Zapatistias!

On January 1, 2003, in defiance of critics who had charged they are divided and disintegrating, the Zapatistas (EZLN) mobilized their forces, assembling as many as 25,000 Indigenous people in and around the central square in San Cristobal de las Casas. Comandante David spoke to the massive crowd stating in no uncertain terms that the Vincente Fox Government, despite their rhetoric, had not lived up to it’s promise of fair treatment of the Indigenous people of Mexico and that the struggle was far from over.

The Zapatistas take their name from Emiliano Zapata’s Agrarian Reform movement of the early twentieth century. If you listen carefully, you can still hear the echso of Zapata’s cry, "Tierra y libertad" or "land and liberty" in the narrow streets of San Cristobal!