Anybody heard of the Zapatistas? They are a group of rebels in Mexico, mostly made up of indigenous people, who are against globalization and against the Mexican government's subservience to American corporations. I just wanted to know what everybody's impressions of them are. They don't get a whole lot of media attention in the US, and the little bit they do get is usualy negative, but they seem like a good group of people. No mass slaughters of civilians, no big stockpiles of weapons, no drug running...they don't seem too beligerent...quite the contrary, they seem quite content to hold on to the little sliver of land in the Chiapas that they already have (which they've run vitualy independently since since the 90's). In fact, the people in the Chiapas seem to be doing better than the people in, say Mexico City...the Zapatistas build schools and hospitals and stuff and bring law and order to areas the mexican government wouldn't touch. And they seem to be winning. For ten years the Mexican government has tried to put down the insurrection and it's only been growing stronger. Seems to me like we are finaly seeing a good example of people uniting against globalization and actualy winning.

Discus....

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), January 09, 2005

Answers

ive heardofthem, in factid forgotten about them until now. Theyrea bunch of out-gunned, out-numbered good guys resisting the rotting corruption that exists in mexico.Best of luck tothem on thaT.

-- (windowcleaner@work.etc), January 10, 2005.

Actually, as one who has been in Mexico.... the Zapatistas were a smallish rebellion that erupted in 1994 in the poor southern Mexican state of Chiapas. They were mostly ignorant peasants led ( from the rear) by a small group of Marxists.

Now like most marxists, the leaders were cowards who got alot of their followers killed. They also complained that those evil corporations didn't spend more money in their poor state... something tells me that most corporations wouldn't feel very safe in investing in a state full of armed guerrillas who blew up bridges, powerlines and tended to shoot at any nice 4x4 they could..

So who's to blame for their poverty? The marxists. Every other state in Mexico had a better economy because they were safer and more friendly to other people who would want to go there for business.

Oh and by the way... at the time the PRI (a socialist, leftist, anti- Catholic regime) was in power... they crushed the Marxist revolt almost instantaneously. If you didn't hear about this, this was because like all leftist socialist regimes, they don't have free press and kept reporters largely away.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), January 21, 2005.

Yes, the PRI are evil. I don't care what they call themselves, they weren't helping the people of Mexico. They didn't crush the revolt, though. Subcommandate Marcos is still alive and kicking, and the Zapatistas aren't going anywhere. They started small, but they are getting bigger.

And their complaint is not that big corporations aren't spending enough in the Chiapas. They are complaining because they, like most Latin Americans, are pissed off by globalization. They are sick of seeing their local economies destroyed and their recources privatized by greedy neoliberal trade policies. And I can't say I blame them.

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), January 21, 2005.

ya basta vamanos

-- SKOR (amblur_@hotmail.com), February 06, 2005.

The PRI surrounded the whole region with the Mexican army. For extra credit, anti- try to find any specific info about the Mexican army online... what's published and what the reality is differs dramatically.

I vividly recall watching Univision one evening during the beginning days of the Zapatista revolt. As you probably don't know, at the time the PRI owned all tv stations (and virtually everything else, INCLUDING the churches). The info-babe completed one story and then looked at the camera and said (which I will translate) "today it was reported that a container ship in Vera Cruz off loaded 300 Leopard II german tanks. In other stories..." HINT, HINT, HINT...

The modern Mexican army is pretty darn big and powerful. And until 2000 they were totally in the control of the PRI - a socialist and officially atheist government.

The only reason Marcos wasn't killed outright was due to the PRD and the fact that the army had essentially quelled the armed phase of the uprising.

Globalization had nothing to do with it... after all, the PRI controlled which company (owned by the state) did what, where, when, and how. It wasn't the big, bad Americans messing things up for nice innocent peasants...

Things are far more complicated than that simplistic view. I urge you to do some reading on the Mexican saga - incredibly detailed...like a Russian novel. If you can understand Mexico, you can understand most every other country.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 08, 2005.

