# data[].attributes.headline
300-900 CE Mayans arrive to Chiapas region

# data[].attributes.subject
300-900 CE Mayans arrive to Chiapas region

# data[].attributes.body
Starting in 1521 the Spanish dominate the Mayans for the next 500 years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1519, inspired by rumors of gold and the existence of large, sophisticated cities in the Mexican interior, Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was appointed to head an expedition of eleven ships and five hundred men to Mexico. At that time the great empire of the Mexica-now known as the Aztecs-dominated much of Mesoamerica. Their capital, Tenochtitlán, had become such a splendid city that, according to records, it dazzled the Spaniards, exceeding anything they had seen before. Two years after the arrival of Cortés and his conquistadors, constant war and diseases new to the Americas had destroyed Tenochtitlán, and the Aztec Empire was no more.

Mexican God Xipe-Totec

Xipe-Totec, "Our lord the flayed one," is manifested first in Teotihuacan culture and continues in importance up to Aztec times. He represents a fertility cult and was said to assist the earth in making a new skin each spring. The cult required the sacrifice of human victims by removing the heart and, afterward, flaying the skin. The priests of Xipe-Totec impersonated the god by wearing a gold-dyed human skin for twenty days, or until the skin rotted away. The priest would then emerge reborn.

Choker with Nineteen Death Heads

This choker's beads consist of nineteen nearly identical skulls carved from conch shells. The deeply carved eye sockets may have originally held hematite inlays. Young nobles who were being schooled in religion and military arts wore such necklaces throughout the Central Mexican Highlands.

History of Tlaxcala

The son of a Spanish conquistador and an Indian woman, Diego Muñoz Camargo was educated as a Spaniard, but was also steeped in indigenous culture through his Indian family connections. An historian and interpreter, he was also a government official and landholder in the Tlaxcala region of Mexico. In this manuscript, written in the late sixteenth century, Muñoz Camargo covers the history of Tlaxcala, the events of the conquest (and the Tlaxcalan support of Cortés), as well as the natural and geographical background of the area.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Exploring the Early Americas Cortés and the Aztecs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1519, inspired by rumors of gold and the existence of large, sophisticated cities in the Mexican interior, Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was appointed to head an expedition of eleven ships and five hundred men to Mexico. At that time the great empire of the Mexica-now known as the Aztecs-dominated much of Mesoamerica.

# data[].attributes.headline
1810 Hidalgo Calls for Independence from Spain

# data[].attributes.subject
1810 Hidalgo Calls for Independence from Spain

# data[].attributes.body
September, 16. Father Manuel Hidalgo calls for Mexican Independence from Spain in “El Grito de Dolores”, and this becomes Mexican Independence day. War of Independence ensues, and Spanish are defeated.

# data[].attributes.headline
1867-70 Indigenous Rebellion Against Taxation

# data[].attributes.subject
1867-70 Indigenous Rebellion Against Taxation

# data[].attributes.body
Indigenous rebellion over taxation, market control and religious freedom in Chamula, a Tzotsil stronghold in the Chiapas Highlands. Once again brutally put down by the Spanish Crown forces based in the garrison town of Cuidad Real (San Cristóbal de las Casas).

# data[].attributes.headline
1879 Emiliano Zapata Salazar born, Anenecuilco, Moreles, Mexico

# data[].attributes.subject
1879 Emiliano Zapata Salazar born, Anenecuilco, Moreles, Mexico

# data[].attributes.body
He participated in political movements against Díaz and the landowning hacendados, and when the Revolution broke out in 1910 he became a leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Cooperating with a number of other peasant leaders, he formed the Liberation Army of the South, of which he soon became the undisputed leader.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Emiliano Zapata Salazar ( Spanish pronunciation: [emiˈljano saˈpata]; 8 August 1879 - 10 April 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, the main leader of the peasant revolution in the state of Morelos, and the inspiration of the agrarian movement called .

Zapata was born in the rural village of Anenecuilco in Morelos State, where peasant communities were under increasing pressure from the small landowning class who monopolized land and water resources for sugar cane production with the support of dictator Porfirio Díaz. Zapata early on participated in political movements against Diaz and the landowning hacendados, and when the Revolution broke out in 1910 he was positioned as a central leader of the peasant revolt in Morelos. Cooperating with a number of other peasant leaders he formed the Liberation Army of the South, of which he soon became the undisputed leader. Zapata's forces contributed to the fall of Díaz, defeating the Federal Army in the Battle of Cuautla, but when the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero became president he disavowed the role of the Zapatistas, denouncing them as simple bandits. In November 1911, Zapata promulgated the Plan de Ayala which called for substantial land reforms, redistributing lands to the peasants. Madero sent the Federal Army to root out the Zapatistas in Morelos. Madero's generals employed a scorched earth policy, burning villages and forcibly removing their inhabitants, and drafting many men into the Army or sending them to forced labor camps in southern Mexico. This strengthened Zapata's standing among the peasants, and Zapata was able to drive the forces of Madero led by Victoriano Huerta out of Morelos. In a coup against Madero in February 1913, Huerta took power in Mexico, but a coalition of Constitutionalist forces in northern Mexico led by Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón and Francisco "Pancho" Villa ousted him in July 1914 with the support of Zapata's troops. Zapata did not recognize the authority that Carranza asserted as leader of the revolutionary movement, continuing his adherence to the Plan de Ayala.

In the aftermath of the revolutionaries' victory over Huerta, they attempted to sort out power relations in the Convention of Aguascalientes. Zapata and Villa broke with Carranza, and Mexico descended into civil war among the winners. Dismayed with the alliance with Villa, Zapata focused his energies on rebuilding society in Morelos which he now controlled, instituting the land reforms of the Plan de Ayala. As Carranza consolidated his power and defeated Villa in 1915, Zapata initiated guerrilla warfare against the Carrancistas, who in turn invaded Morelos, employing once again scorched-earth tactics to oust the Zapatista rebels. Zapata once again retook Morelos in 1917 and held most of the state against Carranza's troops until he was killed in an ambush in April 1919. Article 27 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution was drafted in response to his agrarian demands.

After his death, Zapatista generals aligned with Obregón against Carranza and helped drive Carranza from power. In 1920, Zapatistas managed to obtain powerful posts in the governance of Morelos after Carranza's fall. They instituted many of the land reforms envisioned by Zapata in Morelos.

Zapata remains an iconic figure in Mexico, used both as a nationalist symbol as well as a symbol of the neo-Zapatista movement.

Emiliano Zapata was born to Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Jertrudiz Salazar of Anenecuilco, Morelos, a well-known local family; Emiliano's godfather was the manager of a large local hacienda, and his godmother was the manager's wife. Zapata's family were mestizos, Mexicans of Nahua and Spanish ancestry. Emiliano was the ninth of ten children; he had six sisters: Celsa, Ramona, María de Jesús, María de la Luz, Jovita and Matilde. And three brothers: Pedro, Eufemio and Loreto. The Zapata family were descended from the Zapata of Mapaztlán. His maternal grandfather, José Salazar, served in the army of José María Morelos y Pavón during the siege of Cuautla; his paternal uncles Cristino and José Zapata fought in the Reform War and the French Intervention. From a family of farmers, Emiliano Zapata had insight into the severe difficulties of the countryside and his village's long struggle to regain land taken by expanding haciendas.

He received a limited education from his teacher, Emilio Vara, but it included "the rudiments of bookkeeping". At the age of 16 or 17, Zapata had to care for his family following his father's death. Emiliano was entrepreneurial, buying a team of mules to haul maize from farms to town, as well as bricks to the Hacienda of Chinameca; he was also a successful farmer, growing watermelons as a cash crop. He was a skilled horseman and competed in rodeos and races, as well as bullfighting from horseback. These skills as a horseman brought him work as a horse trainer for Porfirio Díaz's son-in-law, who had a hacienda nearby, and served Zapata well as a revolutionary leader. He had a striking appearance, with a large mustache in which he took pride, and good quality clothing described by his loyal secretary: "General Zapata's dress until his death was a charro outfit: tight-fitting black cashmere pants with silver buttons, a broad charro hat, a fine linen shirt or jacket, a scarf around his neck, boots of a single piece, Amozoqueña-style spurs, and a pistol at his belt." In an undated studio photo, Zapata is dressed in a standard business suit and tie, projecting an image of a man of means.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Anenecuilco was a mixed Spanish-speaking mestizo and indigenous Nahuatl-speaking pueblo. It had a long history of protesting the local haciendas taking community members' land, and its leaders gathered colonial-era documentation of their land titles to prove their claims. Some of the colonial documentation was in Nahuatl, with contemporary translations to Spanish for use in legal cases in the Spanish courts. One eyewitness account by Luz Jiménez of Milpa Alta states that Emiliano Zapata spoke Nahuatl fluently when his forces arrived in her community.

After Porfirio Díaz came to the presidency of Mexico by a coup in 1876, the Mexican social and economic system was dominated by large estates controlling much of the land and squeezing the holdings of independent communities. Many peasants were subsequently forced into debt peonage () on the haciendas. Díaz ran local elections to give the semblance of democracy; however, his close confidants and associates were given offices in districts throughout Mexico. These officials became enforcers of changes in land tenure that favored the concentration of land progressively into the hands of fewer and wealthier landowners. Community members in Anenecuilco, including Zapata, sought redress against land seizures. In 1892, a delegation had an audience with Díaz, who with the intervention of a lawyer, agreed to hear them. Although promising them to deal favorably with their petition, Díaz had them arrested and Zapata was conscripted into the Federal Army. Under Díaz, conscription into the Federal Army was much feared by ordinary Mexican men and their families. Zapata was one of many rebel leaders who were conscripted at some point.

In 1909, an important meeting was called by the elders of Anenecuilco, whose chief elder was José Merino. He announced "my intention to resign from my position due to my old age and limited abilities to continue the fight for the land rights of the village." The meeting was used as a time for discussion and nomination of individuals as a replacement for Merino as the president of the village council. The elders on the council were so well respected by the village men that no one would dare to override their nominations or vote for an individual against the advice of the current council at that time. The nominations made were Modesto González, Bartolo Parral, and Emiliano Zapata. After the nominations were closed, a vote was taken and Zapata became the new council president without contest.

Although Zapata had turned 30 only a month before, voters knew that it was necessary to elect someone respected by the community who would be responsible for the village. Even though he was relatively young, Anenecuilco was ready to hand over the leadership to him without any worry of failure. Before he was elected he had shown the village his nature by helping to head up a campaign in opposition to the candidate Díaz had chosen governor. Even though Zapata's efforts failed, he was able to create and cultivate relationships with political authority figures that would prove useful for him.

Zapata became a leading figure in the village of Anenecuilco, where his family had lived for many generations, and he became involved in struggles for the rights of the campesinos of Morelos. He was able to oversee the redistribution of the land from some haciendas peacefully but had problems with others. He observed numerous conflicts between villagers and hacendados, or landowners, over the constant theft of village land, and in one instance, saw the hacendados torch an entire villa.

For many years, he campaigned steadfastly for the rights of the villagers, first establishing via ancient title deeds their claims to disputed land, and then pressing the recalcitrant governor of Morelos into action. Finally, disgusted with the slow response from the government and the overt bias towards the wealthy plantation owners, Zapata began making use of armed force, simply taking over the land in dispute.

