Tepoztlán: Dignity Behind the Barricades1.
Luciano Concheiro Bórquez2.
Translated by Albert L. Wahrhaftig
The inhabitants of Tepoztlán now offer a special reception to visitors:
“Welcome to a town which defends its customs and traditions.
No to the Golf Club.”
And beyond this banner a barricade and further on a beautiful experience of
a democracy which goes beyond a community saying no to a megaproject for a
giant tourist facility for millionaires to a profound revindication of maintaining
one’s identity, one’s culture, and one’s practice of self-government.
At this very moment in the nation, in this town in the state of Morelos, barely
60 miles from Mexico City, without exaggeration one of the main battles against
the neoliberal lifestyle is being played out. In Tepoztlán, the people,
as an organized community, have put into action their entire tradition of
fighting to defend their dignity, their right to govern themselves. As in
the past six decades, various modernization projects have been opposed by
a native ecology, the product of a unique worldview in which man is a part
of that totality which is nature.
As in the 1910 Revolution, the Comuna of Morelos and the spirit of Emiliano
Zapata are alive in the struggle of the Tepoztecos. As in prehispanic times,
the firm belief persists that when the people of Tepoztlán are not
respected, the god, Tepozteco, is offended and his anger is
awakened terrible winds appear, and cause great calamities.
Tepoztlán is a small place with a long historical memory which allows
its people to confront a multimillion dollar firm allied to transnational
corporations and to the government of the state of Morelos, an infinity of
real demons, and the modernizing policies of the Mexican state, all of which
intend to impose a 700 million dollar project to develop a lavish 18 hole
golf club, some 600 residences, a 30 room 5 star hotel, offices, artificial
lakes, a heliport, and an industrial complex, on 463 acres of illegally acquired
Tepoztecan communal land which, moreover, are located within the protected
wild flora and fauna habitat of the Ajusco Chichináutzin biological
corridor.
The Long Struggle for Existence
Ever since the beginning of the 1910 Revolution against the modernizing policies
of the porfiristas, agrarian guerrillas such as those of Genovevo de la O
and of Amador Salazar have existed in the Tepoztlán area. When Zapata
was named general of the combined forces of the area, De la O was his lieutenant
in charge of the Tepoztlán-Chichináutzin range. With the people
in arms and the Revolution in full swing, the first nationalization of lands
took place and agrarian reform was initiated. As part of these struggles,
Tepoztecos recovered lands which the Oacalco Hacienda had taken from them.
In the central part of the municipality, other properties whose owners had
fled were returned to the communal land fund.
But the fight for land has been linked to the fight for liberty. The land
signified - and still signifies today - an identity based in immediate needs
and political democracy. Land, as manifest in territory and in its social
meaning is the primal and principal source of a distinct democracy, distant
from that which is promised and never delivered by the proponents of modernization.
This source of the local democracy (Coatsworth:1990) of towns and municipalities,
so depreciated and even invisible to the logic of 19th century liberals and
porfiristas and of neoliberals and neoporfiristas at the end of the 20th,
has continued in practice as part of an underlying attitude which produces
resistance in these communities. This participatory democracy is reproduced
cyclically in fiestas, is expressed in the social structure of the barrios,
in the cuatequitl (as communal work is called in Tepoztlán), and in
the general assemblies which are the means of direct decision making.
But the life of towns and communities do not run in parallel. They exist in
confrontation with the dominant nation, as the cumulative product of struggles,
sometimes at great cost. Suffice it to say that the population of Tepoztlán
went from 9,715 inhabitants in 1910, to 3,745 in 1921 (GEA: 1992), after the
bloody violence during the Revolution of the Maderistas, of the federal army
during the vicious Huerta administration, but above all of the Carrancistas,
members of the so-called Constitutional Army.
In the years after the Revolution, the agrarian community and the ejido in
Tepoztlán unified and were woven together through several struggles,
directed by the radical Zapatistas, and through organizations devoted to defending
their resources, establishing means of communication, and facilitating means
of transportation. This is the case of the Charcoal Makers Cooperative, the
Fraternal Union of Tepoztecan Farmers, the Ometochtli Transportation Cooperative,
and the Tepoztecan Zapatista Front, the last formed to defend the constitutional
control over the El Tepozteco National Park established in 1937 during the
administration of Lázaro Cárdenes.
The tradition of the old guard Zapatistas was also expressed from the 40s
through the 60s in their strong influence on the election of municipal authorities.
Thus, the region was involved in the struggles headed by Rubén Jaramillo,
who said “the people must command, not just obey” (Jaramillo y Manjarrez:
1967: 164) until 1962 when he was assassinated along with his entire family,
by direct orders of President Adolfo López Mateos.
The Golf Club also has its history
As a product of the promise to make a branch of the México-Cuernavaca
toll road from La Pera to Cautla, land speculation commenced and by an unconstitutional
declaration some 200 hectares were removed from the communal lands of Tepoztlán
and passed into private property in 1962 and again in 1995 so the great corporations
could advance their plans for the construction of a golf club.
In 1962, they tell us, a movement against the construction of the Monte Castillo
Golf Club was formed “when the people got together and went to tear down
what had been constructed. They tore down a fence.”
