"UNOSJO have been showing how Dobson, or better said, the U.S. military authorities who are behind the mapping project, have an interest in the privatization of communally held lands," explained Aldo González, director of the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juárez. "Throughout their mapping investigations, they are seeking to understand the communities' resistance to privatization and identify mechanisms to force them to join PROCEDE [a government privatization scheme]. Bowman Expeditions clearly state that they are collecting information so that the U.S. government can make better foreign policy decisions. So obviously they are going to take into consideration the information gathered here in these communities and apply it in general to all the communities in similar circumstances in Oaxaca and all over Mexico."
México Indígena's own website reveals, "Since the tumultuous period of political unrest in the summer and fall of 2006, Oaxaca has been in the news as a region where long-standing grievances among many indigenous communities are meshing with other movements in complex ways. Our work will illuminate neglected but important facets of these movements." This reinforces concerns, like Don Juan's and González's, that the project's real focus is on counter-insurgency and social engineering.
When asked about the stated goal of understanding social movements, Herlihy didn't initially recall that from the project's website. When asked in a follow-up interview to clarify the statement on the website, he defended his research and its purpose. "Land is often at the root of social conflict. Our participatory research mapping methodology helped illuminate the neglected and little-understood PROCEDE program and how the neoliberal privatization of 'social property' begins to threaten indigenous lifeways through the introduction of individualistic and capitalistic land tenure practices, changing historic guarantees of the inalienability of communal property," wrote Herlihy in an email. "Indeed, indigenous communities and organizations have only begun protesting the results and impact of the Mexican land certification program."
Another intrinsic part of the war of words in this bitter dispute is the Bowman Expeditions' insistence that UNOSJO, and particularly its director, Aldo González, have no right to speak on behalf of the communities. "UNOSJO is a small NGO that works with Zapotec and other indigenous communities in the Sierra Juárez (but) it is not the political or official voice of the Zapotec communities where we did our research," wrote Herlihy in an official statement with other students and professors participating in México Indígena.
González refutes the charge. UNOSJO—with the affiliation of 24 communities—is the largest Zapotec organization in the region. He said: "Mr. Herlihy and Mr. Dobson—and indeed the U.S. military—are used to speaking to individuals. For them it is sufficient to ask one person as the owner of a piece of land for permission. But for the indigenous communities things aren't like that. Today we are struggling for autonomy for our indigenous peoples, and this is a project bigger than any one single community. So what is happening in Tiltepec and Yagila is affecting other Zapotec communities. For this reason, we have the courage, the duty, and the reason to protest against Bowman Expeditions because it is not just the communities of Tiltepec or Yagila, but all the Zapotec communities in that region, and, ultimately, all of the indigenous communities in Mexico, who are being or will be affected by the studies."
"Let the indigenous people of Oaxaca speak for themselves," wrote Dobson in his February 5 response to critics. The problem in this is that the two communities who hosted the mapping project—San Miguel Tiltepec and San Juan Yagila—have not yet come out publicly on the matter.
Herlihy, the México Indígena team leader, wrote in the aforementioned statement "our (sic) community leaders have openly expressed heartfelt appreciation for our hard work. And you recognize the usefulness of the maps we produced together with you, as well as the training received by the community investigators and university students involved."
González offered a different version of events: "We have been talking to the communities involved in the U.S. studies and they maintain that they were not sufficiently informed about the source of finance and they feel angry because of this. For sure the Herlihy team will try and go to them to change their minds and convince them otherwise, and that will generate more debate."
Zoltan Grossman, a faculty member in Geography and Native American Studies at Evergreen State College who also serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), has been following the project and the controversy surrounding it. "In this case of mapping collective land holdings, it seems like some indigenous communities are working with Herlihy's project, while others are suspicious of it," said Grossman, speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the AAG's Indigenous Group. "Personally, I don't think the support of some indigenous people for the project should be used as an answer to criticism by others."
He added that this could exacerbate internal divisions among the Native peoples, while it also creates a colonial divide-and-conquer dynamic that pits indigenous communities against each other. Meanwhile, in Oaxaca, everyone is taking a position. Don Juan from Lachixila is more disappointed with his neighbors in Tiltepec and Yagila: "They don't have enough awareness of what's really going on. They were fooled."