The flawed 1910 elections were a major reason for the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Porfirio Díaz was being threatened by the candidacy of Francisco I. Madero. Zapata, seeing an opportunity to promote land reform in Mexico, made quiet alliances with Madero, whom he perceived to be the best chance for genuine change in the country. Although he was wary about Madero, Zapata cooperated with him when Madero made vague promises about land reform in his Plan of San Luis Potosí. Land reform was the central feature of Zapata's political vision.

Zapata joined Madero's campaign against President Diaz. The first military campaign of Zapata was the capture of the Hacienda of Chinameca. When Zapata's army captured Cuautla after a six-day battle on May 19, 1911, it became clear that Diaz would not hold on to power for long. With the support of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, and rebellious peasants, Madero overthrew Díaz in May 1911 at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez. A provisional government was formed under Francisco León de la Barra. Under Madero, some new land reforms were carried out and elections were to be ensured. However, Zapata was dissatisfied with Madero's stance on land reform, which Madero did not really believe in, and was unable, despite repeated efforts, to make him understand the importance of the issue or to get him to act on it.

Madero was not ready to create a radical change in the manner that agrarian relations operated during this time. Some other individuals, called "anarcho-syndicalist agitators", had made promises to take things back to the way that they had been done previously. The major method of agrarian relations had been that of communal lands, called ejidos. Although some believed that this could be the best course of action, Madero simply demanded that "Public servants act 'morally' in enforcing the law ...". Upon seeing the response by villagers, Madero offered formal justice in courts to individuals who had been wronged by others with regard to agrarian politics. Zapata decided that on the surface it seemed as though Madero was doing good things for the people of Mexico, but Zapata did not know the level of sincerity in Madero's actions and thus did not know if he should support him completely.

Madero and Zapata's relations worsened during the summer of 1911 as Madero appointed a governor who supported plantation owners and refused to meet Zapata's agrarian demands. Compromises between the two failed in November 1911, days after Madero was elected President. Zapata and Otilio Montaño Sánchez, a former school teacher, fled to the mountains of southwest Puebla. There they formed the most radical reform plan in Mexico; the Plan de Ayala (Plan of Ayala). The plan declared Madero a traitor, named Pascual Orozco head of the Revolution, and outlined a plan for true land reform.

The Plan of Ayala called for all lands stolen under Díaz to be immediately returned; there had been considerable land fraud under the old dictator, so a great deal of territory was involved. It also stated that large plantations owned by a single person or family should have one-third of their land nationalized, which would then be required to be given to poor farmers. It also argued that if any large plantation owner resisted this action, they should have the other two-thirds confiscated as well. The Plan of Ayala also invoked the name of Benito Juárez, one of Mexico's great leaders, and compared the taking of land from the wealthy to Juarez's actions when he took land from the church in the 1860s.

Zapata was partly influenced by an anarchist from Oaxaca named Ricardo Flores Magón. The influence of Flores Magón on Zapata can be seen in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala, but even more noticeably in their slogan (this slogan was never used by Zapata) " Tierra y libertad" ("land and liberty"), the title and maxim of Flores Magón's most famous work. Zapata's introduction to anarchism came via Montaño Sánchez - later a general in Zapata's army, executed on May 17, 1917 (by order of Zapata) - who exposed Zapata to the works of Peter Kropotkin and Flores Magón at the same time as Zapata was observing and beginning to participate in the struggles of the peasants for the land.

The plan proclaimed the Zapatista demands for "Reforma, Libertad, Ley y Justicia" (Reform, Freedom, Law and Justice). Zapata also declared the Maderistas as a counter-revolution and denounced Madero. Zapata mobilized his Liberation Army and allied with former Maderistas Pascual Orozco and Emiliano Vázquez Gómez. Orozco was from Chihuahua, near the U.S. border, and thus was able to aid the Zapatistas with a supply of arms.

In the following weeks, the development of military operations "betray(ed) good evidence of clear and intelligent planning." During Orozco's rebellion, Zapata fought Mexican troops in the south near Mexico City. In the original design of the armed force, Zapata was a mere colonel among several others; however, the true plan that came about through this organization lent itself to Zapata. Zapata believed that the best route of attack would be to center the fighting and action in Cuautla. If this political location could be overthrown, the army would have enough power to "veto anyone else's control of the state, negotiate for Cuernavaca or attack it directly, and maintain independent access to Mexico City as well as escape routes to the southern hills." However, in order to gain this great success, Zapata realized that his men needed to be better armed and trained.

The first line of action demanded that Zapata and his men "control the area behind and below a line from Jojutla to Yecapixtla." When this was accomplished it gave the army the ability to complete raids as well as wait. As the opposition of the Federal Army and police detachments slowly dissipated, the army would be able to eventually gain powerful control over key locations on the Interoceanic Railway from Puebla City to Cuautla. If these feats could be completed, it would gain access to Cuautla directly and the city would fall.

The plan of action was carried out successfully in Jojutla. However, Pablo Torres Burgos, the commander of the operation, was disappointed that the army disobeyed his orders against looting and ransacking. The army took complete control of the area, and it seemed as though Torres Burgos had lost any type of control that he believed he had over his forces prior to this event. Shortly after, Torres Burgos called a meeting and resigned from his position. Upon leaving Jojutla with his two sons, he was surprised by a federal police patrol who subsequently shot all three of the men on the spot. This seemed to some to be an ending blow to the movement, because Torres Burgos had not selected a successor for his position; however, Zapata was ready to take up where Torres Burgos had left off.

Shortly after Torres Burgos' death, a party of rebels elected Zapata as "Supreme Chief of the Revolutionary Movement of the South". This seemed to be the fix to all of the problems that had just arisen, but other individuals wanted to replace Zapata as well. Due to this new conflict, the individual who would come out on top would have to do so by "convincing his peers he deserved their backing."

Zapata finally did gain the support necessary by his peers and was considered a "singularly qualified candidate". This decision to make Zapata the true leader of the revolution did not occur all at once, nor did it ever reach a true definitive level of recognition. In order to succeed, Zapata needed a strong financial backing for the battles to come. This came in the form of 10,000 pesos delivered by Rodolfo from the Tacubayans. Owing to this amount of money Zapata's group of rebels became one of the strongest in the state financially.

After some time Zapata became the leader of his "strategic zone". This gave him tremendous power and control over the actions of many more individual rebel groups and thus increased his margin of success greatly. "Among revolutionaries in other districts of the state, however, Zapata's authority was more tenuous." After a meeting with Zapata and Ambrosio Figueroa in Jolalpan, it was decided that Zapata would have joint power with Figueroa with regard to operations in Morelos. This was a turning point in the level of authority and influence that Zapata had gained and proved useful in the direct overthrow of Morelos.

Zapata immediately began to use his newly found power and began to overthrow city after city with gaining momentum. Madero, alarmed, asked Zapata to disarm and demobilize. Zapata responded that, if the people could not win their rights now, when they were armed, they would have no chance once they were unarmed and helpless. Madero sent several generals in an attempt to deal with Zapata, but these efforts had little success. It seemed as though Zapata would shortly be able to overthrow Madero. Before he could overthrow Madero, General Victoriano Huerta beat him to it in February 1913, ordering Madero arrested and executed. This officially and formally ended the civil war.

Although this may have caused individuals to believe that the revolution was over, it was not. The battle continued for years to come over the fact that Mexican individuals did not have agrarian rights that were fair, nor did they have the protection necessary to fight against those who pushed such exploitation upon them.

If there was anyone that Zapata hated more than Díaz and Madero, it was Victoriano Huerta, the bitter, violent alcoholic who had been responsible for many atrocities in southern Mexico while trying to end the rebellion. Zapata was not alone: in the north, Pancho Villa, who had supported Madero, immediately took to the field against Huerta. Zapata revised the Plan of Ayala and named himself the leader of his revolution. He was joined by two newcomers to the Revolution, Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregón, who raised large armies in Coahuila and Sonora respectively. Together they made short work of Huerta, who resigned and fled in June 1914 after repeated military losses to the "Big Four".

On April 21, 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent a contingent of troops to occupy the port city of Veracruz. This sudden threat caused Huerta to withdraw his troops from Morelos and Puebla, leaving only Jojutla and Cuernavaca under federal control. Zapatistas quickly assumed control of eastern Morelos, taking Cuautla and Jonacatepec with no resistance. In spite of being faced with a possible foreign invasion, Zapata refused to unite with Huerta in defense of the nation. He stated that if need be he would defend Mexico alone as chief of the Ayalan forces. In May the Zapatistas took Jojutla from the federales, many of whom joined the rebels, and captured guns and ammunition. They also laid siege to Cuernavaca where a small contingent of federal troops were holed up. By the summer of 1915 Zapata's forces had taken the southern edge of the Federal District, occupying Milpa Alta and Xochimilco, poised to move into the capital. Nonetheless in mid July, Huerta was forced to flee as a Constitutionalist force under Carranza, Obregón and Villa took the Federal District. The constitutionalists established a peace treaty inserting Carranza as First Authority of the nation. In spite of having contributed decisively to the fall of Huerta, the Zapatistas were left out of the peace treaties, probably because of Carranza's intense dislike for the Zapatistas whom he saw as uncultured savages. Through 1915 there was a tentative peace in Morelos and the rest of the country.

As the constitutionalist forces began to split, with Francisco "Pancho" Villa posing a popular front against Carranza's constitutionalism, Carranza worked diplomatically to get the Zapatistas to recognize his rule. He sent Dr. Atl as an envoy to propose a compromise with Zapata. Zapata nonetheless refused to recognize Carranza's leadership, stating that the only acceptable result was following the Plan de Ayala, which would make him supreme chief of an interim government.

Finally, Zapata decided to side with Villa against Carranza and Obregon. Villa and the other anti-Carrancista leaders of the North established the Convention of Aguascalientes against Carranza. Zapata and his envoys managed to get the convention to adopt some of the agrarian principles of the Plan de Ayala. Zapata and Villa met in Xochimilco to negotiate an alliance and divide the responsibility for ridding Mexico of the remaining Carrancistas. The meeting was awkward but amiable, and was widely publicized. It was decided that Zapata should work on securing the area east of Morelos from Puebla towards Veracruz. Nonetheless, during the ensuing campaign in Puebla, Zapata was disappointed by Villa's lack of support. He did not initially provide the Zapatistas with the weaponry they had agreed on and, when he did, he did not provide adequate transportation. There were also a series of abuses by Villistas against Zapatista soldiers and chiefs. These experiences led Zapata to grow unsatisfied with the alliance, turning instead his efforts to reorganizing the state of Morelos that had been left in shambles by the onslaught of Huerta and Robles. Having taken Puebla, Zapata left a couple of garrisons there but did not support Villa further against Obregón and Carranza. The Carrancistas saw that the convention was divided and decided to concentrate on beating Villa, which left the Zapatistas to their own devices for a while.

Through 1915, Zapata began reshaping Morelos after the Plan de Ayala, redistributing hacienda lands to the peasants, and largely letting village councils run their own local affairs. Most peasants did not turn to cash crops, instead growing subsistence crops such as corn, beans, and vegetables. The result was that as the capital was starving, Morelos peasants had more to eat than they had had in 1910 and at lower prices. The only official event in Morelos during this entire year was a bullfight in which Zapata himself and his nephew Amador Salazar participated. 1915 was a short period of peace and prosperity for the farmers of Morelos, in between the massacres of the Huerta era and the civil war of the winners to come.