It was, as now, a fight in every sense. According to some testimonies, the
owners of the construction firm were accused of not being Catholics, so they
brought in the Bishop to bless the golf club. But at this time, the Bishop
was don Sergio Méndez Arceo and, they say, “he spoke to the people
and the people said that he couldn’t go on because the they were against
this project, that it was against the interests of the people, just as now.
The Bishop said: “Excuse me. They invited me to bless some lands; I didn’t
know that the people were against it,” because in those times they spoke
to us with more respect, not like now when the Bishop talks to us condescendingly.
Don Sergio congratulated them for what they were doing and the people said
if he wasn’t angry with them he could give them his blessing.” and
the Bishop blessed the people and the people won. Other help came from the
Tepozteco: “they say he appeared to them, as was one of his habits, in
the form of a little boy; he spoke to the engineers who were starting work
on the golf club and told them that he was opposed to the plan, that they
couldn’t build there, that they should leave.”
“But in all the fight was not easy. On May 12,1962, Professor Esteban
Flores Uribe was assassinated for having opposed the construction of the golf
club. He was a teacher and one of those who distinguished himself in the struggle.
He was a Tepozteco and lived in Chamilpa. He had come to see his mother, passing
the gas station, and walking towards the barrio of Los Reyes. This is a very
isolated road, and there they killed him. That stopped the work: on one hand
the assassination and on the other the people destroying what they had been
built. Nothing more was heard about a golf club until now.”
It’s not hard so much as it is impenetrable.
As an old and wise Tepoztecan woman says, “ No. They hardly let us rest.
No sooner are we recovering from one of their arbitrary plans and rich man’s
projects than they drop another on us. First it was the golf club, then a
road through our hills where the birds are, late in the 60s. The people rejected
that.” In 1979, another company, with the complicity of the state governor,
wanted to construct a teleferic railroad to climb to el Tepozteco’s pyramid.
So a Tepoztecan Womens’ Group was organized; also on this occasion, too,
“they say the riot police were going to come in and they saw nothing
but kids in the front ranks opposing them. The women said, ‘How are they
going to believe that we put our children out in front!’ That was [an
appearance of] el Tepozteco!”
Also in 1979 the PRI tried to impose an “outsider” as a candidate
to be President of the municipality. The residents organized themselves, coordinating
the barrios, the colonies, and the communities of the municipality, and succeeded
in preventing it. By an order of the municipal government in 1987, a local
government endorsed by the people is elected, yet external pressures on it
never cease: in 1991 there was an attempt at a new coalition and in 1994 there
was a severe dispute between the PRI candidate, Alejandro Morales, and the
PRD candidate, Dr. Adelita Bocanegra. The “neo-PRI” candidate won,
backed by the candidate for governor against the old guard and especially
against the Tepoztecan Womens’ Group. Some non-PRI members supported
him because he fought against the train [see below]. In the federal Presidential
elections, the PRD candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenes, won in Tepoztlán
with approximately 48% of the votes.
Other projects were halted. For example, at the beginning of the 80’s,
the residents of Santa Catarina opposed the construction of a housing project
on the border near CIVAC and created a colony of their own on the edge of
the town to block expansion into their community from outside. As another
example, in August 1987, the Coordinadora Democrática Tepozteca, one
of the most important forces defending the land in the 80s, was able to restore
100 acres of land invaded by a foreign corporation which wanted to raise dairy
cattle. The land was allocated to the construction of a 600 lot low income
housing development called Cacalohapan (Monroy: 1995). More recently, Carlos
Salinas de Gortari and his brother in law, Guillermo de Jesus Occelli, with
the backing of former governor Rival Palacio and other officials, secretly
took over three parcels which had been part of the ejido since 1929 and, though
the ejido had been waiting 60 years for an appropriation for a well, drilled
a well 600 feet deep. The ejido confronted them and charged them with theft,
damages, and influence peddling.
It is not that the ejido and the community do not sell land, but they do so
in such a way that they can control the process within the boundaries of the
community and within the rationale of its plans for development.
The fight against the train
Before the golf club, the most important fight was the one against the train.
In 1991, Tepoztecos were informed of a project to extend a railroad 14 miles
to intersect with the line between San Juan Tlacotenco and Totolapan. Allied
to oppose this were the Comité de Barrios, Pueblos y Colonias de Tepoztlán,
together with organizations such as the Tepoztecan Womens’ Group, the
Amigos de Tepoztlán, A.C. (Founded in 1977), Cetiliztli, A.C., Vecinos
del Valle, A.C., the parish priest of Tepoztlán, several mayordomos
officiating in the chapels of the barrios, Alejandro Morales Barragán,
a member of the PRI and delegate to the Uníon de Ejidos Lázaro
Cárdenes del Rio, and several journalists. The railroad did not comply
with the relevant agricultural, planning, or environmental procedures required
of a project of this type. The municipal government, in the face of this great
mobilization, rejected the construction already started by ICA (Associated
Civil Engineers); furthermore, the citizens, (who had removed the president
of the communal lands association and replaced him with Abraham López
Cruz) assisted by Antolin Escobar (of the PRD) got an injunction against the
national railway which was awarded in July, 1992. Afterward, they met about
completing an environmental impact study by the Comité de Barrios,
Pueblos y Colonias to not only say No to the train but also to state the community’s
own alternatives for the management of its resources (GEA: 1992). The study,
which contains general proposals and very important specifications, was completed
with broad participation under the guidance of Amigos de Tepoztlán
and with coordination by the Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, A.C. (GEA: 1994).
