Chiapas

History

This area was populated by the Maya , well before the arrival of the Conquistador are Spanish. After the end of " the empire maya" the territory was conquered by the Aztec ones which required strong tributes of the subjected populations. The Spaniards arrived in 1518 named it Gran Quiché. The conquest was finished by helped Spanish their allies tlaxcaltèques (coming from the center of the country) and mexicas in 1527. August 28th, 1821 Chiapas was declared independent of Spain. September 14th, 1821 the inhabitants of Chiapas decided by referendum their union with Mexico by 96 829 voices against 60400 which went to Guatemala, 15724 voted “white”. By its marginal geographical location Chiapas escaped violences from the wars from independence. It was saved by the majority of the disorders of the 19th century and the French intervention. During the Revolution against Diaz and the civil war which followed its exile, Chiapas was also saved. Its inhabitants knew during all the period of the 19th century and that of independence only few disorders. Bartolomé de Las Put was bishop of San Cristobal at the 16th century, city which later will be called San Cristóbal of mow Casas.

Policy

Many political parties and social movements are active there, playing the game of the democratic institutions. Rebellious EZLN, very known organization of the altermondialists, is however minority and did not manage to as well mobilize a broad popular base within the natives as of the remainder of the population of Chiapas. Its spokesperson is the Under-commander Marcos, formed has Cuba. Denouncing centuries of political, social and cultural oppression the rising of the Zapatist Army of national release (EZLN) dated January 1st 1994 refers in a mythical way to the first Mexican revolution started in 1910 under the direction of several political leaders of liberal tendency such as Francisco Madero and soldiers like Francisco Villa in north, as Emiliano Zapata (which was unaware of all the Marxism) in Morelos. The EZLN also discouraged from the local and foreign investors coming in Chiapas, from where a job loss which accelerates the departure of young people towards the USA, not finding work on the spot. Regarding itself as an army, it provides an excellent pretext to the supporters of law and order and firmness, with the nationalists who they are of left or right-hand side which seized this occasion to test without great results (see figures % GDP) giving more means to the soldiers and to the police force. The PRI (member of the international Socialist) since its come to power had sought to decrease the capacity of the soldiers.

Some of its sympathizers consider it regrettable that the EZLN does not take part in the elections and that it is not a traditional political party, which would give him a legitimacy acquired democratically by the ballot boxes and would give the exact share of its representativeness.

It seemed, that with the election of Vicente Fox, the negotiations took again the top on the violence of the EZLN, the government playing temporization, the EZLN is not a great concern for the Mexican government. Other groups of guerillas as the EPR (Ejército Popular Revolucionario) denounce mollesse and the use of poetry by the EZLN, and currently carry out an armed struggle (July 2007 attacks of a prison.)

January 2003: 27 new-born babies died in 45 days in a hospital with Comitán. These deaths, although ever proven created a medical scandal reported by the Jornada, (daily Mexican of left at the time very near of Zapatist) Indeed, some estimate that these deaths could have been avoided, as that of the children who are born at the house and whose very high mortality is due partly to the traditional care could also be avoided. This situation would be due to the weakness of the budgets allocated with health in Chiapas (67 percent of the inhabitants not cotisant with the Social security) but profiting from many governmental programs of free care (vaccination campaigns e.g. and of free dispensaries) and with the lack of doctors (in the majority of the places, there would be only one doctor for 2300 inhabitants) and in a more general way to poverty of the majority of the inhabitants of this area. Several town councilors of all political tendencies had sent in vain messages to ask of the assistance. According to some, doctors chiapanèques trained by the federal programs preferring to work in cities or the federal District, to see even giving up medicine for other offices in the USA where they are paid better, the poverty of the inhabitants of this area not encouraging them to remain there.

In addition serious problems involved in the organized crime and the fights of the drug traffickers to have the monopoly of the roads leading to the places of consumption, as well as a very strong delinquency and an endemic insecurity overpower this State.

The lack of infrastructures which can make a real improvement of the quality of the life is notorious the population claims highways, bridges, airports, hospitals, structures modern of sales such as supermarkets etc as well as sources of employment such as industries and a modernization of the agricultural techniques allowing a production of exportable fruit and vegetables.

Many indigenous craftsmen are private of their work. Indeed some of them preferred to make manufacture in Asia of the very exact copies of the local arts and crafts. People finding easier to import objects and to sell them to the tourists to manufacture them themselves of or a cultural impoverishment of certain populations and a regrettable loss to know to make.

Geography

The State of Chiapas is located in the south-east of Mexico. Its relief is strongly contrasted and can be divided into four zones: the coast, valleys central, mountains and the tropical forest.

principal Cities:

San Cristóbal of mow Put
Tuxtla Gutiérrez (434 100 inhabitants): Capital of the State
Tapachula (271 600 inhabitants)

All the municipalities of Chiapas

Demography

Chiapas counted according to official figures of 2005 a population of 4293459 inhabitants, made up of 55% of mongrel (resulting from Spanish and natives) of 40% of natives belonging to various ethnos groups, the 5% remainder made up of blacks, white and of means-Eastern.

Last nine different indigenous ethnicities are identified in Chiapas: Cakchiqueles, Chol be, Lacandones, Mames, Mochós, Tojolabales, Tzeltales, Tzotzil are, Zoques.