Even when Villa was retreating, having lost the Battle of Celaya in 1915, and when Obregón took the capital from the Conventionists who retreated to Toluca, Zapata did not open a second front.

When Carranza's forces were poised to move into Morelos, Zapata took action. He attacked Carrancista positions with large forces trying to harry the Carrancistas in the rear as they were occupied with routing Villa throughout the Northwest. Though Zapata managed to take many important sites such as the Necaxa power plant that supplied Mexico City, he was unable to hold them. The Convention was finally routed from Toluca, and Carranza was recognized by US President Woodrow Wilson as the head of state of Mexico in October.

Through 1916 Zapata raided federal forces from Hidalgo to Oaxaca, and Genovevo de la O fought the Carrancistas in Guerrero. The Zapatistas attempted to amass support for their cause by promulgating new manifestos against the hacendados, but this had little effect since the hacendados had already lost power throughout the country.

In 1916, Carranza sent a force under General Pablo González Garza to attack Morelos from the northwest. The Zapatista generals Pachecho and Genovevo de la O who believed the former to be a traitor, struggled against each other, and Zapatista positions began to fall. First Cuernavaca, then Cuautla and then Tlaltizapán. In Tlaltizapan Gonzalez executed 289 civilians, including minors of both sexes. Throughout Morelos thousands of civilian prisoners were stuffed on boxcars and carried to Mexico City, and further to the Henequen plantations of Yucatán as forced laborers. Zapata fled into the hills as his headquarters were raided, returning after a few months later to organize guerrilla resistance throughout Morelos. The brutality of the nationalist forces further drove the Morelos peasantry towards Zapata, who mounted guerrilla warfare throughout the state and into the Federal District, blowing up trains between Cuernavaca and the capital.

Having been put in charge of the efforts to root out Zapatismo in Morelos, Gonzalez was humiliated by Zapata's attacks, and enforced increasingly draconian measures against the locals. He received no reinforcements, as Obregón, the Minister of War, needed all his forces against Villa in the north and against Felix Diaz in Oaxaca. Through low-scale attacks on Gonzalez's positions, Zapata had driven Gonzalez out of Morelos by the end of 1916.

Nonetheless, outside of Morelos the revolutionary forces started disbanding. Some joined the constitutionalists such as Domingo Arena, or lapsed into banditry. In Morelos, Zapata once more reorganized the Zapatista state, continuing with democratic reforms and legislation meant to keep the civil population safe from abuses by soldiers. Though his advisers urged him to mount a concerted campaign against the Carrancistas across southern Mexico, again he concentrated entirely on stabilizing Morelos and making life tolerable for the peasants. Meanwhile, Carranza mounted national elections in all state capitals except Cuernavaca, and promulgated the 1917 Constitution which incorporated elements of the Plan de Ayala.

Meanwhile, the disintegration of the revolution outside of Morelos put pressure on the Zapatistas. As General Arenas turned over to the constitutionalists, he secured peace for his region and remained in control there. This suggested to many revolutionaries that perhaps the time had come to seek a peaceful conclusion to the struggle. A movement within the Zapatista ranks led by former General Vazquez and Zapata's erstwhile adviser and inspiration Otilio Montaño moved against the Tlaltizapan headquarters demanding surrender to the Carrancistas. Reluctantly, Zapata had Montaño tried for treason and executed.

Zapata began looking for allies among the northern revolutionaries and the southern Felicistas, followers of the Liberalist Felix Diaz. He sent Gildardo Magaña as an envoy to communicate with the Americans and other possible sources of support. In the fall of 1917 a force led by Gonzalez and the ex-Zapatista Sidronio Camacho, who had killed Zapata's brother Eufemio, moved into the eastern part of Morelos taking Cuautla, Zacualpan and Jonacatepec.

Zapata continued his work to try to unite with the national anti-Carrancista movement through the next year, and the constitutionalists did not make further advances. In the winter of 1918 a harsh cold and the onset of the Spanish flu decimated the population of Morelos, causing the loss of a quarter of the total population of the state, almost as many as had been lost to Huerta in 1914. Furthermore, Zapata began to worry that by the end of the World War, the United States would turn its attention to Mexico, forcing the Zapatistas to either join the Carrancistas in a national defense or to acquiesce to foreign domination of Mexico.

In December 1918 Carrancistas under Gonzalez undertook an offensive campaign taking most of the state of Morelos, and pushing Zapata to retreat. The main Zapatista headquarters were moved to Tochimilco, Puebla, although Tlaltizapan also continued to be under Zapatista control. Through Castro, Carranza issued offers to the main Zapatista generals to join the nationalist cause, with pardon. But apart from Manuel Palafox, who having fallen in disgrace among the Zapatistas had joined the Arenistas, none of the major generals did.

Zapata released statements accusing Carranza of being secretly sympathetic to the Germans. In March Zapata finally sent an open letter to Carranza urging him for the good of the fatherland to resign his leadership to Vazquez Gómez, by now the rallying point of the anti-constitutionalist movement. Having posed this formidable moral challenge to Carranza prior to the upcoming 1920 presidential elections, the Zapatista generals at Tochimilco, Magaña and Ayaquica, urged Zapata not to take any risks and to lie low. But Zapata declined, considering that the respect of his troops depended on his active presence at the front.

In mid-March 1919, Gen. Pablo González ordered his subordinate Jesús Guajardo to commence operations against the Zapatistas in the mountains around Huautla. But when González later discovered Guajardo carousing in a , he had him arrested, and a public scandal ensued. On March 21, Zapata attempted to smuggle in a note to Guajardo, inviting him to switch sides. The note, however, never reached Guajardo but instead wound up on González's desk. González devised a plan to use this note to his advantage. He accused Guajardo of not only being a drunk, but of being a traitor. After reducing Guajardo to tears, González explained to him that he could recover from this disgrace if he feigned a defection to Zapata. So Guajardo wrote to Zapata telling him that he would bring over his men and supplies if certain guarantees were promised. Zapata answered Guajardo's letter on April 1, 1919, agreeing to all of Guajardo's terms. Zapata suggested a mutiny on April 4. Guajardo replied that his defection should wait until a new shipment of arms and ammunition arrived sometime between the 6th and the 10th. By the 7th, the plans were set: Zapata ordered Guajardo to attack the Federal garrison at Jonacatepec because the garrison included troops who had defected from Zapata. Pablo González and Guajardo notified the Jonacatepec garrison ahead of time, and a mock battle was staged on April 9. At the conclusion of the mock battle, the former Zapatistas were arrested and shot. Convinced that Guajardo was sincere, Zapata agreed to a final meeting where Guajardo would defect.

On April 10, 1919, Guajardo invited Zapata to a meeting, intimating that he intended to defect to the revolutionaries. However, when Zapata arrived at the Hacienda de San Juan, in Chinameca, Ayala municipality, Guajardo's men riddled him with bullets.

After he was gunned down, they then took his body to Cuautla to claim the bounty, where they are reputed to have been given only half of what was promised. Zapata's body was photographed, displayed for 24 hours, and then buried in Cuautla. Pablo González wanted the body photographed, so that there would be no doubt that Zapata was dead: "it was an actual fact that the famous jefe of the southern region had died." Although Mexico City newspapers had called for Zapata's body to be brought to the capital, Carranza did not do so. However, Zapata's clothing was displayed outside a newspaper's office across from the Alameda Park in the capital.

Although for Carranza the death of Zapata was the removal of an ongoing threat, for many Zapata's assassination undermined "worker and peasant support for Carranza and [Pablo] González." Obregón seized on the opportunity to attack Carranza and González, Obregón's rival candidate for the presidency, by saying "this crime reveals a lack of ethics in some members of the government and also of political sense, since peasant votes in the upcoming election will now go to whoever runs against Pablo González." In spite of González's attempts to sully the name of Zapata and the Plan de Ayala during his 1920 campaign for the presidency, the people of Morelos continued to support Zapatista generals, providing them with weapons, supplies and protection. Carranza was wary of the threat of a U.S. intervention, and Zapatista generals decided to take a conciliatory approach. Bands of Zapatistas started surrendering in exchange for amnesties, and many Zapatista generals went on to become local authorities, such as Fortino Ayaquica who became municipal president of Tochimilco. Other generals such as Genovevo de la O remained active in small-scale guerrilla warfare.

As Venustiano Carranza moved to curb his former allies and now rivals in 1920 to impose a civilian, Ignacio Bonillas, as his successor in the presidency, Obregón sought to align himself with the Zapatista movement against that of Carranza. Genovevo de la O and Magaña supported him in the coup by former Constitutionalists, fighting in Morelos against Carranza and helping prompt Carranza to flee Mexico City toward Veracruz in May 1920. "Obregón and Genovevo de la O entered Mexico City in triumph." Zapatistas were given important posts in the interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta and the administration of Álvaro Obregón, following his election to the presidency after the coup. Zapatistas had almost total control of the state of Morelos, where they carried out a program of agrarian reform and land redistribution based on the provisions of the Plan de Ayala and with the support of the government.

According to "La Demócrata," after Zapata's assassination, "in the consciousness of the natives, Zapata "had taken on the proportions of a myth" because he had "given them a formula of vindication against old offenses." Mythmaking would continue for decades after Zapata was gunned down.

Zapata's influence continues to this day, particularly in revolutionary tendencies in southern Mexico. In the long run, he has done more for his ideals in death than he did in life. Like many charismatic idealists, Zapata became a martyr after his murder. Even though Mexico still has not implemented the sort of land reform he wanted, he is remembered as a visionary who fought for his countrymen.

Zapata's Plan of Ayala influenced Article 27 of the progressive 1917 Constitution of Mexico that codified an agrarian reform program. Even though the Mexican Revolution did restore some land that had been taken under Diaz, the land reform on the scale imagined by Zapata was never enacted. However, a great deal of the significant land distribution which Zapata sought would later be enacted after Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas took office in 1934. Cárdenas would fulfill not only the land distribution policies written in Article 27, but other reforms written in the Mexican Constitution as well.

There are controversies about the portrayal of Emiliano Zapata and his followers, whether they were bandits or revolutionaries. At the outbreak of the Revolution, "Zapata's agrarian revolt was soon construed as a 'caste war' [race war], in which members of an 'inferior race' were captained by a 'modern Attila'".

Zapata is now one of the most revered national heroes of Mexico. To many Mexicans, especially the peasant and indigenous citizens, Zapata was a practical revolutionary who sought the implementation of liberties and agrarian rights outlined in the Plan of Ayala. He was a realist with the goal of achieving political and economic emancipation of the peasants in southern Mexico and leading them out of severe poverty.

Many popular organizations take their name from Zapata, most notably the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional or EZLN in Spanish), the Neozapatismo group that emerged in the state of Chiapas in 1983 and precipitated the 1994 indigenous Zapatista uprising which still continues in Chiapas. Towns, streets, and housing developments called "Emiliano Zapata" are common across the country and he has, at times, been depicted on Mexican banknotes.

Modern activists in Mexico frequently make reference to Zapata in their campaigns; his image is commonly seen on banners, and many chants invoke his name: Si Zapata viviera con nosotros anduviera ("If Zapata lived, he would walk with us"), and Zapata vive, la lucha sigue ("Zapata lives; the struggle continues").

