People displaced by violence in Chiapas return to their homes.
Mexico City: Thirty years after the signing of the San Andrés Accords, the situation of poverty and marginalization in Chiapas has not only not changed, but has worsened with the incursion of organized crime groups, who control the state and the border with Guatemala and Belize, lamented Leonardo Lomelí, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
During the ceremony commemorating this anniversary and the donation of the documentary collection of the civil association SERAPAZ to the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities (CEIICH), the rector listed a series of figures demonstrating that the conditions in that region of the country are deplorable and that the accords were a political, legal, and symbolic turning point, but only brought social and economic conflicts to light without achieving significant results.
“The conditions that gave rise to the crisis have not been overcome. Thirty years later, San Andrés finds itself facing that reality again. The causes that sparked the rebellion have not disappeared; they have been reconfigured and have taken on unprecedented forms,” asserted the rector of the national university.
In Chiapas, he pointed out, the expansion of organized crime groups has added to a complex dynamic that imposes illegal economies, forced displacement, recruitment, and dispossession, and is intertwined with local political bosses and networks of power.
“This scenario erodes the social fabric and deepens inequality,” added the rector, who lamented that this state remains mired in extreme and multidimensional poverty, where more than 60 percent of its population has an income below the cost of basic necessities.
Inequality is also evident in upper secondary education coverage, which barely reaches 59 percent, and in higher education, only 19.7 percent of the eligible age group accesses this level, which is less than half the national average. The agreement signed in Chiapas was the product of a momentous struggle that demonstrated that marginalization was a persistent system that had to end.
However, neither the subsequent legislative reforms nor the public policies implemented fully captured the spirit of those debates and the social fervor that accompanied them.
Original article by Lilian Hernández Osorio, La Jornada, February 17th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.