And they come again...with their history of the golf club
The KS entrepreneurial group intended to build on 463 acres an 18 hole professional
golf course, change the zoning to residential, tourism, and service-related,
build 592 luxury homes, a club house, tennis courts, a heliport, a hotel,
restaurants, and a corporate center, all of this against the will of the people
of Tepoztlán who had been denigrated and attacked for the simple fact
of defending their land, their culture, the water, and the plants and animals.
The project was located in the El Tepozteco National Park (created by presidential
decree in 1937) and within the Ajusco-Chichináutzin Biological Corridor
(created by presidential decrees on November 30, 1988).
The golf club is a project which is beyond economic logic and local politics,
and its social effects would be disastrous for the community. In environmental
terms, in spite of the talk to the contrary by the developers, it is an attack
on resources, especially on the water and land, and a danger to wild flora
and fauna.
The area where they wanted to construct the golf course is located in a transitional
zone between the lower deciduous forest and a woods of pine and oak along
with other native trees such as cazahuates, tascates, madroños, huizaches,
llora-sangre, chirimoyas, tepozanes, guayabos, flor de tila, tepehuajes, y
colorines or zompantles. Furthermore, the project is located within the El
Tepozteco National Park in the buffer area of the plant and animal protected
zone of the Chichináutzin Biological Corridor, the habitat of more
than 21 species of vertebrate animals classified according to official Mexican
norms as rare, threatened with extinction, and subject to special protection.
The zoning of the soil is for agriculture, woods, and livestock. The land
is communal, a good part of it suitable for agriculture and used for growing
corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, avocados, chirimoyas, raspberries, and chilacayote.
Technically, any golf course is considered an abiotic zone, that is, an area
without life. Environmental impacts caused by golf courses include soil erosion
because of clear cutting of trees, use of large quantities of water, contamination
of the surface and subsurface through the use of agrochemicals eightfold greater
than are used in high tech agriculture (Espacio Verde: 1995 and Mojica: 1995).
Within their consciousness about environmental problems in general, the theme
of water is the one most felt by Tepoztecos, above all when it is known that
on average, many families can count on obtaining water through the network
for distribution of potable water only once a week whereas the golf course
alone would use five times as much water as is consumed by the entire town
of Tepoztlán.
In social terms, the golf club would bring with it a diametric polarization
between the local population and the “inhabitants” of a club where
memberships cost half a million dollars and houses a million more. The KS
corporation’s offer to create 13,000 temporary jobs and 3,000 permanent
ones would be, in case they should comply, a negative process from the community’s
point of view since the jobs offered are for poorly paid menial work and not
those which Tepoztecos seek and for which they have made great sacrifices
in educating their children. As it is, they are certain that workers may come
from other places and not from the municipality, creating an extreme urbanization,
an increased demand for the few and poor services available, and, in general,
an impoverishment of the town. The flood of millions in tax revenue and the
development of public works for the municipality promised by KS and its alliance
with the state government appear to be minimized in the face of these problems.
Some say that the only thing this flood will accomplish is to convert the
municipal government into a booty and an uncontrollable source of corruption
such that the municipality’s real power will move outside its own boundaries.
The take over of the municipal offices
From the beginning of 1995, the KS group began a heavy campaign of propaganda
to buy public opinion in favor of the golf club, but at the same time, in
the time and space of Tepoztlán and the other towns and colonies of
the municipality, wall paintings with a direct message of “No to the
golf club” began to appear on the facades of the houses of those who
were strong supporters of the club. Voices were being raised as was consciousness.
There were accusations that the project belonged to foreign capitalists and
that a No represented a defense of the town, of its resources, of its water,
and finally of the nation. On March 18, the day when Mexico’s oil was
expropriated and a day of national pride, in a nourishing meeting of more
than 2,500 people convened by the Comité Democrático de Unidad
Tepozteca (CUT), the municipal president was obliged to read the January 23
Act opposing the golf club. Among other speakers Guadalupe Rojas,the widow
of professor Esteban Flores Uribe, recalled her husband’s sacrifice in
the opposition to the golf club in the early 1960s and asserted that “the
people don’t want the golf club.” At the end, the assembly passed
an act with the endorsement of the members of the municipal government to
not under any circumstances accept the KS project.