His daughter by Petra Portillo Torres, Paulina Ana María Zapata Portillo, was aware of her father's legacy from a very early age. She continued his work of dedication to agrarian rights, serving as treasurer of the of Cuautla, as ejidataria of Cuautla, as municipal councilor and municipal trustee.

Zapata has been depicted in movies, comics, books, music, and clothing popular with teenagers and young adults. For example, there is a Zapata (1980), stage musical written by Harry Nilsson and Perry Botkin, libretto by Allan Katz, which ran for 16 weeks at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut. A movie called Zapata: El sueño de un héroe ( Zapata: A Hero's Dream) was produced in 2004, starring Mexican actors Alejandro Fernandez, Jaime Camil, and Lucero.

Marlon Brando played Emiliano Zapata in the award-winning movie based on his life, Viva Zapata! in 1952. The film co-starred Anthony Quinn, who won best supporting actor. The director was Elia Kazan and the writer was John Steinbeck.

Emiliano Zapata is a major character in The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996), by James Carlos Blake

1. ^ Centeno, Ramón I. (2018). "Zapata reactivado: una visión žižekiana del Centenario de la Constitución". Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 34 (1): 36-62. doi:10.1525/msem.2018.34.1.36.

2. ^ John E. Kicza (1993). The Indian in Latin American History: Resistance, Resilience, and Acculturation. Scholarly Resources. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-8420-2421-1.

3. Miguel Leon-Portilla, Earl Shorris. (2002). ^ In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393324075. p. 374 (Testimony of Doña Luz Jiménez] originally published in Horcasitas, 1968)

4. John Mason Hart (1987) ^ Revolutionary Mexico, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 44. ISBN 9780520059955

5. "Emiliano Zapata Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Emiliano Zapata". Encyclopedia.com.

6. ^ Samuel Brunk (1996). ""The Sad Situation of Civilians and Soldiers": The Banditry of Zapatismo in the Mexican Revolution". The American Historical Review. doi:10.1086/ahr/101.2.331.

7. ^ "La hija del general Emiliano Zapata murió el domingo en Cuautla" (in Spanish). Mexico City, Mexico: CNN Mexico. EFE. March 1, 2010. Archived from the original on April 8, 2015.

8. ^ Fernando Baltazar (March 1, 2010). "Murió Ana María Zapata Portillo, última sobreviviente reconocida por El Caudillo" (in Spanish). Morelos, Mexico: La Jornada Morelos. Archived from the original on March 3, 2010.

Brunk, Samuel, ¡Emiliano Zapata! Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.

Caballero, Raymond. Lynching Pascual Orozco, Mexican Revolutionary Hero and Paradox. Create Space 2015. ISBN 978-1514382509

Lucas, Jeffrey Kent. The Rightward Drift of Mexico's Former Revolutionaries: The Case of Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.

Mclynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A history of the Mexican Revolution. New York : Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001.

McNeely, John H. "Origins of the Zapata revolt in Morelos." Hispanic American Historical Review (1966): 153-169.

Historiography

Golland, David Hamilton. "Recent Works on the Mexican Revolution." Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 16.1 (2014). online

McNamara, Patrick J. "Rewriting Zapata: Generational Conflict on the Eve of the Mexican Revolution." Mexican Studies-Estudios Mexicanos 30.1 (2014): 122-149.

Horcasitas, Fernando. De Porfirio Díaz a Zapata, memoria náhuatl de Milpa Alta, UNAM, México DF.,1968 (eye and ear-witness account of Zapata speaking Nahuatl)

Krauze, Enrique. Zapata: El amor a la tierra, in the Biographies of Power series.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Emiliano Zapata Salazar ( Spanish pronunciation: [emiˈljano saˈpata]; 8 August 1879 - 10 April 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, the main leader of the peasant revolution in the state of Morelos, and the inspiration of the agrarian movement called .

# data[].attributes.headline
1928-1970s indigenous pushed into Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.subject
1928-1970s indigenous pushed into Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hector Garcia/Acervo Comite 68

In the summer of 1968, Mexico was experiencing the birth of a new student movement.

But that movement was short-lived. On Oct. 2, 1968, 10 days before the opening of the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, police officers and military troops shot into a crowd of unarmed students. Thousands of demonstrators fled in panic as tanks bulldozed over Tlatelolco Plaza.

Government sources originally reported that four people had been killed and 20 wounded, while eyewitnesses described the bodies of hundreds of young people being trucked away. Thousands of students were beaten and jailed, and many disappeared. Forty years later, the final death toll remains a mystery, but documents recently released by the U.S. and Mexican governments give a better picture of what may have triggered the massacre. Those documents suggest that snipers posted by the military fired on fellow troops, provoking them to open fire on the students.
The Beginning Of A Movement
In 1968, student movements were breaking out all over the world - including in France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Argentina, Japan and the United States.

Mexico, like many countries in the prosperous 1960s, had spawned a vibrant middle class that enjoyed a quality of life unimaginable in previous decades. These children of the Mexican Revolution that now lived in comfort were, for the first time, able to send their own children to university in unprecedented numbers.

The student movement got its start from a street fight between high school students after a football game. The students confronted the Mexico City riot police sent there to end the skirmish. After hours of student resistance, the army was called in to quench the violence. The siege ended when the soldiers blasted the main door of the National Preparatory School in San Ildefonso with a bazooka, killing some of the students in the building.

The National University oversaw the Preparatory School, so the involvement of university officials and students was inevitable. In the following hours, the students decided to organize and protest against the violence exerted by the riot police. Over the following months, Mexico City witnessed a series of student protests and rallies against repression and violence.
The Massacre
Students expected the government to give in to their demands, but they were greeted with a clear message from the president: "No more unrest will be tolerated." The army proceeded in the following days to seize the National University, with virtually no resistance from the students, and later the National Polytechnic Institute, with active and violent student resistance.

After these events, the students rapidly called for a new gathering on Oct. 2 at the Three Cultures Square in the Tlatelolco housing complex. Thousands of students showed up to get firsthand knowledge of the movement's next steps. As the gathering was ending, soldiers arrived to capture the movement's leaders. They were greeted by gunshots from the buildings surrounding the square. The troops then opened fire, turning the evening into a shooting that lasted nearly two hours.

Over the following days, the official account of the events would be that the students - infiltrated by communist forces - had fired on the army, and the soldiers had to fire back to defend themselves.
The 40-Year Search For The Truth
Under an authoritarian regime, no formal investigation into the killings was ever initiated. But a renewed hope to find the truth arrived in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox, who broke nearly 70 years of one-party rule. In November 2001, Fox ordered the creation of a "special prosecutor for crimes of the past" to investigate the Tlatelolco massacre. But little was uncovered about the killings or those killed.

The number of civilian casualties reported has ranged between four - in the official count directly after the event - and 3,000. Eyewitnesses recount seeing dozens of bodies and prisoners being trucked away to military bases. But despite efforts by both the student leaders and the special prosecutor to compile the names of the dead, only about 40 have been documented. No siblings, parents or friends of the remaining casualties - if they exist - have come forward to add names to the list.

But new information has come to light through the release of official documents. They reveal that the Presidential Guard - a branch of the military - had posted snipers in the buildings surrounding Tlatelolco Plaza on the day of the massacre. The idea was that the snipers would shoot at the troops posted around the square, and the troops would think student snipers were shooting at them - and then they would open fire.

Using the documents, first-person accounts and archival news reports, along with historic recordings - many of which have never been broadcast before - Radio Diaries has woven together a clearer picture of what happened on Oct. 2.
This story was produced by Joe Richman and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes of Radio Diaries. Thanks to George Lewis and NBC News for some of the audio used in this story.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mexico's 1968 Massacre: What Really Happened?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1968, students in Mexico City challenged the country's government. On Oct. 2, troops opened fire on a crowd of student demonstrators. Forty years later, the exact death toll remains a mystery. But official documents suggest that military snipers may have triggered the massacre.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.

# data[].attributes.body
Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution states that "[o]wnership of the lands and waters within the boundaries of the national territory is vested originally in the Nation, which has had, and has the right to transfer title thereof to private persons, thereby constituting private property."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Publisher Information

Wiley is a global provider of content and content-enabled workflow solutions in areas of scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly research; professional development; and education. Our core businesses produce scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, reference works, books, database services, and advertising; professional books, subscription products, certification and training services and online applications; and education content and services including integrated online teaching and learning resources for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners. Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source of information and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations. Wiley has published the works of more than 450 Nobel laureates in all categories: Literature, Economics, Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Peace. Wiley has partnerships with many of the world's leading societies and publishes over 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols in STMS subjects. With a growing open access offering, Wiley is committed to the widest possible dissemination of and access to the content we publish and supports all sustainable models of access. Our online platform, Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) is one of the world's most extensive multidisciplinary collections of online resources, covering life, health, social and physical sciences, and humanities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Reform of Article 27 and Urbanisation of the Ejido in Mexico on JSTOR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Publisher Information Wiley is a global provider of content and content-enabled workflow solutions in areas of scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly research; professional development; and education. Our core businesses produce scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, reference works, books, database services, and advertising; professional books, subscription products, certification and training services and online applications; and education content and services including integrated online teaching and learning resources for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners.

# data[].attributes.headline
1993 First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.subject
1993 First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:
MEXICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS:

We are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, then during the War of Independence against Spain led by insurgents, then to avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from our soil, and later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us the just application of the Reform laws and the people rebelled and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like us. We have been denied the most elemental preparation so they can use us as cannon fodder and pillage the wealth of our country. They don't care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food nor education. Nor are we able to freely and democratically elect our political representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our children.

But today, we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

We are the inheritors of the true builders of our nation. The dispossessed, we are millions and we thereby call upon our brothers and sisters to join this struggle as the only path, so that we will not die of hunger due to the insatiable ambition of a 70 year dictatorship led by a clique of traitors that represent the most conservative and sell-out groups. They are the same ones that opposed Hidalgo and Morelos, the same ones that betrayed Vicente Guerrero, the same ones that sold half our country to the foreign invader, the same ones that imported a European prince to rule our country, the same ones that formed the "scientific" Porfirsta dictatorship, the same ones that opposed the Petroleum Expropriation, the same ones that massacred the railroad workers in 1958 and the students in 1968, the same ones the today take everything from us, absolutely everything.

To prevent the continuation of the above and as our last hope, after having tried to utilize all legal means based on our Constitution, we go to our Constitution, to apply Article 39 which says:

"National Sovereignty essentially and originally resides in the people. All political power emanates from the people and its purpose is to help the people. The people have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government."

Therefore, according to our constitution, we declare the following to the Mexican federal army, the pillar of the Mexican dictatorship that we suffer from, monopolized by a one-party system and led by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the maximum and illegitimate federal executive that today holds power.

According to this Declaration of War, we ask that other powers of the nation advocate to restore the legitimacy and the stability of the nation by overthrowing the dictator.

We also ask that international organizations and the International Red Cross watch over and regulate our battles, so that our efforts are carried out while still protecting our civilian population. We declare now and always that we are subject to the Geneva Accord, forming the EZLN as our fighting arm of our liberation struggle. We have the Mexican people on our side, we have the beloved tri-colored flag highly respected by our insurgent fighters. We use black and red in our uniform as our symbol of our working people on strike. Our flag carries the following letters, "EZLN," Zapatista National Liberation Army, and we always carry our flag into combat.