Joe- "The only reason Marcos wasn't killed outright was due to the PRD and the fact that the army had essentially quelled the armed phase of the uprising."

That isn't completely accurate. If the Mexican government wanted to silence the EZLN movement they most certainly could, they have the resources and the spite to do so. But remember at this time the PRI was gaining much attention for their corrupt practices ('88 assanation of a PRI candidate, the Mexican earthquake in which the PRi government got a lot of shit for not providing effective aid to the city, and more opposition parties moving into other governmental posts.) So can you imagine how much crap they would get, if they crushed Marcos. They would create this martyr. However, in mexico, specifically poor indian mexico, the EZLN was huge. T-shirts and dolls were sold. The EZLN was (is) not hard to reach. In fact, numerous international reporters even have access to them, check out the documentary by Nettie Wild (shes canadian), "A place called Chiapas." I think it was in '88, the revolutionary leaders opened up Chiapas creating an international media event. Today they aren't as big, probably because the mexican congress is gridlock so bad nothing could get passed. They achieved a lot of support and everything from the poor, and got congress to sign the Indigenous Rights Bill, but after all the legislative reforms, it sucked and still the indians are in a pretty shitty mess. I wouldn't say they really achieved anything in the ways of globalization though, land reform yes. I mean NAFTA is pretty alive.

-- Nicole (newilliams@ucdavis.edu), February 13, 2005.

The whole revolt was the last gasp of the violent Leftists who were spoiling for their so-called good old days of proletarian revolution after the fall of the USSR.

But just like those earlier revolutions - (without monopoly on the news), the poor were used as cannon fodder and the leaders (armed with real AK-74s and radios lead from the rear.

After a brief bloody uprising and PRI reaction the whole mess settled down into a PR battle. But the bottom line was that Chiapas remained a dirt poor state and the poor remained poor.

Violence on the part of the poor rarely in history has provoked positive changes especially when the problem isn't the local merchants or rich but national politics and forces from beyond that locale.

But throughout the 1980's so-called "Liberation" theology was preached and it led some people, especially some renegade Catholics to preach armed uprising instead of the Gospel.

If you go to Chiapas today you'll find only a couple of old marxists and old liberal Catholics playing dominos and lots of main-line Catholics and Protestants doing all the real social work.

Marxists used to be good at two things: PR and subverting a status quo. They absolutely suck at actually running anything.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 14, 2005.

"The whole revolt was the last gasp of the violent Leftists who were spoiling for their so-called good old days of proletarian revolution after the fall of the USSR."

One-track mind, this one. Joe, not EVERYONE who doesn't agree with you is a supporter of the USSR, you know. Yes, the Zapatistas have definite Marxist influences, no doubt about it, but that doesn't make them bad. Revolutionary ideas like that are going to be very attractive to a disposessed people like the Mexicans of the Chiapas.

"After a brief bloody uprising and PRI reaction the whole mess settled down into a PR battle. But the bottom line was that Chiapas remained a dirt poor state and the poor remained poor."

Not really. The revoluton is still alive and kicking. The Mexican government has no control in the Chiapas now; the Zapatistas pretty much run the place. The Zapatistas weren't "using" the peasants of the Chiapas; they ARE the peasants of the Chiapas.

"But throughout the 1980's so-called "Liberation" theology was preached and it led some people, especially some renegade Catholics to preach armed uprising instead of the Gospel."

Yes, because God forbid the poor should actualy have a say in society.

"If you go to Chiapas today you'll find only a couple of old marxists and old liberal Catholics playing dominos and lots of main-line Catholics and Protestants doing all the real social work."

Nope. The revolution is still alive. The Mexican government still doesn't have control over the place. The Zapatistas outlived the PRI, and after ten years they are still there.

"Marxists used to be good at two things: PR and subverting a status quo. They absolutely suck at actually running anything."

I'd say the Zapatistas do a better job of running the place than, say, the PRI, or Vicente Fox. They are sick of globalization destroying their lives and they did something about it. They said "Basta!"