But a few months later, on August 22, 1995, Tepoztecos were betrayed by a
majority of the municipal government headed by the municipal president, Alejandro
Morales Barragán, the attorney general and three councilmen of the
PRI and one of the PARM, pressured directly by the state government. Without
public notice, as required by law, and away from the municipal offices, without
the two PRD council members (in which case the vote could be unanimous), they
approved a zoning change requested by KS and authorized a provisional construction
license in return for which the KS firm would provide a report tallying their
works in order to estimate the payment due the municipal government. (Monroy:
1995:17)
Alejandro Morales himself underestimated the force of the opposition to the
golf club, saying that “the 40 who will get together won’t have
much ability to stir people up.” But on the 24th of August at 5:05 in
the afternoon, the bells in the Santisima Trinidad church chimed and chimed,
followed by bells rung by the mayordomos in the churches of the eight Tepoztecan
barrios, including that of the La Natividad monastery. At 6PM more than 4,000
inhabitants gathered in front of the municipal office. Given this betrayal
by Judases, the decision to take over the building was unanimous. There was
no room for other measures or positions and although confrontation with such
great opponents seemed impossible, the people were convinced. Recalling and
activating their historic memory, they proceeded to direct action, using their
“secret weapon”: their traditions of social organization.
In the heat of the wholesale conversion of the community and their decision
to transform their everyday resistance into a program for their own future,
they left behind the supposedly levelheaded voices of their “allies”,
“realistic politicians” like PRD deputy Antolin Escobar who asserted
that it was better to accept the project which “would generate annual
taxes for the municipality of 6 million pesos” (Monroy: 1995:11) and
the self appointed “independent” federal deputy Adolfo Aguilar Zinzer
who tried to convince his assistant, Dr. Adela Bocanegra, a CUT members and
a PRD candidate for the municipal presidency, that they were going to lose
and it would be more worthwhile to negotiate (Proceso magazine No. 992).
Rituals and their associated iconography appeared with astounding spontaneity.
Called Judases, the six traitors, were portrayed as such and effigies of them
were hung from the top of the municipal building along with an additional
effigy representing one of the KS people with his pockets crammed with banknotes
- false ones. Other judases were burnt and, under torchlight, it was asserted
that Morales had lost his citizenship - his Tepoztecan citizenship. Citing
Juárez, one orator spoke of the judases: “ Damned are those who
with their words help the people and with their acts betray them; damned are
those who have betrayed us.” Another took the microphone to shout “El
Tepozteco is also with us”, and, invoking the legend in order to alert
the gathering, said, “El Tepozteco is our ancestor, our creator, who
told us that men will be bought by offering them honey and by disguising things
so that they do not recognize them.”
In addition to the barrios, headed by their mayordomos, local brass bands
were present and the town band announced each orator with a fanfare. The meeting
was composed of people of every age who heard and lived anew their history.
Some of the orators recalled that Tepoztecos are the “heirs of the lineage
of Zapata: we fight for land, liberty, and justice and above all recognition
that it is the people who command.” Everyone shouted “If Zapata
were alive, he would be with the people!” And the dignity, largely constructed
and recreated in this meeting, in a dialog of the people, was synthesized
in shouts of “Tepoztlán doesn’t live on crumbs; Tepoztlán
is organized now.....” “KS has money but we have dignity”,
“Tepoztlán is an historic town, a sacred land where there is no
room for traitors.” At the end they assigned hours for each town and
barrio to stand guard and concluded by singing the national anthem (Monroy:
op. Cit: 62-76).
In the same way, they organized 4,000 Tepoztecos to sign a letter to the governor
asking him to disband the municipal government and urging him to name a council
representing the majority interests of the community and consider as sovereign
the decision making processes and channels of communication determined by
the community.
The barricades to construct and defend dignity
Organization in defense of dignity multiplied and took several forms, the
most notable among them the barricades. Expecting repression, the movement
reinforced its guards and erected barricades at the entries to the town of
Tepoztlán. As one of the young people said by way of clarification,
“these are not really road blocks. That’s what the police do. Ours
are barricades.” They also selected persons in each barrio to be responsible
for calling together the people in any moment of danger by a system using
sky rockets and the tolling of bells as signals.
Sunday the 27th of August another open assembly took place at which it was
repeated that this was not a movement headed by any political party although
members of the PRI and the PRD and others were participating on their own
behalf. On this occasion they decided to invite the participation of the EZLN
and to place information tables as points of communication in each of the
various barrios and colonies. It still appeared incredible that Abraham López
had authorized KS’s constructions by accepting an agreement that Tepoztlán
would receive 4 million pesos in benefits, 20,000 pesos a month, and aid in
resolving a boundary dispute with the people of Milpa Alta. Actually the agreement
already existed because it was a prerequisite to the municipal government’s
authorization of a change in the zoning of the land (idem).
With the matter of permits apparently resolved, KS began to contract people
in the municipality: 300 according to some sources.
The Assembly of “Citizens”
In this context Abraham López, Diana Ortega, president of the PRI municipal
committee, together with three PRI delegates, the judge and the mayor convened
a town meeting on September 3. They asked for police protection and the legal
assistance of a notary to certify the results. The KS corporation helped them
contact the 300 already contracted carpenters and masons in order that they
attend the meeting, and the state director of urban transport undertook the
transportation of people from the colonies. We were told by a person who was
present that they gave 80 pesos to each one of them. Between 200 and 600 (according
to different versions) civil agents and uniformed police with anti riot gear
arrived . There were flower growers and commercial truck drivers, contractors
with some of their masons, and a “casual” filming and televising
of the event began.Televisa was invited. The communal lands commissioner spoke
about the pressures from the governor and said that they couldn’t do
other than sign, that he was not a traitor because the lands had been sold
between 1957 and 1962, at which point skyrockets and the bells of the Nativity
church began to be heard.
