Indians Mexico

As he sped along a bumpy country road in his Volkswagen bug, the Rev. Salvador Avados Baca, the Catholic priest in the Purepecha Indian town of Tarecuato, took up a familiar theme. "At heart, the Purepechas haven't accepted everything brought to them by the missionaries," he complained. "They do things without taking into account the priest and the norms put in place by the Catholic Church," he said. "Instead, they follow their own customs."

Here in the sprawling, forlorn trailer park called Duroville, hope is as fleeting as the wind and fragile as a butterfly. It can arise suddenly, only to be crushed beneath the daily cares and fears of a people isolated by geography, language and discrimination. For Leobardo Jimenez, hope came with the recent birth of a son, a boy he prays can live a different life, one unbound from endless toil for a meager salary and a stark horizon of grapevines, lemons and desert.

The night before the party, they brought two sheep from the countryside and hitched them to a post in the cement lot that is a communal patio for 30 Triqui Indian families. Metro trains whirred by at regular intervals as the men hammered through concrete to dig a fire pit. They killed and skinned the sheep, wrapped the fresh meat in banana leaves and laid it among hot coals beneath downtown Mexico City.

Mexico ratified landmark constitutional reforms Thursday to strengthen Indian rights, but indigenous communities that had inspired the bill dismissed it as useless in saving the peace process in Chiapas state. State legislatures in Michoacan and Nayarit ratified the set of amendments known as the indigenous rights law, bringing the number of states approving it to 17--more than the majority required among Mexico's 31 states to change the Constitution.

She appeared as tiny as a 12-year-old, with a quivering, girlish voice. But Commander Ramona sent a powerful message Friday as the black-masked Indian woman became the first leader of the Zapatista rebels to take their campaign to the nation's capital. "I come from the mountains of southeast Mexico--from the Zapatista rebel mountains--to bring you all a message," she said to a cheering Indian conference here.

For six Tarahumara Indians, members of a tribe of legendary long-distance runners from northern Mexico, Saturday's 100-mile endurance race in the Angeles National Forest isn't just another race. It's a run to survive. "There's very little food, there's very little water," Tarahumara runner Madero Herrera says of his tribe's predicament back home. "There's no electricity in our community. People are hungry. People are dying."

Government peace envoy Manuel Camacho Solis said Saturday that he is ready to meet Indian insurgents to seek the release of a former governor kidnaped in the early hours of their New Year's uprising in Chiapas state. Camacho, speaking to reporters in San Cristobal de las Casas, did not disclose when or where the meeting would take place.

President Vicente Fox on Tuesday submitted a bill that would dramatically expand the rights of Mexico's indigenous people, addressing a key demand of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas state. Adoption of the bill, Fox's first legislative initiative, would pave the way for resumption of peace talks to end the nearly 7-year-old conflict between the government and Maya Indians in Mexico's southernmost and poorest state.

There's a large schoolhouse in Juan Herrera's village in the rugged mountains of northern Mexico that appears oddly out of proportion, considering there are less than a dozen dwellings in sight. Each weekday morning, however, about 180 Raramuri children come streaming out of the woods and down from the hills to attend class. For many, it's a five- or six-mile jog. And some of them go home for lunch and return in the afternoon.

Josefina Hernandez Gomez did not have much to go home to. On the day last year when she and her extended family were driven into exile, Hernandez's hateful neighbors burned their tiny houses and stole the chickens and sheep. The unattended radish and corn crops rotted. But Hernandez and her family, defying threats of death, did return. They sleep in the fertilizer shed while starting to rebuild. "They burned everything. Our mattresses.

The Mexican Congress on Saturday overwhelmingly approved broad constitutional reforms granting autonomy and other rights to millions of indigenous people, although last-minute changes to the measure raised doubts that it will satisfy Indian rebels in Chiapas state. The lower Chamber of Deputies voted 386 to 60 in favor of the reform package three days after the Senate unanimously approved the bill.

Masked Zapatista rebels took the floor of Mexico's Congress on Wednesday to argue for an Indian rights bill, a historic appearance that raised hopes for an end to their seven-year conflict with the government. Two dozen Zapatistas, unarmed and wearing their trademark ski masks, filed past congressional deputies and took seats in two rows directly in front of the speaker's lectern.

Even though the negotiators managed to reach a last-minute agreement to continue their talks, no one involved with this week's planned meeting between Zapatista rebels and Mexican legislators is under any illusion about the difficulty of the road ahead. Details of how the negotiations for an Indian rights law will proceed, who will represent the two sides and the timetable for an accord are unknown, and could present serious sticking points.

Thousands of Indians, students and foreign leftists opened a National Indigenous Congress in Nurio, a village in Michoacan state, calling for passage of an Indian rights bill they believe would bring respect to those whose ancestors once ruled what is now Mexico. Indians are united in their belief that the accord would help them preserve their cultures, languages and land.

Seven years after he and his ragtag band of Maya Indians seized this placid colonial city in an armed rebellion that stunned the world, Subcommander Marcos was back, armed this time not with a gun but with a speech. In that moment this weekend, the Zapatista rebels' struggle for indigenous rights shifted from a military theater where the guerrillas had no prospect of victory to a political stage--one where they may well be capable of challenging the new national government as agents for change.

High in the Sierra Madre mountains of Oaxaca, a simple village is practicing the kind of autonomy that could change the future for millions of indigenous people throughout Mexico. The mayor was chosen not by secret ballot, the way of Western democracies, but by village assembly, the traditional method of the Zapotec Indians. He presides over a centuries-old system that provides basic services, maintains customs and resolves disputes for the village's 1,200 people.

The religious highlight of the opening day of Pope John Paul II's current visit to Mexico was a ceremony confirming centuries of reverence for Juan Diego, a 16th-Century Indian peasant, as Mary's messenger. Juan Diego and four other Mexican Catholics were beatified Sunday at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Cozkacuauhtli Zenteotl was once known as Eduardo Rivera. For 18 years, he didn't think much about his name until one day he realized that, unlike many of his white and African-American classmates, he knew very little about his family's history. "Their roots went back to Europe and Africa," he said. "But me? I did not know how I came about."

President Vicente Fox on Tuesday submitted a bill that would dramatically expand the rights of Mexico's indigenous people, addressing a key demand of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas state. Adoption of the bill, Fox's first legislative initiative, would pave the way for resumption of peace talks to end the nearly 7-year-old conflict between the government and Maya Indians in Mexico's southernmost and poorest state.

When residents of indigenous communities like this rug-weaving town talk about the political opposition, they generally mean the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD. Led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, namesake of the most famous Indian hero in Mexican history, the PRD has actively--though not always successfully--courted the votes of this country's estimated 8.7 million indigenous, or Indian, citizens.