Policy

1994-1996 : Revolt in Chiapas: certain moved back zones are managed in an autonomous way and escape the jurisdiction from the State.
Since 2001, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía, candidate of the alliance of the parties of oppostion to PRI (the PRI is member of the international Socialist) governor of Chiapas, it succeeds Roberto Albores Guillén (1998 - 2000).

Health

The main obstacles in terms of Public health are the lack of financial resources of the population, the lack of infrastructures of health, displacement and communication (airports, roads) in particular in the isolated regions of the center of Chiapas and the Forêt lacandone (Selva Lacandona). To these structural problems of order a certain indifference towards the marginalized Indigène S and populations is added, the difficulties of communication between the experts of urban origin and their patients (approximately a third of the natives does not speak Spanish and the doctors cannot learn all the local idioms) and it quasi absence of coordination between experts “Community Tradition nels” or and experts of the non-governmental public sector or . Some add that there exists also a certain mistrust of the natives towards the foreigners in general and the mongrels and of the competitions between indigenous groups, which increases the difficulties of communication between the various populations of the country.

There are also very serious problems of alcoholism in the indigenous populations, of cheap drug taking (amphetamines, synthetic drugs of very low " qualité" produced on the spot, adhesives, solvents) and of violence intra-family, disintegration of the family ties, prostitution whose victims are generally the women and the infants. Many young men left their villages going in the big cities of the country or with the the United States often forsaking old men, women and children not being in the possibility of coming to them to assistance. They also suffer from the consequences of Superstition S and from the ignorance in which them geographical distance and the little of interest carried to these populations until little by the successive governments left them. In the absence of doctors or medical structures they are the prey many charlatans claiming “traditional Médecine” who exploit them while claiming to cure them diseases become frequent such as the AIDS, the Tuberculose, the Syphilis and the Hépatite S of the viral type, etc the sale of copies of Médicament S becomes also a problem. In 1993 according to the figures published by Salud publica of Mexico City in 1995 (volume 37, No 1) there was in Chiapas 1 doctor for 1642 inhabitants against 292 in the Federal District for an national average of 1 doctor for 673 inhabitants.

Chiapas must also face other problems like the Pollution of its rivers by all kinds of causes (sewer S, Pesticide S etc) the lack of infrastructures to correctly eliminate household waste and industrialists and the to recycle, as well as the wild invaluable wood cut being added to the Déforestation to gain cultivable grounds.

Food safety leaves something to be desired there also much and of many cases of food contaminated by all kinds of pollutants there or out-of-date (meats, dried milk, fizzy drinks, beers) as well as the sale of false honey, forgeries extracted from vanilla etc are detected there.

The therapeutic courses of chiapanèques, especially of the natives, are diversified and reflect the Pluralisme therapeutic system. A Tradition multiséculaire is maintained in the indigenous areas and the popular layers of the urban population. This Médecine “nelle Tradition” is characterized by the diversity of its therapeutists, with the knowledge and know-how extending from the technico-empirical to the Rituel Magico-monk. Illustrate themselves, among these therapeutists, the “takers of pulse”, the “tellers of prayers” and the obstreticians. These ancestral methods are responsible for numerous deaths and delays in the care often worsening the diagnosis of evils which could have been correctly neat if it had been detected as of their appearance.

The main issues of pubic health are of an gastro-intestinal nature , respiratory (in particular at the women, who are daily exposed with the smoke of the hearths) and dermatological. At the men the industrial accidents are many, related to the agricultural activities, and among women morbi-mortality related on the Grossesse and the Accouchement is important. In this respect, the fight against the infantile Maternal death and constitutes one of the priorities of the programs of public health. From this point of view, the State Mexicain in particular set up training programs of the Community obstreticians, aiming framing their practice and at encouraging the transfer of the women presenting of pathologies towards the medicalized structures.

The programs of public health also present direct stakes Politique S at the local level, insofar as structures and the medical device economically constitute exploitable resources, and where the access to the stations of promoter of health or intermediary of the public services results in a profit of influence at community level. These local stakes are not dissociable more total stakes, in a context marked by many and important Conflit S policies (dependant in particular on agrarian Revendications, ecologist S and Identitaire S) and competitions ancestral between indigenous ethnicities. These conflicts and the instability which it generates discourage number of chiapanèques doctors, technicians, Dentiste S etc, which prefer to leave towards calmer areas like the federal district for the most qualified, or the United States for others. In this respect, choices in terms of Model of public health at the federal level, of management of the inequalities of richness at the national level, and accesses to the exercise of their Droit S of the marginalized populations constitute fundamental problems which it would be a question of solving before hoping to obtain the reduction of the inequalities of health in Chiapas.

Remarks

In Spanish, one meets the abbreviation Chis . Chiapaneco is the Spanish adjective which one gives to the inhabitants of Chiapas.

See too

Internal bonds

Governors of Chiapas
List of the municipalities of Zapatist Chiapas
Armed with national release
Under-commander Marcos

External bonds

Corazón de Chiapas - Site of the State of Chiapas
Official site of the government of the State of Chiapas
IMSS Chiapas

Geography | Geography of Mexico | Mexico

Simple: Chiapas

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