Along several streets, like ants, more than a thousand Tepoztecos rose up
armed with sticks and clearly mixed in with them were young people. They first
encountered the President of the PRI and Saucedo, the governor of the state,
and then taking on the riot police in their first encounter with them, they
made them flee. People attending the meeting also fled or else joined with
the Tepoztecos. The result was that they detained five officials and the local
president of the PRI. By this chance event, permanent meetings in front of
the municipal office were initiated and throughout that day, many promises
of aid were received from former workers of the Emiliano Zapata sugar mill,
from workers at the Xochimilco campus of the National University, and from
neighbors in Milpa Alta and Yautepec.
In the night, the guards learned that a taxi driver had been assassinated
near Huehuecóyotl and that the perpetrator had been captured. People
had beaten him until some youths had prevented him from being lynched. He
was finally delivered to the minister of justice in Yautepec. Two days later
a state policeman had similar luck when he was detained for pulling a gun
on one of the security force’s night watchmen and shooting into the air.
In these cases, as in others, in spite of normal tension and the existence
of a climate of intolerance, the assembly has always resolved problems with
serenity and yet with firmness and justice.
On the morning of September 5, in front of a negotiating commission composed
of a multiparty group of state deputies, there were negotiations about the
withdrawal of power from the municipal government, the community’s concerns
regarding their opposition to the golf club, concerns about the government
attacking movement leaders, and about the release of movement members who
were under arrest. The Tepoztlán Unity Committee (CUT) received a fax
permitting them to select a municipal president for an indefinite time, and
the community complied with its part of the arrangement. Nevertheless, the
state government retained the jailed deputies, forced Morales not to enact
the permission he had received, and commenced a strong and costly campaign
of disinformation directed against the members of the CUT, trying to politicize
the movement and casting the blame on the PRD party. With the clear intention
of driving a wedge between businessmen and movement members and of isolating
Tepoztlán, they used local newspapers to warn the population that they
could be out of favor with the government if they sided with the community.
The movement - fiestas of power
In the face of the government’s aggression and pressure from the KS corporation,
guard duty was doubled, not just by decision of the leadership, but also by
means of a flood of initiatives from the community itself. The campaign against
the CUT was taken to be an attack on the community, which responded by becoming
increasingly organized. Guard duties were organized by the mayordomos and,
as an act of solidarity, different constituencies in the community provided
meals for the guards. Among the guards and volunteer watchmen making the rounds
of the town, the town’s myths and legends were reconstructed and the
distinct generations became reacquainted.
Another distinctive pattern is that Tepoztlán is a fiesta town. There
are said to be 56 fiestas every year. In these, and especially during the
pre-Lenten fiesta of Carnaval, established patterns are dispensed with, new
ones are reborn and everyone pokes fun at the powerful - even those in power
poke fun at themselves. Everyone is equal for a moment and a “for real”
solidarity is the norm. In this fashion, the movement made itself a fiesta,
or the fiesta took over power and became a return to origins, in a questioning
mode, irreverent towards established power, a base for self-generated ways
of doing things and, furthermore, a fiesta which had no need of, and for security
prohibited, the use of alcohol.
El Tepozteco, on the side of the community
Among the daily fiestas came that of el Tepozteco and, as a woman in the community
put it, “when they went to the countryside to pray, he appeared to a
woman from Tierra Blanca, but she was ashamed to say anything about it because
she thought they would say she was crazy, but she did tell her aunt, who told
me; I told them she would have to tell the CUT about it. El Tepozteco asked
for food and said she had to bring it to him. Other people form Santa Clara
said he was present in the form of a breeze that you could feel on your face
and which enveloped us. You don’t see him. They say that he becomes present,
this one who was a child of the wind, who was conceived by the wind, which
impregnated his virgin mother while she bathed, watched over by her handmaidens.
And when he was born, they threw him on an ant hill, but the ants cared for
and fed him, and they threw him onto a maguey plant, which also fed him, and
they threw him into the river where he was found by an elderly couple, and
so on until he met with the monster which ate old people and which ate him.”
As a result, each barrio of Tepoztlán represents one of the ancient
calpullis, which are the places el Tepozteco passed through: the metzalcuanimes
(maguey worms) of the barrio Los Reyes, the tlacualtzinzin (tlacuaches) of
barrio San Pedro; the xinacatemes (scorpions) of barrio San Sebastian; the
tepemeaxtlames (foxes or cacomixtles - little wild cats) of barrio Santa Cruz;
the tzicames (ants) of barrio La Santisima; the techihehicames (lizards) of
barrio San Miguel; the cacames (frogs) of barrio Santo Domingo, and the totomaxtlemes
(corn stalks) of barrio San José.
