Zapatista Rebellion Continues to Inspire Social Activism Throughout the World Max Horder - The International
go to original March 13, 2014

Twenty years after the Zapatista uprising, VICE traveled to Chiapas to meet Gaspar Morquecho, the first local journalist to speak with the Zapatista Army face-to-face, so he could recall the events of that fateful day - it was the first indigenous armed uprising in Latin America in the internet age. (VICE News)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Zapatista rebellion on New Year’s Day in 1994 in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Two decades later, it continues to inspire social activism throughout the world.

Millions of admirers still see the first of January, 1994 as having turned forgotten peasants - los olvidados - into a locus of resistance against political oppression and racial injustice, in Mexico and beyond.

The Zapatistas, or EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), composed of three thousand indigenous Mexicans, stormed the towns of San Cristóbal, Ocosingo and Las Margaritas in large part because of the implementation of NAFTA.

The signing of NAFTA epitomized the era’s zeitgeist: globalization, free movement of capital and goods, and the tearing down of all barriers to foreign direct investment.

Hilary Clinton boastfully referred to NAFTA as one of Bill Clinton’s ‘successes’ in her 2003 memoir, Living History. In Mexico, its consequences are more ambivalently felt even twenty years later.

Read the rest at The International

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