MEXICO: Michael McCaughan on the Zapatistas - 20 years after the Guerrilla group originated in Mexico
On November 17th, 1983 five men and one woman melted into the mountains of south-east Mexico, marking the birth of the "Zapatista Guerrilla Nucleus".
The tiny group had an ambitious goal; to overthrow the Mexican government.
History was still on their side as the Soviet Empire was intact, the Sandinistas had triumphed in Nicaragua and Salvadoran rebels were rattling the gates of power.
The rebels disguised themselves as health workers and hiked through the region, carrying out military exercises, hunting animals and eating wild berries. Over the following months the three indigenous guerrilla members made contact with local villages, testing support for revolutionary action.
After a year in the hills Subcomandante Marcos, a former philosophy professor who swapped books for bullets, remained optimistic; "In years to come" he announced, "there will be thousands of us and people will hear our message across the world."
The Zapatistas grew rapidly when the Marxist leadership renounced its orthodox ways and submerged its identity into the traditional wisdom of the indigenous communities. The reaction was swift with entire villages joining the movement and by 1991 the birthday celebrations saw 5,000 insurgents drill on a remote hillside as the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) finally took shape.
Mexico's indigenous communities suffered terror on the part of landowners and their gunmen, who stole land and killed with impunity when the villagers organised to defend their rights. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governed Mexico for 64 years, revoked Article 27 of the constitution in 1993, privatising communal lands in advance of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), due to be implemented on January 1st 1994.
"The Mexican government was our best recruiting agent" said Marcos, who described NAFTA as "a death sentence" for the indigenous people. The villages put the option of armed rebellion to the vote and one assembly after another ratified the proposal.
On December 31st, 1993 thousands of rebels walked out of the jungle, hijacked vehicles and seized a number of towns, including San Cristobal de las Casas, a colonial tourist town in the highlands of Chiapas. The armed uprising was greeted with curiosity by locals but the Mexican government ordered a security crackdown as villages were bombed and civilians killed by trigger-happy troops.
The Zapatista uprising sparked a remarkable reaction throughout Mexico as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, demanding an end to the government offensive. The unexpected rebellion snapped the hinges that held the ruling party in place and blew apart the myth of Mexico's entry into the first world. The unprecedented civilian mobilisation also stopped the rebels in their tracks as plans for a lengthy guerrilla war were shelved in favour of political proposals at the negotiating table.
The Zapatistas used the rebel-government dialogue to reach out to civil society, building a national and international support network under the banner "another world is possible."
The dialogue broke down when the Mexican government dismissed rebel demands for national, political reform and in February 1995 army troops advanced toward rebel positions, forcing thousands of families to flee to the mountains.
The immediate and overwhelming nationwide response to the government crackdown forced the state to offer the rebels a more substantial dialogue which resulted in the San Andres Peace Accord, signed in February 1996, in which limited autonomy was granted to the Zapatista communities.
Over the past two years the Zapatista movement has proceeded with autonomy projects, setting up "Good Government Juntas" which resolve local disputes and channel funds to rebel communities. In a surprise recognition of the Zapatista government, a state court recently recognised the jurisdiction of a rebel junta in a legal dispute.
Twenty years after six rebels took to the hills in Chiapas the original goal of seizing state power has been abandoned but in its place the EZLN has won widespread respect and a slice of Mexico in which to implement an alternative political project.