The Politics of Zapatismo

Abstract

Enough is enough! So declared the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) that emerged from the jungles of southern Mexico to occupy the town of San Cristobal de las Casas on New Year’s Day 1994. On the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was proclaimed, the Zapatistas declared NAFTA a ‘death sentence for Indigenous people’. They decreed ya basta (enough!) to the relentless neo-liberal policies that further devastated the already meagre livelihoods of the Indigenous populations in Chiapas — one of Mexico’s poorest states. Dressed in black ski masks, carrying an assortment of real and fake guns, and led by a female soldier, these masked Indigenous guerrillas occupied the Municipal Palace and erected their black EZLN flag there. A solitary masked figure with bandoliers across his chest then mounted the Palace balcony to declare war against the Mexican state:

We are a product of five hundred years of struggle … we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food or education … But today we say: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We are the inheritors of the true builders of our nation. We are millions, the dispossessed who call upon our brothers and sisters to join this struggle (Marcos 1994b, 13).