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), February 14, 2005.

First of all, anti- I was talking about the folk in Mexico, not you, or not marxists you know. They were, in 1994, folk who lusted after the "good old days" when the USSR existed as Russia had been the major arms supplier of all those little guerilla factions.

As for who runs the show down there... the Zapatistas aren't a majority of the population in Chiapas and they never were.

Yes, Chiapas was a dirt poor state. But it wasn't captialism or globalism or the Church's fault. It was the PRI's fault - and the PRI was and IS a SOCIALIST POLITICAL PARTY which was in control of Mexico until 2000.

In the 1970's some marxist inspired clergy thought that only armed rebellion could save the poor and began to dabble in guerrilla factions... when kicked out of El Salvador and Nicaragua, they returned to Mexico and tried in 1994 to start from scratch.

Democracy is actually the way the people run things...in Chiapas, using Marxist ideas via so-called "liberation" theology, the handful of oldtime Spanish Marxists and alsorans were promoting ARMED UPRISINGS - justifying murder in the name of the Gospel.

No Marxist revolt in history has led to "the people" running the show. Marxism has always been about armed minorities in charge - with great egalitarian PR campaigns and secret police to crush political opponents.

Lib Theology was the idea that blowing up bridges, powerlines, and police stations, killing businessmen and holding people for ranson would "force" "the powers of globalization" to suddenly invest billions in their backwater.

But all it did was get alot of people killed and the state is still dirt poor because no one wants to risk investing time and treasure in a place with no security.

The Church especially suffered because after the priests and bishop ceased preaching the Gospel of Christ to promote their wacko economic theories, the Protestants moved in and converted alot of people.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 17, 2005.

"Democracy is actually the way the people run things...in Chiapas, using Marxist ideas via so-called "liberation" theology, the handful of oldtime Spanish Marxists and alsorans were promoting ARMED UPRISINGS - justifying murder in the name of the Gospel."

Armed uprisings against a corrupt and undemocratic government. When there are no avenues left for democratic change one must sometimes pick up arms and fight. Should George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have simply picketed for independence?

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

No this is where you misread just war theory... it's actually not hard to get...

If your cause is doomed to failure by reason of geography and the forces arrayed against you, then it is deemed immoral to even try to raise up against whomever is causing troubles because the end result would be worse than the status quo.

In the case of the American Colonies, you had EVERY single colony in revolt against Britain. Not just one and the landlocked, poorest one at that.

In Chiapas, the poorest of poor Mexican states, an uprising against the Mexican government was insanity - not only because the PRI was heavily armed and enjoyed almost monopoly on all press, industry, etc. but also because the land there is such that the rebels couldn't score any decisive victory - and they can't feed their own people without outside support.

In such a situation, social solidarity, not social mayhem via guerilla action is the solution.

The states surrounding Chiapas, such as Quintana Roo, have the same Mayan people, started with the same crushing poverty and no development yet are today vastly better off than Chiapas thanks to social solidarity wherein the Church played a major role in convincing the upper classes to support the lower classes across the board - better pay, better services, infrastructure development, schools, clinics, etc. And they didn't have to fight a war to get this accomplished.

As we saw in 2004, love is stronger than hate

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 21, 2005.

never haerd of these people until now. from the responces of other persons , i think these people meant well but they are fighting a loosing battle against the powers behind globalisation. we in africa could learn one or two things from them.

-- ernest lawson (ernestlawson@zipmail.com.br), February 23, 2005.

If there was one thing that the Zapatistas were able to do, they were able to capture sympathy and understanding from Mexican Nationals and the world. I commend them on standing up for autonomy in a world which will soon be destroyed by its selfishness and misunderstanding. I think it is important to embrace independence and learn from the people who are willing to really fight for what they believe in. I believe "our" native land and those native to "our" land are extremely important in our understanding of both our past and our future, and to our survival both physically and mentally.

-- lydia (ttlcarpenter@hotmail.com), March 14, 2005.