Approval of ruling in favor of indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities is celebrated

Mexico City. The Assembly of the National Council of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples celebrated the fact that the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies unanimously approved the opinion with draft decree, which modifies the second constitutional article, and requested the 66th legislature to approve the indigenous and Afro reform in September.

On the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the importance of the publication of the National Catalogue of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples and Communities published today in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) was highlighted.

In this regard, Adelfo Regino Montes, director of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), stated that the catalogue is the first instrument of the Mexican State that will serve to fully identify indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities as subjects of public law, and guarantee the exercise of their collective rights recognized in national and international legislation.

He added that the catalogue will be a reference for establishing direct dialogue, from government to government, in the consultation processes and in addressing community and regional needs. It will also allow the Government of Mexico to know exactly where it should provide cultural relevance to its public policies to guarantee pluriculturalism, legal pluralism and an intercultural approach.

The approval of the ruling has transcendental significance for indigenous peoples and communities in the full recognition of their fundamental rights. The ruling, approved in general with the unanimity of 37 votes, derives from the initiative presented on February 5 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In another commemoration of this date, more than two thousand members of various indigenous groups residing and not residing in Mexico City took part in the Megacalenda 2024. They walked in 25 groups to show some of their most significant dances and artistic performances and to remember that Mexico is a multicultural and multilingual nation.

Called by the Movement of Indigenous Peoples, Communities and Organizations (MPCOI), this year’s Megacalenda theme was For the revitalization of indigenous languages.
The indigenous groups convened by the MPCOI walked from the Angel of Independence to the capital’s Zócalo to show their dances and artistic expressions.

The Megacalenda was attended by people from the Huasteca, a contingent of Triquis with their chilolo and women in red huipiles, a formation of Mexicatiahui calpulli, another of regional catrinas, devils from Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, as well as the Chinelos from Morelos and the Tecuanes from Puebla.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples brought together almost two thousand municipal and community authorities from the 70 indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities. Its members called for unity between the Mexican indigenous movement and the black Afro-Mexican movement for a common cause: the constitutional recognition of their rights.

They said that the indigenous and Afro-Mexican reform “must unite and unify us, in word and deed, because in it lies our strength to achieve our true reconstruction as peoples, and with it advance in the refoundation of the Republic, and for Mexico to truly be the home of all; we will have to see our rights recognized in the Constitution, as an act of elementary social justice.”

They added that the reform initiative creates the basis for advancing the transformation of the current legal and political structures of the Mexican State and, once and for all, recognizing in the Political Constitution the cultural and historical greatness of all the peoples that comprise it; in essence, recognizing that Mexico is made up of a diversity of peoples and cultures, our indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, leaving behind the old idea of ​​a monoethnic and monocultural State.

They also supported the initiative of the President of the Republic to reform the Judiciary, and pointed out that, during the 200 years of Mexico’s independent life, indigenous peoples have been the most affected by the elitist and formalistic system, which is alien to the reality of the native communities and their demands for justice.

They therefore demanded the incorporation of the principles of pluriculturalism, interculturalism and legal pluralism in the formation and functioning of the Judiciary, and the recognition of indigenous justice systems.