Xelajú

Photos from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala by Andrew Stefan

Un lugar llamado Chiapas

Photos from Chiapas, Mexico by Andrew Stefan

Social Movements in Mexico: La Policía Comunitaria

As drug-related violence, state repression, poverty, and inequality intensify in many regions of Mexico, affected indigenous communities are increasingly utilizing collective action as a tool for self-defense and human development. Indigenous mobilization from below has become a major force throughout Latin America over recent decades, and many communities in Mexico’s Guerrero state are now using such strategies to redefine the conventions of political participation.

Notably, the Mixtec and Tlapeneco people of the Costa Chica and Montaña regions of Guerrero have constructed an organization by the name of the Policía Comunitaria (or Community Police) for self-defense through Black Panther-style, grassroots armed-patrols. The efforts of this project have given rise to a number of additional sophisticated social and political programs for security and human development. 

The Policía Comunitaria came into being on October 15, 1995, in the community of Santa Cruz del Rincón of Guerrero's Montaña region. Developed by way of village assemblies, the initial incarnation of the PC was a small, community-run, volunteer police force that ran patrols in and around its villages of origin. The project was designed to combat rampant crime and violence that was typically either ignored or committed by the state in the Montaña and Costa Chica regions.

In 1997, the growing number of communities affiliated with the PC decided to expand the project to include governance and the administration of justice form below. The “Community System of Security, Justice, and Reeducation” (SSJRC) was created for this purpose and was eventually re-established under new structure called the Regional Coordinator of Communal Authorities (CRAC). Its headquarters is located in the city of San Luis Acatlán.

 

Today, this project is operating in roughly 60 Mixtec, Tlapaneco, Nahuas, and Mestiza 

communities within the six municipalities of the Costa Chica and Montaña regions, and represents about 100,000 people.