Indigenous groups celebrate three years of occupying government offices in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (CN) — From the bully pulpit of his daily morning press conferences, Mexico’s president regularly reminds watchers that his government is working for “the people,” but many Indigenous groups don’t buy it. 

Several of those organizations met Thursday to celebrate the third anniversary of the taking and occupation of offices belonging to the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, in the south of Mexico City, as they continue to demand their constitutional rights to housing, work, education and more.

“We have nothing to celebrate that is not the resistance and rebellion of our peoples,” the organizations said in a statement to supporters and the media at a rally outside the occupied offices.

According to the institute’s website, its goal is to “guarantee the exercise and implementation of the rights of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, … in accordance with the provisions of the Mexican Constitution.”

Activists, however, claim that they have been denied these constitutional rights for years. A group of displaced Otomi people originally from the state of Querétaro took the offices on Oct. 12, 2020, after a dispute with the Mexico City government over housing. 

The families left their home state more than two decades ago due to a lack of adequate housing, water, electricity, schools and other services. They had lived in abandoned buildings in the Roma and Juárez neighborhoods of Mexico City for years and had tried unsuccessfully to get the city to expropriate the properties and build housing on them. 

Then came the September 2017 earthquake that left nearly 400 people dead and damaged over 180,000 residences in the city.

The city government took advantage of the disaster to evict the families, some of whom continue to live in makeshift communities in the street outside buildings the government condemned. Those who had had enough of pushing the government to fulfill its duties under Article 4 of Mexico’s Constitution — which establishes the right to dignified and decent housing — took the institute's offices in 2020. 

They renamed the building “The House of Indigenous Peoples and Communities: Samir Flores Soberanes,” in honor of a water rights activist from Amilcingo, Morelos, who was killed in 2019 for his outspoken opposition to a nearby hydroelectric power plant. 

Currently 30 families — around 100 people — live in the occupied offices. They have organized a school for the children and hold regular workshops for artisan products, which they sell outside the offices. 

The activists lay the blame for the violation of their rights directly at the feet of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who says his Fourth Transformation of Mexico is changing the country to benefit people like them. 

“We hold the government of the Fourth Transformation, of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, responsible for this dispossession,” said organizer Anslema Margarito at the anniversary rally. 

A spokesperson for López Obrador did not respond to a request for comment. 

In the three years of the occupation, other Indigenous organizations have used the space to find solidarity and support for their causes. Members of the National Assembly for Water and Life, relatives of political prisoners from Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca, parents of the 43 disappeared students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college and several other groups with similar complaints of feeling let down by the current government spoke at Thursday’s rally. 

“What government media says is not true,” said María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, spokeswoman for the National Indigenous Congress, which celebrated the 27th anniversary of its founding on Thursday as well. “The situation of our peoples is grave and we need to be heard by national and international forces, because that’s how serious the situation of plunder and disdain is.”

López Obrador’s approval rating remains at around 60%, despite such complaints from the very people he claims to champion. 

“I think some people need to experience something in order to see whether or not he is doing what he says he’s doing,” said Margarito in an interview ahead of a march for Indigenous rights in Mexico City Thursday afternoon. 

Once called Columbus Day to commemorate the Italian explorer’s arrival in the Americas, Oct. 12 was changed to the “Día de la Raza”, or Day of the [Ibero-American] Race, in the early 20th century. In December 2020, just two months after the taking of the institute's offices, López Obrador changed the official name to the “Day of the Multicultural Nation.”

With such apparent lip service, López Obrador’s government is no different from its predecessors, Margarito said.

“People must open their eyes,” she said. “All governments are the same, no matter which party is in power. They’re all the same.” 

The organizers also announced the founding of a community radio station that will broadcast from the offices called “The Voice of the People.” In the spirit of their years-long protest, they invited other groups to make use of the station to create community. 

Follow @copycopeland

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit