The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) was founded nearly 30 years ago. Despite the tenacious and tireless resistance of Indigenous peoples and this network—and notwithstanding the establishment of ‘’de facto’’ autonomies, the flourishing of some of their languages, and the regional strengthening of their culture and identity—they have faced increased exploitation, dispossession of their lands and territories, tokenism regarding the recognition of their rights, and racism.
Hand in hand with export-oriented agribusiness, their proletarianization and brutal exploitation have grown. There are around three million agricultural day laborers in Mexico, many of them Indigenous. They plant, harvest, and process crops for modern farms under subhuman conditions. Often, their young children work alongside them, unable to attend school. A significant number lack social security or employment contracts. Far from living in decent housing, they reside in squalid tenements or inhospitable communal barracks.
As Jared Laureles reported in this newspaper, data obtained via the National Transparency Platform (PNT) reveal that in 2023, there were only 47 federal inspectors from the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) covering one of the most important agribusiness regions: Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur. Among their duties, these inspectors are responsible for certifying safety conditions in agricultural fields (https://shortlink.win/1yst0).
Many Indigenous people migrate to the United States with the help of human traffickers. Although there is no official census, a report by the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs indicates that nearly half a million members of 29 Indigenous groups currently live in the “Golden Cage” of the North, constantly fearing arrest and deportation (https://shortlink.win/1ysuU).
The displacement of Indigenous populations due to megaprojects is not a new issue. Among many others, the cases of the Miguel Alemán (Temascal) dam in 1947, the Luis Donaldo Colosio (Huites) dam in 1995, and El Zapotillo in 2009 serve as examples. At the age of 21, Rodolfo Stavenhagen—whose presence is sorely missed—participated in a project investigating the Mazatec communities that were to be displaced, without prior consultation, by the construction of the Miguel Alemán dam on a tributary of the Papaloapan River, on the border between Oaxaca and Veracruz. There, he witnessed firsthand the human tragedy inflicted upon indigenous peoples in the name of “progress” and the violation of their human rights justified by “development.”
However, in recent years, these megaprojects have proliferated, often sanctioned by sham consultations. Among the many ongoing projects facing community resistance is the construction of a methanol plant in Ohuira Bay, Sinaloa, within Yoreme-Mayo territory. In Chiapas, there is strong opposition to the Palenque-Ocosingo-San Cristóbal and Amatenango del Valle-San Cristóbal highway projects, which will cause severe environmental impacts for Tseltal and Cho’ol communities. In San Luis Potosí and Veracruz, numerous communities oppose fracking. In Oaxaca, the Zapotec ejido of San Pedro Comitancillo rejects the construction of a photovoltaic park. In Mexico, the “environmentalism of the poor” is essentially the environmentalism of indigenous peoples.
Many indigenous communities fall victim to aggression by organized crime, whether from groups like Los Ardillos in Guerrero or the CJNG on the Michoacán coast and in the Sierra region of Chiapas. Attacks against these peoples have resulted in violence, dispossession, and forced displacement. Jesús Plácido Galindo, a leader of the Emiliano Zapata Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ), was unjustly detained in mid-July 2026 by federal and state forces and sent to a high-security prison for confronting the narco-paramilitary group that has established a stronghold in the Montaña Baja region.
Indigenous peoples lack direct political representation. The political parties’ monopoly on representation prevents them—as well as Afro-Mexicans—from having direct representation independent of registered parties, except in areas where municipal authorities are elected according to traditional customs and practices. Although their right to self-determination and autonomy is formally recognized in the Constitution, the exercise of this right is obstructed in practice (just as it is regarding the right to territory).
To “compensate” for this, affirmative action candidacies for Indigenous people were established—yet they are a sham. Thanks to the magic of ethnically based legislative quotas, we have shifted from whiteness to the “Indianization” of electoral politics. The list of identity usurpers is staggering. It matters not that, in reality, they belong to no Indigenous community, nor that they do not fight for their political agenda, nor that they have never lived in Indigenous or Afro-Mexican settlements. They feign leadership nonetheless.
The latest episode in this offensive against native peoples is the proposal for the General Law on the Rights of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples. Among the many outrageous provisions it contains, one stands out: the recognition of Indigenous peoples and communities is to be granted by the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a government agency. It is an assault on the right to self-determination and autonomy.
It is no wonder that the Maya sage Pedro Uc (https://shortlink.win/1Efff) described this proposal as a “trap-cage,” where well-being and good faith serve as bait for a neocolonialism that perpetuates dispossession. Furthermore, the CNI itself views the consultation process as a sham and the proposed legislation as a trap that curtails its autonomy. Thus, thirty years after its inception, it will continue to swim against the current, fighting for the reconstitution of Indigenous peoples—just as it always has.
Original article by Luis Hernández Navarro, La Jornada, September 22, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.