The peace talks fell apart in 1996 and the bill gathered dust for years. On March 28, in an unprecedented Congressional appearance by a rebel group, Zapatista leaders wearing masks and traditional Indian clothes, lobbied for the bill. The proposed constitutional reforms would give Indian peoples the right to free determination and autonomy, and the right to resolve their own internal conflicts without violating human rights and the dignity of women. If passed, the law would also allow Indian villages to elect their own authorities and to collectively use natural resources on their lands. It also would make the government responsible for improving Indian education and providing interpreters and public defenders when they are in the justice system.
Some experts say the proposed law is dangerous.
It's one thing to recognize the autonomy that Indian people have a right to, and to respect their uses and customs, their languages. But it's another thing to convert these Indian communities into small independent states. But Alcides Vadillo, an indigenous rights expert with the United Nations human rights office in Guatemala, says that giving Indian communities autonomy is not incompatible with a nation's central government. The real problem with such laws, he said, is that they are seldom properly implemented. Mexican political analyst Lorenzo Meyer argues that Mexico's constitution already guarantees Indian rights, and the law just needs to be enforced.