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Indigenous Communities Will Have the Final Say in Debate Over New Laws, Sheinbaum Says
Around 350 delegates from 32 Indigenous communities gathered this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), the organization that most broadly represents Mexico’s Indigenous peoples, nations, tribes, neighborhoods, and collectives. CNI delegates from around 20 states celebrated their presence and resilience, while also acknowledging that conditions for Indigenous communities have worsened in several areas. Some of these challenges stem from more than 500 years of history, while others are rooted in more recent developments.
“If it weren’t for that resistance, Mexico wouldn’t be what it is today,” acknowledged President Claudia Sheinbaum. At the National Palace, the president held a “roundtable dialogue” with representatives of the country’s 69 Indigenous peoples and Afro-Mexican communities to mark the occasion. According to reports in La Jornada, the country has made progress under a government that empowers these communities, including giving them a greater voice in decisions made by the Supreme Court, now headed by an Indigenous man for the first time. Progress has also been made in reducing extreme poverty, an achievement recognized by UNESCO. As Sheinbaum noted, the governments of the Fourth Transformation (4T) achieved an unprecedented constitutional reform that recognizes Indigenous peoples as rights-bearing entities under the law.
At the meeting held at the National Palace, President Claudia Sheinbaum praised the strength of Indigenous communities and pledged to expand consultations on the actions on a new law on indigenous rights. She declared, “The leadership, the voice, and the decision are yours. We won’t submit it to Congress until you tell us, ‘It’s ready.’”
Members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) reaffirmed their opposition to the government’s proposed law on the rights of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples. In a document released during the closing plenary session marking the CNI’s 30th anniversary, they stated that capitalism has created “a war against nature” that is being waged against their communities and territories through megaprojects, mining, agribusiness, energy projects, infrastructure, and other forms of extractivism that threaten natural boundaries, sacred sites, water sources, and communal ways of life.
They also denounced the expansion of organized crime, forced displacement, disappearances, killings, militarization, and violence against those who defend their communities. “We are concerned about the complicity, inaction, and impunity of authorities at all levels of government in the face of this violence, as well as the criminalization and imprisonment of community defenders,” they stated. They demanded the release of political prisoners who have been jailed “for speaking out in defense of life and territory.” They also denounced the continued criminalization of communities by government authorities whenever they oppose extractive projects.
“The assembly adopted one of the key resolutions of its 30th anniversary: to strengthen, restructure, and reorganize the CNI to confront the capitalist war by building alliances with various social sectors, human rights organizations, and popular movements that have supported it,” wrote Magdalena Gómez.
In that vein, the assembly agreed to establish the “Network for the Commons” (Red por lo común) to help build a united front, create a directory for a solidarity economy network, step up efforts to support the work of mothers searching for their missing loved ones amid the thousands of disappearances, and push for the release of political prisoners.
“Over these 30 years, we have never lost the spirit of walking together and defending our communities. We refuse to let them continue taking our land away from us. We refuse to let our water sources disappear or the places where we live deteriorate,” explained María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, a spokesperson for the CNI. “Over these 30 years, we’ve watched governments of different political stripes come and go, yet the situation keeps getting worse. Thirty years may sound like a short time when you say it, but it has come at a great cost.”
According to Luis Hernández Navarro, the problems now facing the peoples and communities that make up the CNI extend far beyond land issues. They include health care, education, access to water, the shift toward wage labor, government programs that breed resentment, divide people, and break up collectively held lands, as well as abuses by middlemen and local power brokers and government repression.
Two additional issues—and a third that has become urgent—have moved to the forefront: defending their territories and natural resources from megaprojects and corporate interests seeking to dispossess them, and confronting organized crime. In many cases, criminal groups are subcontracted by powerful economic interests, turning ancestral communities into increasingly dangerous places to live, plagued by killings, disappearances, and imprisonment.
The Quote:
“Even if you think everyone has gone away/ you will not see me die/ There will be a seed/ hidden in the brush alongside the path/ that will come back to this land/ and sow the future…”
-You Will Not See Me Die, Irma Pineda, Zapotec poet
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◻️ The FIL in the Zócalo. The 26th edition of the International Book Fair, an annual cultural celebration held in Constitution Plaza, features a lineup of writers from across the globe and partnerships among publishers from different countries. Ezra Alcázar, of the Fondo de Cultura Economica (FCE), said everyone shares the same mission: “to bring books to everyone and make reading accessible, even to those who have not yet embraced it. … We publish and distribute books to spark debate, conversation, and critical analysis.” Paco Ignacio Taibo described Olga, the protagonist of his new novel, as “an absolutely irreverent and somewhat wild journalist, foul-mouthed to the extreme, a motorcyclist who keeps losing her jobs.” Meanwhile, Elena Poniatowska presented her new book about Rosario Castellanos and advised the audience: “If you want to write, first you have to listen to someone who is willing to tell you their life story.”
◻️ Protesters demand clean water; police respond with tear gas. “Water is a right, not a privilege!” chanted some 20,000 people who marched to Casa Jalisco, the governor’s residence, to demand clean water in Guadalajara. Police attacked the protesters with tear gas and water cannons, triggering clashes that left an unknown number of people injured, including children and older adults. Thirty-nine people were arrested. There is still no clean water.
◻️ Treasures from the archives: Carlos Monsiváis. This week, we launched a new archive featuring a selection of articles by some of our best-known contributors. We begin with columns by Monsi, and over the coming weeks, we will make available collections of other writers who have published in the newspaper over its 42-year history.
◻️ Immigrant communities in Georgia stand their ground. In the face of an anti-immigrant crackdown, Georgia’s immigrant community is defending itself through organizing and solidarity, says Adelina Nicholls, co-founder and executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, in an interview with La Jornada. “That was the foundation we established here, and to date we have reached nearly 53,000 people statewide, with almost 92 community meetings held in 96 cities.
◻️ A Nobel Peace Prize laureate challenges Trump. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s decision to award this year’s prize to South African legal scholar Navi Pillay was a direct rebuke to President Donald Trump and his complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “Pillay’s work should inspire leaders, social activists, and people around the world to defend self-determination, human dignity, and dialogue as the only legitimate means of resolving differences,” La Jornada wrote in an editorial. “Most importantly, it should challenge everyone not to ignore the genocide against the Palestinian people, to denounce those responsible and their accomplices, and to devote all their energy to ending this barbarity.” To underscore the significance of the award, La Jornada is publishing this statement by Pillay on the genocide, written in 2025.
◻️ Cabot Prizes honor David Brooks of La Jornada. “Brooks’s journalistic work is essential,” the Maria Moors Cabot Prize jury declared. The jury highlighted La Jornada’s reporting in and about the United States, which seeks to break down stereotypes about “gringos” by covering not only the elite but also working-class people, social movements, and the diverse communities that make up the country.
🎥 What We Are Watching
Reality - a poem by Natalia Toledo
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Edited by David Brooks and Jim Cason in the United States, Tania Molina Ramírez in Mexico City, of La Jornada, and Elizabeth Coll in Tokyo, under the direction of Carmen Lira Saade and Guillermina Álvarez. More information.