El Tepozteco revealed to that woman his support of the community and his anger
at the KS corporation which wants to baptize their golf club with his name.
Among other stories, they say that on that same day, a light plane which was
supposed to drop anti-CUT pamphlets almost crashed and that el Tepozteco blew
the folders far away from the community. Also, that morning Professor Miguel
Angel Robles prayed with his followers that the enemies of the Tepoztecan
community might understand the harm that the construction of their golf club
would cause and precisely - they say - at noon a bank of white clouds rapidly
took shape; all of nature was energized, whereupon Robles exclaimed “We
have received a sign, compañeros. We must take the fight to its very
end: (quoted by Monroy: 148).
Weaving new social networks
Other vital experiences were interwoven with the acts of the popular assemblies
which were the primary way of making decisions and proposing new forms of
organization. For example, they proposed that the real power of the municipality
should be devoted to public service. Stemming from this perspective, there
were groups to collect garbage and the town was never so clean; there were
groups to provide water and this has been very effective; and there are groups
to exercise vigilance over fires and over delinquency, and these problems
have decreased in importance.
Clearly visible in the historic organization which the anti-golf club movement
developed has been the definitive role exercised in their own special way
by women. Their role has reinforced the community and established less authoritarian
and patriarchal family relationships, thus freeing the consciousness of other
sectors of the community.
In crucial moments, women closed their ranks and maintained the initiative,
as on the November 3 when over a thousand Tepoztecan women, dressed in white
with red neckerchiefs marched to the governor’s office in Cuernavaca
to demand the definitive cancellation of the golf club and an end to harassing
the CUT.
In the broadened horizon which the Tepoztecos have gained, an important role
has also been played by the active presence of other towns and municipalities
within Morelos and other states of the republic, and from outside Mexico.
With support from the State Promoters of the Consultation for Peace and Democracy
and of the State Democratic Convention, there was a meeting-fiesta on the
10th of September which drew over 8,000 participants from all over the country
and from other countries, among them intellectuals, journalists, and artists
like Carlos Monsivais and Ofelia Medina who mixed in with the people of Tepoztlán.
Others who couldn’t be physically present were there in spirit, like
the Juchitecan painter Francisco Toledo who wrote in support and said about
the golf club that “they keep thinking of megaprojects which rather than
alleviating the terrible conditions of the life of people in the communities
where they are to be constructed create greater problems in short, medium,
and long term through the disorganization they produce.” An act of the
Teacher’s Coordinating Council called a work stoppage on September 12
in support of Tepoztlán to which were added demands from others, among
them, calling for the freeing of Mauricio Franco of Santa Catarina in the
municipality of Tepoztlán who had been in prison since 1994 for opposing
the sale of lands in Acolapa, accused of participating in the burning of surveying
equipment during the fight against the Twentieth Century highway which would
have joined Morelos and Puebla (idem: 152-154).
Greetings sent by the Zapatista commanders had a special spot in this memorable
meeting: “We salute your willingness to stand guard and be ready to fight
to defend land, our culture and our dignity. If TepoZtLáN is in brotherhood
with the EZLN in Zapatism and even to its very name, we want to say that your
struggle is our struggle and that the senselessness and deafness of the mis-government
of the powerful mustn’t detain the impetus with which dignity is defended
along with the impulse of the Mexican people to construct a more just, free,
and democratic Mexico.”
A short time later, the Tepoztecos were invited to be consultants to the Zapatista’s
negotiating table about Indian autonomy in Chiapas. It was a rich interchange
according to the delegates who brought back a marvelous anecdote: during an
interview the Zapatista commanders offered them all their support in the struggle
against the golf club....but at the end they asked them “and what is
a golf club?” This question brings to mind the answer that one of the
leaders of the Tepoztecan movement gave to a reporter about why the community
wouldn’t accept the golf club: “Because golf is a game about which
we know nothing. We have never had anything to do with this sport. And I don’t
believe the club is going to be a place where Tepoztecos can go to play it.”
In an activism that seemed almost impossible, on the 12th of September, the
Tepoztecos participated in the ongoing strike of the school teachers; the
14th of September some 6,000 Tepoztecos and hundreds more from various organizations
from the state filled the plaza in front of the state capitol in Cuernavaca
and, in an additional symbolic act, turned their backs on the governor. They
exceeded in number and in consequence a previous demonstration by PRI supporters
of the governor, as was noted by the local press and TV. On the 16th of September
there was a new march of a contingent of more than 2,000 persons, counting
within it hundreds of kids with sticks and red kerchiefs on their faces.
The municipal council elections
Demonstrating once again their capacity for organization and democratic vision,
on the 13th of September, in the face of pressure from the government, the
PRI and the PAN - the general assembly decided to install a new municipal
government based on the original spirit of articles 39 and 115 of the Mexican
Constitution which establish that power comes from the people. On Sunday the
17th of September and on the days following, the 8 barrios, 10 colonies, and
7 towns of the municipality, in assemblies and by direct vote, nominated their
candidates for a provisional municipal government.
The state government stepped up its campaign to divide the towns of the municipality
and to label as illegal the Tepoztecos’ democratic force, returning to
the well worn accusation that the PRD was manipulating them.