Beforehand, we refuse any effort to disgrace our just cause by accusing us of being drug traffickers, drug guerrillas, thieves, or other names that might by used by our enemies. Our struggle follows the constitution which is held high by its call for justice and equality.

Therefore, according to this declaration of war, we give our military forces, the EZLN, the following orders:

First: Advance to the capital of the country, overcoming the Mexican federal army, protecting in our advance the civilian population and permitting the people in the liberated area the right to freely and democratically elect their own administrative authorities.

Second: Respect the lives of our prisoners and turn over all wounded to the International Red Cross.

Third: Initiate summary judgments against all soldiers of the Mexican federal army and the political police that have received training or have been paid by foreigners, accused of being traitors to our country, and against all those that have repressed and treated badly the civil population and robbed or stolen from or attempted crimes against the good of the people.

Fourth: Form new troops with all those Mexicans that show their interest in joining our struggle, including those that, being enemy soldiers, turn themselves in without having fought against us, and promise to take orders from the General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.

Fifth: We ask for the unconditional surrender of the enemy's headquarters before we begin any combat to avoid any loss of lives.

Sixth: Suspend the robbery of our natural resources in the areas controlled by the EZLN.

To the People of Mexico: We, the men and women, full and free, are conscious that the war that we have declared is our last resort, but also a just one. The dictators are applying an undeclared genocidal war against our people for many years. Therefore we ask for your participation, your decision to support this plan that struggles for work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. We declare that we will not stop fighting until the basic demands of our people have been met by forming a government of our country that is free and democratic.

JOIN THE INSURGENT FORCES OF THE ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY.

General Command of the EZLN

1993

http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/ezlnwa.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Document #8: "First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle, Today We Say 'Enough is Enough!' (Ya Basta!)," EZLN Command (1993)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO: MEXICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS: We are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, then during the War of Independence against Spain led by insurgents, then to avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from our soil, and later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us the just application of the Reform laws and the people rebelled and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like us.

# data[].attributes.headline
1994 Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.subject
1994 Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
TODAY WE SAY "WE WILL NOT SURRENDER"

"...It is not only those who carry the swords that make blood flow and shoot out fleeting rays of military glory, who are privileged to choose the personnel of the government of a people who want democracy; it is a right as well of the citizens who have fought in the press and in the tribunals, who are identified with the ideals of the Revolution and have combated the despotism that fouls our laws. For it is not just shooting off missiles on battlefields that sweeps away tyranny. It is also by hurling ideas of redemption, slogans of freedom and terrible anathema against the executors of the people that dictatorships are toppled and empires brought down...And if the deeds of history show us that the demolition of all tyranny, that the overthrow of all bad government is a combined work of the idea and the sword, then it is an absurdity, it is an aberration, it is unheard-of despotism to want to exclude the healthy elements that have the right to elect the government. The sovereignty of the people is constituted by all the healthy elements that have full conscience, who are conscious of their rights, whether they be civilians or accidentally armed, but love liberty and justice and labor for the good of the Country."

- Emiliano Zapata, as spoken by Paulino Martinez Zapatista delegate to the Supreme Revolutionary Convention Aguascalientes, Ags., Mexico, October 27, 1914

To the people of MEXICO:

To the peoples and governments of the world:

Brothers and Sisters:

The EZLN, steadfastly at war against the bad government since January 1, 1994, addresses you in order to let its thoughts be known.

In December, 1993 we said ENOUGH! The first day of January, 1994 we called upon the legislative and judicial powers to assume their constitutional responsibilities in order to stop the genocidal policy that the Federal Executive imposes on our people, and we founded our right on the application of Article 39 of the Political Constitution of the United States of Mexico:

National sovereignty resides, essentially and originally, in the people. All public power emanates from the people, and is constituted for the benefit of the same. The people have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter or modify the form of their government.

The response to this call was a policy of extermination and lies; the powers of the Union ignored our just demand and let loose massacre. But this nightmare only lasted 12 days, as another force, superior to any political or military power, imposed itself upon the conflicting sides. Civil Society assumed the duty of preserving our country; it demonstrated its disagreement with the massacre and obliged a dialogue. We all understand that the days of the party eternally in power, which uses the product of the work of all Mexicans to its own benefit, can no longer continue; that the presidencialismo that sustains it impedes liberty and must not be allowed; that the culture of fraud is the means by which they impose themselves and block democracy; that justice exists only for the corrupt and the powerful; that we must make whoever commands do it obediently; that there is no other way.

All honest Mexicans of good faith, the Civil Society, have come to understand this. The only ones who oppose it are those who have based their success on the robbing of the public treasury; those who, prostituting justice, protect the traffickers and murderers; those who resort to political assassination and electoral fraud in order to impose themselves. It is these political fossils who plan once again, to turn back the history of Mexico and erase from the national consciousness the cry that gripped the whole country on the first of January '94: "ENOUGH!"

But we will not allow it. Today we do not call on the failed powers of the Union who didn't know how to fulfill their constitutional duty, thus allowing the Federal Executive to control them. The legislature and the magistrates had no dignity, so others will come forward who do understand that the must serve the people and not one individual. Our call transcends one single presidential term or an upcoming presidential election. Our sovereignty resides in CIVIL SOCETY. It is the people who can, at any time, alter or modify our form of government, and who have already assumed this responsibility. We now make a call to the people, in this SECOND DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE in order to say:

First. We have without fail carried out our military actions within the international conventions on war; we have received tacit recognition as a belligerent force, nationally and internationally. We will continue to comply with said agreements.

Second. We order our regular and irregular forces everywhere in national and foreign territory to carry out a UNILATERAL EXTENSION OF THE OFFENSIVE CEASE-FIRE.

We will continue to respect the cease-fire IN ORDER TO PERMIT CIVIL SOCIETY TO ORGANIZE ITSELF IN WHATEVER FORMS IT CONSIDERS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ACHEVE THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN OUR COUNTRY.

Third. We condemn the threat hanging over Civil Society by the current militarization of the country, complete with specialized personnel and modern equipment of repression, on the eve of federal elections. There is no doubt that the Salinas government is trying to impose itself via the culture of fraud. WE WLL NOT PERMIT IT.

Fourth. We propose to all independent political parties that they now recognize the state of intimidation and the lack of political rights that our people have suffered the past 65 years and that they declare themselves ready to form a government capable of the political transition to democracy.

Fifth. We denounce all the manipulation and the attempts to dissociate our just demands from those of the people of Mexico. We are Mexicans and we will not lay aside our demands nor our arms until Democracy, Liberty and Justice are achieved by everyone.

Sixth. We reiterate our disposition to a political solution in the transition to democracy in Mexico. We call upon Civil Society to take on once again the central role it played in stopping the military phase of the war and to organize in order to conduct peaceful efforts toward Democracy, Liberty and Justice. Democratic change is the only alternative to war.

Seventh. We call the honest elements of Civil Society to a National Dialogue for Democracy, Liberty and Justice for all Mexicans.

Therefore we say:

Once there was a war started in January, 1994, the organized outcry of the Mexican people stopped the confrontation and called for a dialogue between the contending sides. To the just demands of the EZLN, the federal government responded with a series of offers that did not touch the essential point of the problem: the lack of justice, liberty and democracy in Mexican territory.

The federal government's limited capacity to follow through on its offers is what characterizes the political system of the party in power. This system is what has made it possible for another power to thrive and override constitutional law in rural Mexico, a power whose roots, in turn, make it possible for the same party to stay in power. It is this system of complicity which makes possible the existence and belligerence of cacicazgos, the omnipotent power of the cattle ranchers and businessman and penetration of drug traffic...The mere offer of the so-called Committments Toward a Dignified Peace in Chiapas provoked a massive revolt and open defiance by these sectors.

The single-party political system tires to maneuver within the limited horizon that its own existence as such imposes; it cannot affect these sectors without attacking itself, and it cannot leave things as they were without provoking an increase in the belligerence of campesinos and indigenous people.

In sum: the fulfillment of the committments implies, necessarily, the death of the State party system. Whether by suicide or by firing squad, the death of the current Mexican political system is a necessary, although insufficient, condition for the transition to democracy in our country. There is no solution to the problems of Chiapas separate from a solution to the problems in Mexico.

The EZLN understands that the problems of Mexican poverty is not just a lack of resources. All efforts to combal Mexican poverty will only postpone a solution if they do not take place within a new framework of national, regional and local political relationships: a framework of Democracy, Liberty and Justice.

In this new framework, the problem of power will not be question of who the incumbent is, but rather of who exercises the power. If the majority of the people exercise the power, political parties will see themselves as obliged to confront the majority instead of each other.

A new way of approaching the problem of power in this framework of Democracy, Liberty and Justice will create a new political culture within the parties. A new kind of politician must be born and, no doubt, a new type of political party.

We are not proposing a new world, but rather a much earlier stage: the entryway to the new Mexico. In this sense, this revolution will not conclude in a new class, fraction of class or group in power, but rather in a free and democratic "space" of political struggle.

This free and democratic "space" will be born on the grave of presidencialismo and the putrid cadaver of the State party system. A new political relationship will be born. it will be a new politics, based not on the confrontation among political organizations themselves, but rather on the confrontation between different social classes over various political proposals. Political power will depend on the REAL support of these social classes, not on the exercise of political power, itself.

Within this new political relationship, each of the different groups with proposals for differing systems or directions (socialism, capitalism social-democratic, liberalism, Christian-Democratic, etc.) will have to convince the majority of the Nation that its proposal is the best for the country. Moreover, they will be aware that they are being "watched" by the country, and will be obligated to account for themselves on a regular basis, and the judgment of the Nation will determine if they stay in office or are removed. The plebiscite is a regulated -form of Power-Party-Politician-Nation confrontation, and it deserves an important place in the highest law of the land.

Current Mexican legislation is too narrow for these new political relationships between the governed and their governors. A DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION is necessary, out of which should emerge a PROVISIONAL or TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT whether by means of the resignation of the Federal Executive or by the electoral process.

The DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION and TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT must produce a new Magna Carta which convokes new elections. The pain of this process will be less than the damage produced by a civil war. The prophecy of the Southeast is valid for the whole country; we can learn now from what has happened and make the birth of the new Mexico less painful. The EZLN has an idea of what system and direction the country should have. But the political maturity of the EZLN, its coming of age as a representative part of the Nation's sensibilities, depends on the fact that it doesn't want to impose its idea on the country. The EZLN hereby declares what is already evident: Mexico has come of age, and has the right to decide, freely and democratically, the direction it will take. From this historic entryway will emerge not only a better and more just Mexico, but a new Mexican as well. On this we bet our lives, so that the next generation of Mexicans will have a country in which it is not a disgrace to live.

The EZLN, in an unprecedented democratic exercise within an armed organization, consulted its entire membership on whether or not to sign the federal government's proposal for peace agreements. Seeing that the central questions of Democracy, Liberty and Justice had not been resolved, the bases of the EZLN, primarily indigenous people, decided to refuse to sign the government's proposal.

Under conditions of siege and pressure on various fronts by those who threatened us with extermination if the peace agreements were not signed, we, Zapatistas reaffirm our pledge of life and death to achieve a peace with justice and dignity. In us, our ancestors' history of dignified struggle has found a place. The rebel Vicente Guerrero's cry of dignity, "Live for Country or Die for Liberty," sounds again in our throats. We cannot accept an undignified peace.

