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The EZLN breaks from the ordinary mold of revolutionary groups; except for the initial uprising in the first two weeks of 1994, they aren't known to have used any weapons or bombs and have remained primarily in Chiapas. They refuse to use the normal channels Mexico provides to listen to demands and provide solutions--including running for public office or endorsing political parties. They say these channels have been ineffective for the indigenous and for everyone else for too much time (500 years, as they say), thus the EZLN motto: ¡Ya Basta! ("That's Enough!"). A few times, some of their elements have publicly visited (unarmed) Mexico City, marching down the streets, doing press conferences and organizing meetings with the civilian population and some political parties. The great march to Mexico City, described later, was also relatively peaceful, with some minor, mostly verbal, incidents. This peaceful approach is one of the reasons for its longevity and some popularity with the civilian population.
The group was formed on November 17, 1983 by former members of different groups, some of them fighting, some of them peaceful and ignored by the government. They broke onto the national and international scene on January 2, 19941994 is a common year starting on Saturday, and was designated the International year of the Family''. Events January events January 1 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect January 6 Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an, just one day after the North American Free Trade AgreementThe North American Free Trade Agreement known usually as NAFTA is a comprehensive trade agreement linking Canada, the U. and Mexico in a free trade sphere. NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994. The agreement immediately ended tariffs on some goods, a with the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in and CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe became operational. Later they declared it was their way to say We are still here in the middle of globalization. IndigenousThe word indigenous has several, related meanings: The native people of a place; see Indigenous people. In biology, indigenous means native to a place or biota, in contrast to any one of several terms meaning not native to a place (non-native, alien, adve fighters wearing ski masks staged an armed uprising, took hold of five municipalities in Chiapas, officially declared war against the Mexican government and announced their plans to march towards Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. After just a few days of fighting, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, then in his last year in office, offered a cease-fire agreement and opened dialog with the rebels, whose official spokesperson was Subcomandante Marcos.
The dialogue with the government extended over a period of three years and ended with the San Andrés Agreement , which entailed modifying the national constitution in order to grant special rights, including autonomy, to indigenous people. A commission of deputies from political parties called COCOPA modified slightly the agreements with the acceptance of the EZLN. President Zedillo, however, said Congress would have to decide whether to pass it or not. Claiming a violation of promises at the negotiating table, the EZLN went back into the jungle while Zedillo increased the military presence in Chiapas to prevent the spread of EZLN's influence zone. An unofficial truce accompanied by EZLN's silence ensued for the next three years, the last in Zedillo's term.
After the dialogue ended, many accusations were made against the Mexican army and para-military groups due to prosecution and detentions of Zapatistas; one particular incident was the Massacre of Acteal, where 45 people attending a church service were killed by unknown persons. The motives and the identities of the attackers aren't clear, but many blame the Army for this.
New President Vicente Fox Quesada sent the so-called COCOPA Law (constitutional changes) to Congress on one of his firsts acts of government ( December 5, 2000), as he had promised during his campaign. After seeing the criticism and proposed modifications by notable congressmen, Subcomandante Marcos and his group decided to go, unarmed, to Mexico City in order to speak at Congress in support of the modifications to the constitution. After a march through seven Mexican states with substantial support from the population and media coverage (and escorted by police to protect the EZLN members), representatives of the EZLN (not including Marcos) spoke at Congress in March, 2001, in a controversial session.
Soon after the EZLN had returned to Chiapas, Congress approved a different version of the COCOPA Law, which did not include the autonomy clauses, claiming they were in contradiction with some constitutional rights ( private property, secret voting); this was seen as a betrayal by the EZLN and other political groups. These constitutional changes still had to be approved by a majority of state congresses. Many political and ethnic groups filed complaints both against and in favour of the changes, which were finally approved and went into effect on August 14, 2001. This, and the still recent President Fox's electoral victory in 2000 (the first of an opposition member in the last seventy years) slowed down the movement, which had less media coverage since then.
After that, a constitutionality complaint was filed to be resolved by the Supreme Court of Justice, which ruled in September 6, 2002 that since they were constitutional changes made by Congress and not a law as it was wrongly called, it was outside its power to reverse the changes, as that would be an invasion of Congress' sovereignty.
An important episode occurred in the late months of 2002. Subcommander Marcos wrote a letter to a Spanish supporter on October 12, a date indigenists claim signals the beginning of their suffering, the arrival to America of Columbus. In that long, winding letter, Marcos calls Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzon a "grotesque clown" for, among other things, banning the Independentist Basque Party after claiming it was supporting Spanish terrorist group ETA, and then calling Garzon's attempt to try Chilean General Pinochet for human rights violations against Spanish citizens a "fool-deceiving tale". Subcommander Marcos also made heavy criticism of the Spanish monarchy and then Spanish President José María Aznar. After the publication of the letter by the Mexican press in November 25, Marcos and Garzon exchanged many more via the international press, in a not-so-elegant duel of words, which included Marcos' joking acceptance of Garzon's challenge to a debate, betting to reveal his secret identity if he lost against Garzon's commitment to the EZLN cause if he won. The whole incident caused much stir among many of Marcos' supporters. Some were upset about Marcos devoting his time to other causes; others thought the tone of his letters was improper of the official spokesman of the EZLN and finally others interpreted his letters as supporting the ETA.
Later, in February 2003, he wrote a letter condemning his political allies, the Democratic Revolution Party congressmen, claiming they agreed to approve a modified version of the EZLN-sanctioned COCOPA Law the previous year. That letter and the replies that followed left many of EZLN's strongest and most influential allies ill disposed toward Marcos. Having lost much of his support, Marcos still wrote many "comunicados" for the rest of that year, but most went unnoticed. Aside from criticism of political actors, he described EZLN's ongoing work in its zones of influence, and changes in its internal organization.
Since December 1994 , the Zapatistas had been gradually forming several Autonomous Municipalities , independent of those staffed by government officials. In August 2003, Marcos sent "comunicados" describing how these municipalities had gradually developed local government " juntas", communitarian food-producing programs among indigenous peasants and free health and school systems supported in part by NGOs and again independent of government-provided systems that had paid no attention to indigenous medicine, needs and culture. Then he announced the creation of several "Committees of Good Government" formed by representatives of the autonomous municipalities and overseen by the EZLN, which serve to verify that no corruption or abuses of power are committed, and that the committees and local juntas follow the Zapatistas mandate: mandar obedeciendo (to command by obeying the people). Some analysts applauded this initiative: government by the people for the people, in the face of great inefficacy of the State in attending the needs of the people; others however, indicated that this Zapatista initiative amounts to forming a state within the state, a dangerous proposition at best.
For the first half of 2004, Marcos remained silent. By the middle of the year Luis H. Alvarez, Head of COCOPA , the official communication link between the EZLN and the Mexican government, declared Marcos hasn't been seen in Chiapas for some time, and that he didn't know his location. However the EZLN was still active, mostly tending the local governments it has created.
In August, 2004, Marcos sent to the Mexican press eight brief commuiques, the whole set titled "Reading a video", published from August 20th to the 28th. They were probably intended as a mocking of the political video scandals earlier in the year, the set beginning and ending as a kind of written description of an imaginary low-budget zapatista video, the rest being Marcos' comments on political events of the year and the EZLN current stance and development. In particular, he describes the result of one year's work of the autonomous municipalities and the commitees of good government. These have a continuously changing membership in order to promote transparency and to bring to everybody the opportunity to serve in a governing post. The communiques went mostly unnoticed, partly because of the Olympic Games of Athens 2004 and the Congress reforms to the IMSS pension system, and partly because of loss of interest by the public.
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