In spite of various provocations, on Sunday the 24th of September, the elections
took place with a secret ballot and direct voting by all the inhabitants of
the municipality. Organization of this was left in the hands of the 96 teachers
in Tepoztlán, this being one more illustration that this event was
a school for everybody, and groups of school boys and school girls carried
out the procedure. Alianza Cívica printed the ballots and sent 90 observers,
as did other organizations - among them the Group of One Hundred - who worked
in complete freedom. Meals were provided for the more than 600 people who
participated in the organization.
Beneath a banner which read “Command.....Obeying” the results were
presented: almost 6,000 voters and heading the list of those elected, Lazaro
Rodriguez Castañeda, a representative from barrio Santo Domingo, a
farmer and craftsman who had dedicated the last ten years to the protection
of the wild lands, ravines, rivers, and woods, heading a group of young Tepoztecos
called Los Tejones [Badgers]. Others elected were Pablo Vargas, a retired
teacher, Humberto Ayala, an industrial technician, Javier Rivera who earned
a law degree from the state university, Crecencio Conde, a farmer and construction
worker, and Ricardo Castillo, a farmer and ecologist.
On September 30, the church bells once again began to peal with festive chimes.
It was the birthday of José Maria Morelos y Pavón [a hero of
the Mexican Revolution] and also the date for seating The Peoples’ First
Constitutional and Free Municipal Government, a new date which joins history
with the making of history in the present. In the church courtyard of barrio
Santo Domingo, the home barrio of the People’s President, a group of
mariachis played ballads of the Mexican Revolution, especially ballads about
the Zapatistas. A little before 5 in the afternoon, the elders of the community
surrounded and protected Lázaro, who looks very much like Emiliano
Zapata and is almost the same age as Zapata was when he was assassinated in
1919. “Get up and walk, Lázaro” - shouted a voice, “and
Lázaro stood up and walked...” replied a second, to the amusement
of those present. A woman shouted, “Zapata lives on”, and the chorus
answered ”the struggle continues.” (Ruz:1995). On the esplanade
in front of the city hall, the master of ceremonies introduced “the ancestral
figure who made the history of our community, sustained by the tradition practiced
by each one of us, the legendary man of wind who is going to be present in
this place and at this time to deliver authority to the man who the will of
the people brought to the front in order to carry out the destiny of our community”.
Applause greeted el Tepozteco who in his left hand carried the ax which symbolizes
the authority to govern. His passage was accompanied by the sound of the teponaztle
[Aztec slit drum] and conch shell. He declared “I have come here to govern
my people. One day my father, Ehecatl [the Aztec wind god] sent me to this
place to bring the wisdom of good government....I, the Tepozteco, have appeared
on a day which is historical. I am completing the history which I have made.”
After saluting the flag, and administering the oath of office to members of
the new government who raised their fists in the air, came the ceremony of
transferring the ax which is a badge of office from the hand of el Tepozteco,
the king, to Lázaro: a rite in the Nahuatl language which, among other
things, says “Don’t attempt to mess up our district by allowing
yourself to be betrayed by lights which are not stars. Don’t allow the
introduction of anything that is not of this people, for if you permit that,
it will be this very people who will demand your heart as a sacrifice to calm
the anger of our gods, the always revered Ometochtli, Ehecatl, Huitzilopochtli,
and Tonatiu” (Monroy: 173-176).
As told by some of those who were present, the message, the historic communion,
gained a greater force because the real Tepozteco appeared: “A breeze
was felt in the esplanade which wasn’t felt in the town square, something
like a wave. It meant that one must have faith that el Tepozteco is aiding
the movement and that it is not necessary to give in to the golf club.
In this way, the folk history of Mexico, Morelos, Zapata, the glorious prehispanic
past, with the music of the teponaztle and the contrasting sounds of the mariachi,
were condensed into one. It had been more or less 30 years since this ceremony
in Nahuatl of the transmission of power had taken place.
On the 6th of October, by decision of the Assembly, the doors of the municipal
office were opened. Costumed locksmiths opened the padlocks. In front of more
than 5,000 an act of the Assembly was passed authorizing Lázaro Rodriguez
and his partners to work inside the building. Assistants from the towns and
the mayordomos of the barrios were present.
Where are things going?: Between negotiation and repression
On Wednesday, the 27th of September, the members of the CUT and the municipal
government were contacted by officials of the state government, supposedly
as a first step in political negotiation, but on arrival at the meeting they
found Guillermo Malo, from the government of the state of Morelos and Juan
Burgos Pinto, judicial director of the Secretariat of Government, long time
faithful collaborators of governor Carrillo Olea.
The Tepoztecos decided, in their tireless campaign, to go to Mexico City.
At the seat of government they listened to the offers made to their delegates
and ended up concluding that it was inadvisable to trust them. The federal
government, just as much as the state government, had a real obsession with
the removal of the barricades. At times it seemed to be the only thing that
interested them. Some thought it was because they realized that the fight
was a matter of symbols; others thought their position was the result of the
emptiness of the administration and that all that remained to them was their
sense of “authority”, or, better said, their sense of authoritarianism.