We opened our path of fire when we faced the impossibility of a peaceful struggle for our essential rights as human beings. The most valuable of those is the right to decide, with liberty and democracy, on our own form of government.

Now the possibility of peaceful transition to democracy and liberty faces a new test: the electoral process of August, 1994.

There are those who are betting on the post-election period, preaching apathy and disillusionment from the pulpits of their own immobility. They would exploit the blood of the fallen on all fronts of combat, violent and peaceful, in the city and the countryside. They base their political project on the pre-electoral conflict and, doing nothing, wail for political demobilization to open once again the gaping doorway of war. They will save, they say, the country.

Others bet even now that armed conflict will begin again before the elections, and that they will be able to take advantage of the ingovernability of the country in order to say in power. Yesterday they usurped the popular will with electoral fraud; today and tomorrow, with the river churning from a pre-election civil war, they will try to prolong the agony of a dictatorship which, masked by the State party, has already lasted decades. Still others, sterile prophets of the apocalypse, reason that war is now inevitable and they sit down to wait, watching for their enemy's corpse to pass by...or their friend's.

The sectarians erroneously suppose that the mere shooting of guns will be enough to crack open the dawn that our people have awaited since the night fell-with the deaths of Villa and Zapata-over Mexican soil. All of these thieves of hope suppose that behind our arms there is ambition and self-interested leadership, and that this will determine our path in the future. they are mistaken. Behind our firearms there are other arms-those of reason. And both are motivated by hope. We will not let them rob us of it. Hope with a trigger had its place in the beginning of the year. Now it is crucial to wait. The hope that always accompanies great mobilizations must regain the central leadership role that now belongs to it by right and reason. The flag is now in the hands of those who have name and face, of good and honest people who travel by routes that are not ours, but whose goal is the same one we yearn for. We salute these men and women, we salute them and we hope that they carry that flag to the place where it ought to be. We will be waiting, at attention and with dignity. If that flag falls, we will know how to raise it again...

May hope get organized, may it travel through the valleys and cities as it did yesterday in the mountains. Fight with your own weapons; don't worry about us. We will know how to resist to the last. We will know how to wait...and we will know how to return if all the doors to dignity close again. Therefore we address our brothers and sisters of the non-governmental organizations, of the campesino and indigenous peoples' organizations, workers of the countryside and of the city, teachers and students, housewives and neighborhood residents, artists and intellectuals, those of the independent parties, Mexicans:

We call you to a national dialogue with the theme of Democracy, Liberty and Justice. For this we send out the present call for a Democratic National Convention.

We, the EZLN, struggling to achieve the democracy, liberty and justice that our country deserves, and considering:

First. That the federal government has usurped the legitimacy-left to us by its heroes-of the Mexican Revolution.

Second. That the Magna Carta that rules us no longer represents the popular will of Mexicans.

Third. That it is not enough for the usurper of the Federal Executive to step down, our country needs new laws which must be born of the struggle of all honest Mexicans:

Fourth. That all forms of struggle are necessary to achieve the transition to democracy in Mexico.

Therefore, we call for a Democratic National Convention, supreme and revolutionary, from which must emerge the proposals for a transitional government and a new national law, a new Constitution that guarantees the legal implementation of the popular will.

The revolutionary convention will be national in terms of its composition-representation must include all the states of the federation; plural in the sense that all patriotic forces will be represented; and democratic in decision-making, deferring always to consultations throughout the nation.

The convention will be presided over, freely and voluntarily, by civilians: public figures of recognized prestige, regardless of their political affiliation, race, religious creed, sex or age.

The convention will be formed via local, regional and state committees, in ejidos neighborhoods, schools and factories, by civilians. These committees will be entrusted with arguing for their own grassroots proposals for the new constitutional laws and for the demands which the new government, once it emerges from the convention, will have to meet.

The convention must require that free and democratic elections must take place, and they must struggle, without rest, to see that the popular will is respected.

The EZLN will recognize the Democratic National Convention as the authentic representation of the interests of the Mexican people in its transition to democracy.

The EZLN is already present throughout the Nation, and is able to offer itself to the people of Mexico as a security guard for the implementation of the popular will.

For the first meeting site of the Democratic National Convention, the EZLN offers a Zapatista village and all the facilities that includes. The date and place of the first session of the Democratic National Convention will be announced when possible and appropriate.

Our struggle continues. The Zapatista flag still waves over the Mexican Southeast and today we say: We will not surrender!

Facing the mountain we speak with our dead so that they will reveal to us in their word the path down which our veiled faces should turn. The drums rang out and in the voice of the earth our pain spoke and our history spoke.

"For everyone, everything," say our dead. "Until it is so, there will be nothing for us."

"Speak the word of other Mexicans, find in your heart an ear for their word. Invite them to walk down the honorable path of those who have no face. Call everyone to resist, so that nobody accepts anything from those who command commanding. Convince them not to sell out a flag that belongs to everyone. Ask that we receive more than just words of hot air to alleviate our pain. Ask that they share, ask that they resist, ask that they reject all the handouts that come from the powerful. Ask that today all the good people of these lands organize the dignity that resists and does not sell itself out, that tomorrow dignity organize itself to demand that the word that lives in the heart of the majority is met with truth, and is welcomed by those who govern, that the good road is imposed, in which the person who commands, commands obeying.

Do not surrender! Resist! Do not let down the honor of the true word. Resist with dignity in the lands of the true men and women; may the mountains blanket the pain of the men of corn. Do not surrender! Resist! Do not sell yourselves! Resist!"

So spoke the word of the heart of our forever dead. We saw that our dead's word was good; we said, there is truth and dignity in their counsel. Therefore we call upon all our Mexican indigenous brothers and sisters to resist with us. We call upon all the campesinos to resist with us, upon the factory workers, the clerks, the neighborhood residents, the housewives, the students, the teachers, those who make thought and word their life, all of those who have dignity and pride, we call everyone to resist with us, since the bad government is opposed to having democracy on our soil. We will accept nothing that comes from the rotten heart of the bad government, not a single coin nor a medicine nor a stone nor a grain of food nor a crumb from the handouts that it offers in exchange for our dignified path.

We will take nothing from the federal government. Even if our pain and our grief deepen, though death may still be with us, at the table, in the land and on the roof; though we may see that others sell themselves to the hand that oppresses them; though everything might ache and grief weeps even from the stones...we will take nothing from the government. We will resist until the person who commands, commands obeying.

Brothers and sisters: Do not sell yourselves. Resist with us. Do not surrender. Resist with us. Repeat with us, brothers and sisters: "We will not surrender! We will resist!" So that it is not only heard in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, but in the north and on the peninsulas, so that on both coasts it is heard, so that in the heartland it is heard, so that in the valley and the mountains it becomes a cry, so that it resounds in the city and in the country. Join with your voices, brothers and sisters, cry out with us, make our voices yours:

"We will not surrender! We will resist!"

May the dignity break the siege with which the bad government's dirty hands are smothering us. We are all besieged: they don't allow democracy, liberty and justice to enter Mexican territory. Brothers and sisters, we are all besieged: don't surrender! Resist! Be dignified! We must not sell ourselves out!

What good are the riches of the powerful if they can't buy the most valuable thing in the lands? If the dignity of Mexicans has no price, what is the power of the powerful for?

Dignity does not surrender!

Dignity resists!

Democracy! Liberty! Justice!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. CCRI-CG of the EZLN. Mexico, June 1994.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle - Wikisource, the free online library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TODAY WE SAY "WE WILL NOT SURRENDER" "...It is not only those who carry the swords that make blood flow and shoot out fleeting rays of military glory, who are privileged to choose the personnel of the government of a people who want democracy; it is a right as well of the citizens who have fought in the press and in the tribunals, who are identified with the ideals of the Revolution and have combated the despotism that fouls our laws.

# data[].attributes.headline
1994 (January 1) UPRISE: Zapatista Army of National Liberation

# data[].attributes.subject
1994 (January 1) UPRISE: Zapatista Army of National Liberation

# data[].attributes.body
Chiapas Mexico in response to NAFTA
12 days

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DOCUMENTAL ZAPATISTAS, CRÓNICAS DE UNA REBELIÓN

# data[].attributes.headline
1995 Third Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.subject
1995 Third Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Third Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle - Wikisource, the free online library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One year after the Zapatista uprising, today we say:

# data[].attributes.body
EZLN proposes six major themes for the new dialogue:
Indigenous Rights and Culture
Democracy and Justice
Welfare and Development
Reconciliation in Chiapas
Rights of Women in Chiapas
Cessation of Hostilities.

# data[].attributes.headline
1995 Max Garcia Appedole: Linguistic Forensics 

# data[].attributes.subject
1995 Max Garcia Appedole: Linguistic Forensics 

# data[].attributes.body
In 1995 when Subcomandante Marcos was arrested by the Mexican Government and accused of being a terrorist, his old pal Max Appedole who had studied with the Jesuits identified Marcos as a pacifist who spoke in the style of the Jesuit literary tournaments. This was the dawn of linguistic forensics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Subcommander Marcos made his debut on the world stage on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. At dawn, from a town-hall balcony he announced that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation had seized several towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas in rebellion a…

# data[].attributes.headline
1996, January: Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.subject
1996, January: Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

# data[].attributes.body
Creation of the FZLN, Zapatista Front of National Liberation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today we say:
¡We are here!
¡We are rebel dignity, the forgotten heart of the homeland!

January 1, 1996

"All those communities, all those who work the land, all whom we invite to stand on our side so that together we may give life to one sole struggle, so that we may walk with your help.

We must continue to struggle and not rest until the land is our own, property of the people, of our grandfathers, and that the toes of those who have paws of rocks which have crushed us to the shadow of those who loom over us, who command us; that together we raise with the strength of our heart and our hand held high that beautiful banner of the dignity and freedom of we who work the land. We must continue to struggle until we defeat those who have crowned themselves, those who have helped to take the land from others, those who make much money with the labor of people like us, those who mock us in their estates. That is our obligation of honor, if we want to be called men of honesty and good inhabitants of our communities.

Now then, somehow, more than ever, we need to be united, with all our heart, and all our effort in that great task of marvelous and true unity, of those who began the struggle, who preserve purity in their heart, guard their principles and do not lose faith in a good life.

We beg that those who receive this manifesto pass it on to all the men and women of those communities."

Reform, Liberty, Justice and Law.

Chief General of the Southern Liberation Army

Emiliano Zapata.

(original Zapatista manifesto written in nahuatl).

To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples and governments of the world:

Sisters and Brothers:

The flower of the word will not die. The masked face which today has a name may die, but the word which came from the depth of history and the earth can no longer be cut by the ears with its cannons.

We were born of the night. We live in the night. We will die in her. But the light will be tomorrow for others, for all those who today weep at the night, for those who have been denied the day, for those for whom death is a gift, for those who are denied life. The light will be for all of them. For everyone everything. For us pain and anguish, for us the joy of rebellion, for us a future denied, for us the dignity of insurrection. For us nothing.

Our fight is caused by hunger, and the gifts of the bad government are lead and paper for the stomachs of our children.

Our fight is for a roof over our heads which has dignity, and the bad government destroys our homes and our history.