Melquiades Cruz, an indigenous communications worker from Santa Cruz Yagavila (the first community to stop work with the México Indígena project), admitted that people there were initially interested in the project as a way of empowering local students. "At first the community was interested in the México Indígena project primarily so that the youth would learn how to do this kind of graphic information work, to be useful for the community and the region. The community entered into communication with them, and there were three assemblies during which they presented their project," said Cruz. "It was during the third assembly that the community told them that this project doesn't appeal to us because we think that it seems like an awful lot of money and there must be something else behind it. But if you have the money to just leave your people here to train our people to do the work, that's all, then we can do it. So that this knowledge can be communal, and so that it is shared between the community and the academics that come from outside."
Cruz said the México Indígena team broke off relations after that. This led the community to determine it would not make a formal decision in the assembly. "These people from outside always come trying to sell a great idea—in this case to produce a graphic picture of the community—but this time we saw through it, and we said, it's not just a graphic map, maybe they are interested in the community resources," said Cruz. "We saw that there was something else behind it."
Among the Zapotec in Lachixila, the charge of counter-insurgency activities resounds. UNOSJO has also outlined its concerns in terms of both land privatization and bio-piracy. "It's not just about military control, but also about strategic control over the communities, controlling their land and their consumption," said González.
The bio-piracy issue has been taken up by groups working in food sovereignty and environmental advocacy. Silvia Ribeiro, a researcher from the environmental advocacy ETC Group wrote in the Mexican daily La Jornada, "These maps are of great utility for military ends and for counterinsurgency, but also for industrial purposes (exploitation of resources like minerals, plants, animals and biodiversity; mapping access roads already constructed or 'necessary,' sources of water, settlements, social maps of possible resistance or acceptance of projects, etc)."
"We're putting the power of maps into the hands of these communities," insists Herlihy. But could it also be that these University of Kansas geographers' mapping project is serving as an imperial alibi for the FMSO's Demarest, "champion" of the Bowman project, to further his agenda of strengthening the collaboration among "policymakers, officers and soldiers to have better on-the-ground information" through GIS mapping systems to conduct war?
Santa Cruz Yagavila's Cruz alleged that the geographers were not forthright with where their funding was coming from, thus suggesting either a lack of comfort with the project's relationship with the military, or a conscientious effort to conceal the military designs behind the project. "Herlihy made a presentation in the community showing what were the uses of the maps, where they had worked before, but he never told us where the funds for the project were coming from," said Cruz. "He said it was funded by the University of Kansas or by the University of San Luis, but he never mentioned the source of the funds coming from the Armed Forces of the United States, never."
México Indígena's own website reveals, "Since the tumultuous period of political unrest in the summer and fall of 2006, Oaxaca has been in the news as a region where long-standing grievances among many indigenous communities are meshing with other movements in complex ways. Our work will illuminate neglected but important facets of these movements." This reinforces concerns, like Don Juan's and González's, that the project's real focus is on counter-insurgency and social engineering.
When asked about the stated goal of understanding social movements, Herlihy didn't initially recall that from the project's website. When asked in a follow-up interview to clarify the statement on the website, he defended his research and its purpose. "Land is often at the root of social conflict. Our participatory research mapping methodology helped illuminate the neglected and little-understood PROCEDE program and how the neoliberal privatization of 'social property' begins to threaten indigenous lifeways through the introduction of individualistic and capitalistic land tenure practices, changing historic guarantees of the inalienability of communal property," wrote Herlihy in an email. "Indeed, indigenous communities and organizations have only begun protesting the results and impact of the Mexican land certification program."
Another intrinsic part of the war of words in this bitter dispute is the Bowman Expeditions' insistence that UNOSJO, and particularly its director, Aldo González, have no right to speak on behalf of the communities. "UNOSJO is a small NGO that works with Zapotec and other indigenous communities in the Sierra Juárez (but) it is not the political or official voice of the Zapotec communities where we did our research," wrote Herlihy in an official statement with other students and professors participating in México Indígena.
