polanco's new book and Yvon LeBot's recent book "Subcomandante Marcos: El sueno zapatista," provide us with important insights into the Mayan Indian rebellion.

Yvon Le Bot. Subcomandante Marcos: El sueno zapatista. Mexico: Plaza y Janez, 1997. 376 pages.

Yvon Le Bot's new book (issued simultaneously in Spanish and French) represents one of the most important contributions to the discussion of the Chiapas Rebellion and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Le Bot's book, sympathetic to the Mayan Indians and the Zapatista rebels, offers one of the most intelligent and critical examinations of the Zapatista movement and its politics. This book represents a turning point in the literature dealing with the Zapatista movement, opening a window and letting fresh air circulate in academic and political circles.

The first half of the book is a long introductory essay by Le Bot, while the second is comprised of interviews with Zapatista leaders Marcos, Moises and Tacho. What makes this book so important are the questions Le Bot asks or implies, both in his introduction and in his interviews. How did the EZLN's politics evolve? What was the relation between the original Guevarist project and the Indian movement? How democratic was the traditional Mayan village? How democratic is the Zapatista Mayan village? What is the relationship between the Zapatista project in the Maya lands, and a possible democratic project in Mexico as a whole? Le Bot--and Marcos--suggest that the answers to these questions are more problematic than many of their supporters understand. This book cannot be recommended too highly to those interested in the Zapatista movement or engaged in solidarity organizations.