Dissident Threads in Chiapas (1970-1980): Indigenous, Peasant, and Popular Movements Under State Violence

Abstract

The period between the 1960s and 1990s in Mexico was marked by systematic state violence against political and social dissidence. The 1968 student mobilization in Mexico City brought massive public attention to the repressive actions of the PRI regime, whose grave human rights violations continued even after the announcement of a democratic opening. In the state of Chiapas, peasant and Indigenous organizations—proliferating throughout the 1970s and 1980s—were among the most affected, subjected to arbitrary detentions, torture, and forced disappearances. Demobilization, the rupture of social bonds, and political de-subjectivation were central aims in the deployment of terror. Therefore, a key task in research on this period is to recover and make visible the political agency of the victims. With this aim, and drawing on the testimonies recently presented during the Dialogue for Truth held in Chiapas (2023), as well as on bibliographic and documentary analysis, this article identifies and describes key spaces of encounter and articulation between peasant and Indigenous dissidence and the various struggles that made up the popular movements of the time.