"Let the indigenous people of Oaxaca speak for themselves," wrote Dobson in his February 5 response to critics. The problem in this is that the two communities who hosted the mapping project—San Miguel Tiltepec and San Juan Yagila—have not yet come out publicly on the matter.
Herlihy, the México Indígena team leader, wrote in the aforementioned statement "our (sic) community leaders have openly expressed heartfelt appreciation for our hard work. And you recognize the usefulness of the maps we produced together with you, as well as the training received by the community investigators and university students involved."
González offered a different version of events: "We have been talking to the communities involved in the U.S. studies and they maintain that they were not sufficiently informed about the source of finance and they feel angry because of this. For sure the Herlihy team will try and go to them to change their minds and convince them otherwise, and that will generate more debate."
Zoltan Grossman, a faculty member in Geography and Native American Studies at Evergreen State College who also serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), has been following the project and the controversy surrounding it. "In this case of mapping collective land holdings, it seems like some indigenous communities are working with Herlihy's project, while others are suspicious of it," said Grossman, speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the AAG's Indigenous Group. "Personally, I don't think the support of some indigenous people for the project should be used as an answer to criticism by others."
He added that this could exacerbate internal divisions among the Native peoples, while it also creates a colonial divide-and-conquer dynamic that pits indigenous communities against each other. Meanwhile, in Oaxaca, everyone is taking a position. Don Juan from Lachixila is more disappointed with his neighbors in Tiltepec and Yagila: "They don't have enough awareness of what's really going on. They were fooled."
Melquiades Cruz, an indigenous communications worker from Santa Cruz Yagavila (the first community to stop work with the México Indígena project), admitted that people there were initially interested in the project as a way of empowering local students. "At first the community was interested in the México Indígena project primarily so that the youth would learn how to do this kind of graphic information work, to be useful for the community and the region. The community entered into communication with them, and there were three assemblies during which they presented their project," said Cruz. "It was during the third assembly that the community told them that this project doesn't appeal to us because we think that it seems like an awful lot of money and there must be something else behind it. But if you have the money to just leave your people here to train our people to do the work, that's all, then we can do it. So that this knowledge can be communal, and so that it is shared between the community and the academics that come from outside."
Cruz said the México Indígena team broke off relations after that. This led the community to determine it would not make a formal decision in the assembly. "These people from outside always come trying to sell a great idea—in this case to produce a graphic picture of the community—but this time we saw through it, and we said, it's not just a graphic map, maybe they are interested in the community resources," said Cruz. "We saw that there was something else behind it."
Among the Zapotec in Lachixila, the charge of counter-insurgency activities resounds. UNOSJO has also outlined its concerns in terms of both land privatization and bio-piracy. "It's not just about military control, but also about strategic control over the communities, controlling their land and their consumption," said González.
The bio-piracy issue has been taken up by groups working in food sovereignty and environmental advocacy. Silvia Ribeiro, a researcher from the environmental advocacy ETC Group wrote in the Mexican daily La Jornada, "These maps are of great utility for military ends and for counterinsurgency, but also for industrial purposes (exploitation of resources like minerals, plants, animals and biodiversity; mapping access roads already constructed or 'necessary,' sources of water, settlements, social maps of possible resistance or acceptance of projects, etc)."
"We're putting the power of maps into the hands of these communities," insists Herlihy. But could it also be that these University of Kansas geographers' mapping project is serving as an imperial alibi for the FMSO's Demarest, "champion" of the Bowman project, to further his agenda of strengthening the collaboration among "policymakers, officers and soldiers to have better on-the-ground information" through GIS mapping systems to conduct war?
Santa Cruz Yagavila's Cruz alleged that the geographers were not forthright with where their funding was coming from, thus suggesting either a lack of comfort with the project's relationship with the military, or a conscientious effort to conceal the military designs behind the project. "Herlihy made a presentation in the community showing what were the uses of the maps, where they had worked before, but he never told us where the funds for the project were coming from," said Cruz. "He said it was funded by the University of Kansas or by the University of San Luis, but he never mentioned the source of the funds coming from the Armed Forces of the United States, never."
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