Happy 29th anniversary of the Zapatista Revolution!

By Hasse-Nima Golkar; Prepared and edited from a few English sources.

Mexico is a multicultural and multiethnic country. It has the largest indigenous population in Latin America, close to 13 million, who speak 62 different languages.

On 1 January 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) – an indigenous armed organization – began uprising and declared war against the Mexican State, demanding “Work, Land, Housing, Food, Health, Education, Independence, Liberty, Democracy, Justice and Peace”.

The EZLN or Zapatistas are comprised mainly of Chiapas’s indigenous peoples. They recognized themselves as an ‘indigenous peasant movement’ constituted by the diverse indigenous communities of Chiapas, located in the south-eastern part of the Mexico forests. The group takes its name from Emiliano Zapata (1879 – 1919), the rebellious peasant and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1917).

The EZLN movement played a fundamental role in representing the interests of these indigenous peoples by achieving protection of the rich Mexican indigenous heritage through creation of the democratic self-management councils, with specific political strategies of Anarchism (libertarian socialism) and Marxism. These types of self-organizations have become a living example (like the revolutionary movement in Rojava, located in northern and eastern Syria) of how the people can unite to end the exclusion and oppression by the state and its representatives.

As much as the Mexican government has failed to provide a better quality of life to these indigenous peoples in Chiapas, the EZLN has had the significant impact of removing the barriers by showing the alarming conditions indigenous peoples face at the national and international level.

Long live Zapatistas!

Long live People’s Revolutionary Resistance!

Long live International Solidarity!