The people, in their way - because of this, the politicians couldn’t
understand them - were more convinced each time, more committed to the fight,
and to not deviate from their goal, a definitive no to the golf club.
It is obvious that the legal path followed the political one and that the
main issue was not going to take place in legal territory. Nevertheless, it
is worth recalling that the work of KS was temporarily suspended by the Federal
Attorney General for Protection of the Environment (PROFEPA) on the 8th of
September because the corporation had not filed a permit for the change of
land use - for lack of the signatures of some members of the municipal government
- and because the Attorney General’s inspectors found that some of the
work started was damaging part of the northern zone in which the National
Ecological Institute (INE) had forbidden construction. For having treated
it as an accomplished fact, the district supreme court denied the petition
supported by the KS group against closing down work on the golf club, as ordered
by PROFEPA (La Jornada: October 26, 1995). In terms of the environmental issue,
it was in violation of the Bureau of Environment and Natural Resources as
well as of the INE.
The agrarian question was more complex. The plan was to get an order halting
the 1962 and 1963 orders which excluded from communal land the lands now in
the hands of KS, arguing that presidential decrees take precedence over and
can annul a judgement authorizing exclusion.
As for criminal matters, Anastasio Solis of the CUT and Lázaro Rodriguez
and Javier de la Mora faced eleven accusations, fabricated by the state government,
of sedition, rebellion, rabble rousing, and transportation of prohibited firearms.
Furthermore, 400 Tepoztecos went on October 25, to the offices of the Attorney
General of the state of Morelos, Carlos Peredo Merlo, to learn about an inquiry
made by Juan Carlos Lara, a substitute municipal president who had been appointed
by the state government which accused the CUT and the people’s government
of usurpation of official positions, dispossession, robbery, sedition, criminal
association, and abuse of authority.
In a display of their organization, the Tepoztecos presented the attorney
general with a pair of scoundrels whose arrest had been ordered several times
and who were captured by one of the Tepoztecan people’s own security
patrols.
The users of communal lands and of ejido lands together filed suit at a national
level against the KS group and its 52 shareholders for dispossion of their
lands and for damages, and against Jorge Carillo Olea for influence peddling,
abuse of authority, and intimidation, and against the head of Semamap, Julia
Carabias, for unauthorized use of its powers and functions and abusive exercise
of her authority.
Negotiations continue, but it is not clear in which direction the federal
and state governments want to go.
First there was a “dialog” which failed in the face of the government’s
lack of cooperation; later a completely rigged “consultation” to
the people of Tepoztlán which addressed only the government’s
perception of the “community”, and later a negotiation for the gradual
removal of the road blocks and restoration of the services of the civil registry,
military service, and payment of taxes, all of this with the idea that delaying
decisions would play out in favor of the government.
One might suppose that the movement would enter a phase of attrition, accentuated
by the efforts of the state government to create divisiveness between some
communities, such as between San Juan and the municipality’s principal
town, Tepoztlán. Further, the period during which extraordinary elections
could be convened was due to expire in a few days, giving the governor a chance
to appoint a “bipartisan” municipal council with half being the
governor’s people and the other half people from the community.
Once again the strategies were distinct because for the Tepoztecos a definitive
closing down of the golf club project was first and foremost, not the issue
of municipal power, since they had already achieved a proper exercise of power
through rules and channels which were an alternative to those which were formally
recognized. The people of Tepoztlán had not forgotten in their fight
that the government intends to derail their original objectives.
This dialog, like others in the nation, lacked a means of translation. It
deals with two discourses, from two civilizations and from alternative modernities:
the issue is that a definitive no to the golf club is a definitive no to neoliberal
policies.
The government’s temptation to make a quick exit was also in play. The
governor, Brigadier General Jorge Carillo Olea worked towards this with special
eagerness, defending not only the abstract interests of neoliberalism but
also his own interest group. As an example, an attempt to establish a municipal
government in exile in the town of Santa Catarina provoked the confrontation
on October 26 between nearly 3000 Tepoztecos armed with sticks and stones
and 400 riot police.
The first result, in addition to two Tepoztecos with gunshot wounds, was that
the people of Santa Catarina turned heavily against the golf club and the
government’s divisive efforts. The second was one more evidence of the
role that Bishop Luis Reynoso Cervantes has played as a golf club supporter
who surely was going to bless the installation of the new mayor when he encountered,
as he calls them, “the ones who are dead from hunger”.
What also should not fall through the cracks is the strong and lasting campaign
to create a lynch mob atmosphere through accusations that the CUT is linked
to drug traffickers, the PRD, and the EZLN.
Meanwhile, the fight is spreading throughout the “Comuna de Morelos”,
living on in activities and demands of towns and communities such as Xoxocotla,
Tlaltizapán, Ykautepec, Axochiapan and Tepalcingo.
Notes
1. This investigation of the political problematic of Tepoztlán was
submitted at the end of December last year and thus does not document the
events that took place during the months of January and February.
2. Coordinator of the Master’s program in Rural Law, Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana, Unidad Xochimilco and Tepoztlán resident.
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