The Situation in Chiapas

In recent times the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, and in particular San Cristóbal de Las Casas, has become best known for the Zapatista rebellion of 1994. On New Year’s Day, 1994, the Ejercito Zapatista para la Liberación Nacional (EZLN) over ran a number of Mexican army installations and took control of three major towns. San Cristóbal was one of the three and served as their base for a media blitz which quickly caught the world’s attention.

Although the EZLN’s actions took the world by surprise nine years ago, they were only the latest in a struggle for dignity and equality that dates back to the Spanish conquests of the early sixteenth century. Since this time the state’s governance, first as a part of Guatemala and since 1824 as part of an independent Mexico, has allowed its large population of indigenous Mayans to be maintained in deep poverty while the state’s natural resources are put to work for a wealthy minority.

Chiapas today maintains the lowest standard of living in Mexico. Despite the fact that nearly half of the country’s electrical power is generated from the harnessing of local rivers, more homes lack electricity here than anywhere else in Mexico. Infant mortality is the highest in the country while life expectancy and access to health care is lowest.

Chiapas currently ranks last in Mexico in all educational indicators. Students here spend an average of 5.5 years in the school system (the national average is 7.65 years) and the state leads the rest of the country in illiteracy. Statistics are most pronounced among indigenous youth, 92% of whom fail to complete primary school.

More recently political and religious conflicts in nearby villages have displaced tens of thousands of indigenous Mayans, forcing them to flee to the nearest substantial town – San Cristóbal de Las Casas – where they have taken up residence in sprawling makeshift neighborhoods on the outskirts of town. Many families cannot afford to maintain their children in school, instead sending them out into the streets to sell woven bracelets, belts, tiny clay animals, purses or chewing gum. The size of this juvenile workforce is striking.