The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a revolutionary leftist political and militant group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
Since 1994 the group has been in a declared war “against the Mexican state”, and against military, paramilitary and corporate incursions into Chiapas.[1] This war has been primarily defensive. In recent years, it has focused on a strategy of civil resistance. The Zapatistas’ main body is made up of mostly rural indigenous people, but includes some supporters in urban areas and internationally. Their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, previously known as Subcomandante Marcos (a.k.a. Compañero Galeano and Delegate Zero in relation to “the Other Campaign“). Unlike other Zapatista spokespeople, Marcos is not an indigenous Maya.[2]
The group takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, the agrarian reformer and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and sees itself as his ideological heir. Nearly all EZLN villages contain murals with images of Zapata, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Subcomandante Marcos.[3]
Although the ideology of the EZLN reflects libertarian socialism, paralleling both anarchist and libertarian Marxist thought in many respects, the EZLN has rejected[4] and defied[5] political classification, retaining its distinctiveness due in part to the importance of indigenous Mayan beliefs in the Zapatistas. The EZLN aligns itself with the wider alter-globalization, anti-neoliberal social movement, seeking indigenous control over their local resources, especially land. Since their 1994 uprising was countered by the Mexican army, the EZLN has abstained from military offensives and adopted a new strategy that attempts to garner Mexican and international support.
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