Our fight is for knowledge, and the bad government distributes ignorance and disdain.

Our fight is for the land, and the bad government gives us cementaries.

Our fight is for a job which is just and dignified, and the bad government buys and sells our bodies and our shames.

Our fight is for life, and the bad government offers death as our future.

Our fight is for respect for our right to sovereignty and self-government, and the bad government imposes laws of the few on the many.

Our fight is for liberty of thought and walk, and the bad government builds jails and graves.

Our fight is for justice, and the bad government consists of criminals and assassins.

Our fight is for history and the bad government proposes to erase history.

Our fight is for the homeland, and the bad government dreams with the flag and the language of foreigners.

Our fight is for peace, and the bad government announces war and destruction.

Housing, land, employment, food, education, independence, democracy, liberty, justice and peace. These were our banners during the dawn of 1994. These were our demands during that long night of 500 years. These are, today, our necessities.

Our blood and our word have lit a small fire in the mountain and we walk a path against the house of money and the powerful. Brothers and sisters of other races and languages, of other colors, but with the same heart now protect our light and in it they drink of the same fire.

The powerful came to extinguish us with its violent wind, but our light grew in other lights. The rich dream still about extinguishing the first light. It is useless, there are now too many lights and they have all become the first.

The arrogant wish to extinguish a rebellion which they mistakenly believe began in the dawn of 1994. But the rebellion which now has a dark face and an indigenous language was not born today. It spoke before with other languages and in other lands. This rebellion against injustice spoke in many montains and many histories. It has already spoken in nahuatl, paipai, kiliwa, cucapa, cochimi, kumiai, yuma, seri, chontal, chinanteco, pame, chichimeca, otomi, mazahua, matlatzinca, ocuilteco, zapoteco, solteco, chatino, papabuco, mixteco, cucateco, triqui, amuzzgo, mazateco, chocho, ixcaateco, huave, tlapaneco, totonaca, tepehua, populuca, mixe, zoque, huasteco, lacandon, mayo, chol, tzeltal, tzotzil, tojolabal, mame, teco, ixil, aguacateco, motocintleco, chicomucelteco.

They want to take the land so that our feet have nothing to stand on. They want to take our history so that our word and we will be forgotten and die. They do not want Indians. They want us dead.

The powerful want our silence. When we were silent, we died, without the word we did not exist. We fight against this loss of memory, against death and for life. We fight the fear of a death because we have ceased to exist in memory.

When the homeland speaks its indian heart, it will have dignity and memory.

Brothers and Sisters:

On January 1 of 1995, after breaking the military blockade with which the bad government pretended to submerge us in surrender and isolation, we called upon the different citizen forces to construct a broad opposition front which would unite those democratic voices which exist against the State-Party System: the National Liberation Movement. Although the beginning of this effort at unity encountered many problems, it lives still in the thoughts of those men and women who reject conformity when they see their Homeland under the rule of the Powerful and foreign monies. This broad opposition front, after following a route filled with difficulty, regressions and misunderstandings, is about to concretize its first Aproposals and agreements for coordinated action. The long process of maturity of this organizing effort will bear fruit this new year. We Zapatistas, salute the birth of this Movement for National Liberation and we hope that, among those who form it there will always be a zeal for unity and respect for differences.

Once the dialogue with the supreme government began, the commitment of the EZLN to its search for a political solution to the war begun in 1994 was betrayed. Pretending to want to dialogue, the bad government opted for a cowardly military solution, and with stupid and clumsy arguments, unleashed a great military and police persecution which had as its supreme objective the assassination of the leadership of the EZLN. The armed rebel forces of the EZLN met this attack with serene resistance tolerating the blows of thousands of soldiers assisted by the sophisticated death machinery and technical assistance of foreigners who wanted to end the cry for dignity which came out of the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. An order to retreat allowed the Zapatista forces to conserve their military power, their moral authority, and their political force and historic reason which is the principal weapon against crime made government. The great mobilizations of national and international civil society stopped the treacherous offensive and forced the government to insist upon the path of dialogue and negotiation. Thousands of innocent civilians were taken prisoners by the bad government and still remain in jail utilized as hostages of war by the terrorists who govern us. The federal forces had no other military victory other than the destruction of a library, an auditorium for cultural events, a dance floor and the pillage of the few belongings of the indigenous people of the Lacandon jungle. This murderous attempt was covered up by the governmental lie of "recuperating national sovereignty."

Ignoring Article 39 of the Constitution which it swore to uphold on December 1, 1994, the supreme government reduced the Mexican Federal Army to the role of an army of occupation. It gave it the task of salvaging the organized crime which has become government, and deployed it to attack its own Mexican brothers.

Meanwhile, the true loss of national sovereignty was concretized in the secret pacts and public economic cabinet with the owners of money and foreign governments. Today, as thousands of federal soldiers harass and provoke a people armed with wooden guns and the word of dignity, the high officials finish selling off the wealth of the great Mexican Nation and destroy the little which was left.

Once it took up that dialogue for peace again, forced by the pressure of international and national civil society, the government delegation once again took the opportunity to demonstrate clearly its true motivation for the peace negotiations. The neo-conquerors of the indigenous people headed by the negotiating team of the government have distinguished themselves by their prepotent attitude, their arrogance, their racism and their constant humiliation which pursues failure after failure in the different sessions of the Dialogue of San Andres. It bet upon the exhaustion and frustration of the Zapatistas, and the government delegation placed all its energies to breaking the dialogue, confident that it would then have all the arguments in its favor for the use of armed force, securing what reason could not secure.

Once the EZLN understood that the government refused to concentrate seriously on the national conflict which the war represented, it took a peace initiative in an attempt to unravel the dialogue and negotiations. It called civil society to a national and international dialogue in its search for a new peace, it called for the PLEBISCITE FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY in order to hear national and international opinion about its demands and future.

With the enthusiastic participation of the members of the NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, the disinterested volunteerism of thousands of disorganized citizens with democratic hopes, the mobilization of international solidarity groups and groups of young people, and the invaluable help of the brothers and sister of NATIONAL CIVIC ALLLIANCE during the months of August and September of 1995 a civic and unprecedented experiment was carried out. Never before in the history of the world or the nation had a peaceful civil society dialogued with a clandestine and armed group. More than a million three hundred thousand dialogues were realized in order to verify this encounter with democratic wills. As a result of this plebiscite, the legitimacy of the Zapatista demands were ratified, a new push was given to the broad opposition front which had become stagnated and clearly expressed the will to see the Zapatistas participating in the civic political life of the country. The massive participation of international civil society called attention to the necessity to construct those spaces where the different aspirations for democratic change could find expression even among the different countries. The EZLN considers the results of this national and international dialogue very serious and will now begin the political and organizational work necessary in order to comply with those messages.

Three new initiatives were launched by the Zapatistas as responses to the success of the PLEBISCITE FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY.

An initiative for the international arena expresses itself in a call to carry out an intercontinental dialogue in opposition to neoliberalism. The two other initiatives are of a national character: the formation of civic committees of dialogue whose base is the discussion of the major national problems and which are the seeds of a non-partisan political force; and the construction of the new Aguascalientes as places for encounters between civil society and Zapatismo.

Three months after these three intitiatives were launched, the call for the intercontinental dialogue for humanity and against neoliberalism is almost complete, more than two hundred civic committees of dialogue have been organized in all of the Mexican republic, and today, 5 new "Aguascalientes" will be inaugurated: one in the community of La Garrucha, another in Oventic, Morelia, La Realidad, and the first and last one in the hearts of all the honest men and women who live in the world. In the midst of threats and penuries, the indigenous Zapatista communities and civil society have managed to raise these centers of civic and peaceful resistance which will be a gathering place for Mexican culture and cultures of the world.

The new National Dialogue had its first test under the rationale for Discussion Table Number One in San Andres. While the government discovered its ignorance in regards to the original inhabitants of these lands, the advisors and guests of the EZLN began such a new and rich dialogue that it overwhelmed the limitations of the Discussion Table in San Andres and it had to be re-located to its rightful place: the nation. The indigenous Mexicans, the ones always forced to listen, to obey, to accept, to resign themselves, took the word and spoke the wisdom which is in their walk. The image of the ignorant Indian, pusillanimous and ridiculous, the image which the Powerful had decreed for national consumption, was shattered, and the indigenous pride and dignity returned to history in order to take the place it deserves: that of complete and capable citizens.

Independently of what arises as a result of the first negotiation of the agreements of San Andres, the dialogue begun by the different ethnic groups and their representatives will continue now within the INDIGENOUS NATIONAL FORUM, and it will have its rhythm and achievements which the indigenous people themselves will agree upon and decide.

On the national political scene, the criminality of Salinismo was re-discovered and it de-stablized the State-Party System. The apologists for Salinas, who reformed and altered the Constitution now have amnesia and are among the most enthusiastic persecutors of the man under whom they acquired their wealth. The National Action Party, the most faithful ally of Salinas de Gortari, began to demonstrate its real possibilities of replacing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the summit of political power and demonstrate its repressive, intolerant and reactionary nature. Those who see hope in the rise of neo-PANism forget that a substitution in a dictatorship is not democracy. They applaud the new inquisition, which through a democratic facade, pretends to sanction with moralistic blows the last remains of a country which was once a world wonder and today provides the material for chronicles of police action and scandals. A constant presence within the exercise of government was repression and impunity; the massacres of indigenous people in Guerrero, Oaxaca, and the Huasteca ratify government policy towards indigenous peoples; the authoritarianism in the UNAM toward the movement of those students wishing to democratize the College of Sciences and Humanities is a manifestation of the corruption which seeps into academia from politics; the detention of the leaders of El Barzon is another manifestation of treachery as a method of dialogue; the bestial repression of the regent Espinoza rehearses street fascism in Mexico City; the reforms to the Social Security law repeat the democratization of misery, and the support for the privatization of the banks secure the unity between the State-Party System and money. These political crimes have no solution because they are committed by those who are supposed to prosecute; the economic crisis makes corruption even more prevalent in government spheres. Government and crime, are today synonymous and equivalent.

While the legal opposition dedicated itself to find the center in a dying nation, large sectors of the population increased their skepticism towards political parties and searched, without finding it still, for an option for new political work, a political organization of a new kind.

Like a star, the dignified and heroic resistance of the indigenous Zapatista communities illuminated 1995 and wrote a beautiful lesson in Mexican history. In Tepoztlan, in the workers of SUTAUR-100, in El Barzon, just to mention a few places and movements, popular resistance found representatives with great dignity.

In summary, 1995 was characterized by the definition of two national projects completely different and contradictory.

On the one hand, the national project of the Powerful, a project which entails the total destruction of the Mexican nation; the negation of its history; the sale of its sovereignty; treachery and crime as supreme values; hypocrisy and deceit as a method of government; destabilization and insecurity as a national program; repression and intolerance as a plan for economic development. This project finds in the PRI its criminal face and in the PAN its pretense of democracy.

On the other hand, the project of a transition to democracy, not a transition within a corrupt system which simulates change in order for everything to remain the same, but the transition to democracy as a reconstruction project for the nation; the defense of national sovereignty; justice and hope as aspirations; truth and government through obedience as a guide for leadership; the stability and security given by democracy and liberty; dialogue, tolerance and inclusion as a new way of making politics. This project must still be created and it will correspond, not to a homogeneous political force or to the geniality of an individual, but to a broad opposition movement capable of gathering the sentiments of the nation.

