Deep in theLacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico, a balaclava-clad guerilla puffs on his pipe, spouting socialist rhetoric. “What we’re going to do is shake this country up from below, pick it up and turn it on its head,” he declares. At first glance, the insurgent might seem the emblematic Latin American revolutionary, with ideology from Marx and media savvy from Castro.
The man’s name is Subcomandante Marcos, and he is the de-facto spokesman for the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Since 1994, Marcos and the EZLN have been in a state of war against the Mexican federal government. Yet unlike the vast majority of other guerrilla movements, the Zapatistas have not engaged in destructive conflict with an overwhelmingly superior national army but rather given up violent military action in order to garner popular support and focus on the establishment of their own communities. While their rebellion continues, the Zapatistas have moved from a state of violent warfare to a symbolic and ideological warfare that furthers their designs for the indigenous communities in the highlands of Chiapas. Although the future of the group remains uncertain, their example continues to provide strength to indigenous rights movements.
An Unfortunate Province
Though official conflict began in 1994, the EZLN asserts that its motivations spring from struggles throughout the history of the Mexican state. At the time of the country’s European conquest, colonial rulers formed a system of castes designed to marginalize peasants and the indigenous population, the latter’s descendants composing the support base of EZLN. Such structures placed Spanish conquistadors at the pinnacle of society while confining most residents of the Chiapas to subsistence agriculture. Over the centuries, while much of the nation developed, the Chiapas largely did not. By the time of Mexico’s independence from Spain, Chiapas was, and remains, one of the poorest regions of the country.
After the second Mexican Revolution concluded in the 1920s, the ruling Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) attempted to homogenize Mexican society by assimilating indigenous communities into the national fold. Nonetheless, a combination of corruption, mismanagement, and governmental neglect counteracted the vast majority of the PRI’s efforts. Retired Harvard professor John Womack writes in his book Rebellion in Chiapas that “two-thirds of the homes, crowded dirt-floor shacks, had no electricity, drinking water, or drainage…more than 80 percent of working men and women in the region lived on less than US$1,500 per year” in the southern highlands where the EZLN is based.
While economic struggles continue to harm Mexico’s indigenous community, racial struggles fueled the tensions which ultimately emerged in the Zapatista movement. Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, a researcher at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, told the HPR that in several towns in Chiapas, indigenous people were not permitted to walk on the sidewalk until the 1970s. Indigenous attempts to preserve their traditional way of life and resist the redistribution of property were repeatedly quashed by state and local governments associated with the PRI, while national government aid rarely reached the affected regions. Finally, Mexico’s ascension into NAFTA in 1994 terrified those who feared the treaty would exacerbate the gap between rich and poor. This mélange of economic difficulties and social ostracization ultimately culminated in EZLN.
“Today, We Say Enough”
On the very day that NAFTA came into effect, January 1, 1994, the EZLN burst onto the scene, declaring war on the Mexican state and occupying several towns throughout Chiapas. Mexican army forces quickly repelled the offensive, forcing EZLN into a ceasefire just twelve days later. Nonetheless, the movement’s brief taste of combat strengthened its members’ resolve. By June 10, 1994, the EZLN announced that they were “in favor of a political solution in the transition to democracy in Mexico.” Womack wrote that the EZLN made clear their demands for education, employment, property rights, and a degree of political autonomy through their strategy of engaging with “Mexican civil society.”
In 1996, the EZLN officially came to terms with the Mexican government, signing a peace treaty called the San Andrés Accords. Under the agreement, however, EZLN continued to administer the parts of Chiapas which it had occupied. Nonetheless, the treaty’s mechanisms proved controversial with PRI authorities, leading to uneven enforcement of the accords’ provisions. After the PRI finally fell from power in 2000, members of the Zapatistas organized rallies throughout the country and presented their case before the Mexican Congress in support of the treaty’s full enforcement. The new government under Vicente Fox ultimately passed a weakened version of the accords, complicating relationships with the EZLN.
Nonetheless, the relationship between Zapatista-ruled Chiapas and the federal government remains comparatively peaceful, although uneasy. Though the Mexican state and its paramilitary proxies have been accused of perpetrating massacres and human rights abuses by several well-respected local and international watchdog organizations, the EZLN has kept a low military profile. “The state is trying to exhaust them,” says José Rabasa, Harvard professor and author of Without History: Subaltern Studies, the Zapatista Insurgency, and the Specter of History. Even so, the group continues to persist. Today, the group enjoys approximately 3,000 members, somewhat off its peak, but still relatively strong.
A War of Ideas
The secret to the Zapatista’s survival may lie as much in its ideology as in its military tactics. Professor Rabasa explained to the HPR, “It is in many ways a war of ideas, where different forms of organizing life exist.” Indeed, outside Mexico, EZLN may be best-known for its promotion of alternative methods of governance, including setting up communally-governed autonomous municipalities that preserve indigenous lifestyles. Dr. Ruiz Medrano argues that these communities can restore indigenous dignity, commenting, “The Zapatistas want to show the world that the indigenous people can rule themselves, and do it well.” While these independent townships seek independence from Mexico, the broader Zapatista strategy has been to engage both Mexican society and the world more broadly.
The future of the Zapatista movement remains uncertain, but the legacy is already clear. The group’s transition from armed insurgency to social campaign is undeniable. Their rebellion brought attention to the plight of a repressed and voiceless people, and their nonviolent methods have achieved some good for indigenous communities, even with the lack of political progress. More broadly, EZLN’s continued existence provides a potential model for protest movements, showing that non-violent construction may pay more dividends than bloody conflict. Yet, most of all, the Zapatistas have forced the question of indigenous rights to the center of Mexican political debate. “They gave Indians back their pride for being Indian,” Ruiz Medrano affirms.
Joseph Wall ‘14 is a Contributing Writer.