We are in the midst of a great war which has shaken Mexico at the end of the 20th century. The war between those who intend to perpetuate a social, cultural and political regime which is the equivalent to the crime of treachery to the nation; and those who struggle for a democratic, just, and free change. The Zapatista war is only a part of that great war which is the struggle between a history which aspires for a future and an amnesia which has foreign vocation.

A plural, tolerant, inclusive, democratic, just, free and new society is only possible today, in a new nation. The Powerful will not be the ones to construct it. The Powerful are only the salesmen of the remains of a destroyed country, one devastated by the true subversives and destabilizers: those who govern.

Those projects which belong to the new opposition lack something which today has become decisive. We are opposed to a national project which implies its destruction, but we lack a proposal for a new Nation, a proposal for reconstruction.

Part, but certainly not all its vanguard, has been and is the EZLN in its effort for a transition to democracy. In spite of the persecution and the threats, beyond the lies and deceits, the EZLN has remained legitimate and accountable and forges ahead in its struggle for democracy, liberty and justice for all Mexicans.

Today, the struggle for democracy, liberty and justice in Mexico is a struggle for national liberation.

Today, with heart of Emiliano Zapata and having heard the voice of all our brothers and sisters, we call upon the people of Mexico to participate in a new stage of the struggle for national liberation and the construction of a new nation, through this. . . .

FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE

in which we call upon all honest men and women to participate in the new national political force which is born today: the

ZAPATISTA FRONT OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

a civil and nonviolent organization, independent and democratic, mexican and national, which struggles for democracy, liberty, and justice in Mexico. The Zapatista Front of National Liberation is born today, and we extend an invitation to participate in it to the factory workers of the Republic, to the laborers of the countryside and of the citys, to the indigenous peoples, to the colonos, to teachers and students, to the mexican women, to young people across the country, to the honest artists and intellectuals, to responsible priests and nuns, and to all the Mexican people who do not seek power, but rather democracy, liberty, and justice for ourselves and for our children.

We invite national civic society, those without a party, the citizen and social movement, all Mexicans to construct this new political force.

A new political force which will be national. A new political force based in the EZLN.

A new political force which forms part of a broad opposition movement, the National Liberation Movement, as a space for citizen political action where there may be a confluence with other political forces of the independent opposition, a space where popular wills may encounter and coordinate united actions with one another.

A political force whose members do not exert nor aspire to hold elective positions or government offices in any of its levels. A political force which does not aspire to take power. A force which is not a political party.

A political force which can organize the demands and proposals of those citizens and is willing to give direction through obedience. A political force which can organize a solution to the collective problems without the intervention of political parties and of the government. We do not need permission in order to be free. The role of the government is the prerogative of society and it is its right to exert that function.

A political force which struggles against the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and against the centralization of power. A political force whose members do not have any other privilege than the satisfaction of having fulfilled its commitment.

A political force with local, state and regional organization which grows from the base, which is its social force. A political force given birth by the civic committees of dialogue.

A political force which is called a FRONT because it incorporates organizational efforts which are non-partisan, and has many levels of participation and many forms of struggle.

A political force called ZAPATISTA because it is born with the hope and the indigenous heart which, together with the EZLN, descended again from the Mexican mountains.

A political force with a program of struggle with 13 points. Those contained in the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and added throughout the past two years of insurgency. A political force which struggles against the State-Party System. A political force which struggles for a new constituency and a new constitution. A political force which does not struggle to take political power but for a democracy where those who govern, govern by obeying.

We call upon all those men and women of Mexico, the indigenous and those who are not indigenous, we call upon all the peoples who form this Nation; upon those who agree to struggle for housing, land, work, bread, health, education, information, culture, independence, democracy, justice, liberty and peace; to those who understand that the State-Party System is the main obstacle to a transition to democracy in Mexico; to those who know that democracy does not mean substituting those in absolute power but government of the people, for the people and by the people; for those who agree with the need to create a new Magna Carta which incorporates the principal demands of the Mexican people and the guarantees that Article 39 be complied with through plebiscites and referendums; to those who do not aspire or pretend to exercise public privelages or elected posts; to those who have the heart, the will and the wisdom on the left side of their chest; to those who want to stop being spectators and are willing to go without pay or privilege other than participation in national reconstruction; to those who want to construct something new and good, to become a part of the ZAPATISTA FRONT OF NATIONAL LIBERATION.

Those citizens without a party, those social and political organizations, those civic committees of dialogue, movements and groups, all those who do not aspire to take Power and who subscribe to this FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE commit themselves to participate in a dialogue to formulate its organic structure, its plan of action, and its declaration of principles for this ZAPATISTA FRONT OF NATIONAL LIBERATION.

Today, this January 1 of 1996, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation signs this FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE. We invite all the people of Mexico to subscribe to it.

Brothers and Sisters: Many words walk in the world. Many worlds are made. Many worlds are made for us. There are words and worlds which are lies and injustices. There are words and worlds which are truths and truthful. We make true words. We have been made from true words. In the world of the powerful there is no space for anyone but themselves and their servants. In the world we want everyone fits. In the world we want many worlds to fit. The Nation which we construct is one where all communities and languages fit, where all steps may walk, where all may have laughter, where all may live the dawn. We speak of unity even when we are silent. Softly and gently we speak the words which find the unity which will embrace us in history and which will discard the abandonment which confronts and destroys one another. Our word, our song and our cry, is so that the most dead will no longer die. So that we may live fighting, we may live singing. Long live the word. Long live Enough is Enough! Long live the night which becomes a soldier in order not to die in oblivion. In order to live the word dies, its seed germinating forever in the womb of the earth. By being born and living we die. We will always live. Only those who give up their history are consigned to oblivion.

We are here. We do not surrender. Zapata is alive, and in spite of everything, the struggle continues.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committee
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico, January of 1996

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle - Wikisource, the free online library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today we say:
¡We are here!
¡We are rebel dignity, the forgotten heart of the homeland!

# data[].attributes.body
Fox was going to present a bill to the Zapatistas. MARCH OF THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH congress people did not show up. Gave a speech. Sent Accords to congress, but they got stripped of rights: land, control lost.

# data[].attributes.headline
1996 National Indigenous Congress formed

# data[].attributes.subject
1996 National Indigenous Congress formed

# data[].attributes.body
Brings all indigenous of Mexico together. Didn't stick.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) was constituted on October 12, 1996, as the home of all indigenous peoples, a space where originary peoples can find shared thought and solidarity to strengthen their struggles of resistance and rebellion, with their own forms of organization, representation and decision-making. It is the house of the indigenous peoples, tribes and nations we are, speaking Amuzgo, Binnizá, Chinanteco, Chol, Chontal of Oaxaca, Chontal of Tabasco, Coca, Náyeri, Comcac, Cuicateco, Kumiai, Lacandón, Matlazinca, Maya, Mayo, Mazahua, Mazateco, Mixe, Mixteco, Nahua, Ñahñu, Ñathô, Popoluca, Purépecha, Rarámuri, Tepehua, Tepehuano, Tlapaneco, Tojolabal, Totonaco, Triqui, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Wixárika, Tohono Oódham, Mame, Tlahuica, Guarijío, Sayulteco, Yaqui, Zoque.

When we say we are peoples, it is because we carry in our blood, in our flesh and in our skin all the history, all the hope, all the wisdom, culture, language, identity.

We are the peoples we still are despite 523 years of extermination, violence, domination and plunder from capitalism and its allies, the owners of money and power, the representatives of death. Capitalism was born from the blood of our peoples and keeps feeding from it.

We do not forget. Because that blood, that history, those lives, those struggles are the essence of our resistance and our rebellion that turns into autonomy, ancestral revendications of education, security, justice, spirituality, communication, self-defense and self-government.

We collectively built, embrace, defend and exercise the San Andrés Accords as the constitution of our peoples, because they represent the only way for us to keep existing as the peoples we are, they are our right to self-determination and autonomy, that is, deciding over our own territories, our own forms of collective organization and the way we want to build our future.

The peoples that conform the CNI rule ourselves by seven principles, and our maximum decision-making space is the general assembly gathered together in Congress, where we all have the word to decide collectively.
1.- To serve, not serve oneself. 2.- To build, not destroy. 3.- To represent, not supplant. 4.- To convince, not defeat. 5.- To obey, not command. 6.- To go from below, not from above. 7.- To propose, not impose.
In 1998, during our II National Indigenous Congress in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, we declared: "For the integral reconstitution of our peoples", so we decided to impulse, together with our brothers and sisters of EZLN, the National Consultation for the Recognition of the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples and for an End to the War of Extermination.

In 2001, during our III National Indigenous Congress in Nurio, Michoacán, we declared: "For the constitutional recognition of our collective rights", and we joined the March for Indigenous Dignity led by our brothers and sisters of EZLN, where the first voice of our peoples and the voice of the majority of Mexican society was expressed demanding recognition.

But the answer of this bad government was treason, by approving an indigenous counter-reform in 2001, proposed by the Executive power, materialized by the Legislative power and supported by the Judicial power, evidencing that our word and our feeling was only for the scorn and derision of the powerful. We realized that the time of looking above was over, that the time of looking below was shaking us and demanding from us to take the steps that history demanded from us.

In 2006, during our IV National Indigenous Congress in San Pedro Atlapulco, after much reflection we decided to adhere to the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona: to exercise autonomy in practice and indigenous resistance until its last consequences.

But at the same time we built our autonomies, the plunder and extermination war became more violent and our pain more profound. War wants to kill us as peoples and kill us as persons.

At the face of the plunder that multiplies in new forms and new corners and at the face of so much death, we still are peoples alive and collective, peoples with dignity in our rebellion, our resistance, our struggles in which we see mirrors that reflect the mirrors we are.

These mirrors are the plunders we suffer and live in our territories, they are what makes us know that we are in an emergency against our lives.

From our pain, our rage was born; from rage, our rebellion was born; and from rebellion, the freedom of the peoples of the world will be born. Because the heart of our mother earth lives in the spirit of our peoples.

This is what we are, this is our word, our walk, our sovereign struggle. We are the National Indigenous Congress and ours is the future of our peoples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is the CNI? - Congreso Nacional Indígena

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) was constituted on October 12, 1996, as the home of all indigenous peoples, a space where originary peoples can find shared thought and solidarity to strengthen their struggles of resistance and rebellion, with their own forms of organization, representation and decision-making.

# data[].attributes.headline
2003 Declare AUTONOMY (establish caracoles)

# data[].attributes.subject
2003 Declare AUTONOMY (establish caracoles)

# data[].attributes.body
LAND: they formalized the existence of territories that they occupy. Territories are interspersed and few communities that are purely Zapatista but are tied to municipal centers (caracoles) PERIOD OF AUTONOMY which means they have given up on the state...no attempts at negotiation
This has improved:
Education
Health care
Social systems/welfare
Women's rights: ability to work and be involved...to have fair access to assemblies, and other such communal events, usually by work obligations at home

# data[].attributes.headline
2016 National Indigenous Congress revitalized

# data[].attributes.subject
2016 National Indigenous Congress revitalized

# data[].attributes.body
An indigenous movement that struggles against neoliberalism but includes all who struggle with it