The Zapatista Struggle since 1994
The EZLN implemented the decision of the Zapatista Mayan indigenous communities of Chiapas militarily to oppose the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January 1 1994. San Cristóbal de Las Casas and four other major towns were briefly captured, townhalls ransacked and land ownership documents burnt during a 10-day revolt which the Mexican army attempted to crush through the mass murder of prisoners and the aerial bombing of villages, leaving over 150 dead. However, the rapid national and international mobilisation carried out partially through the Internet, the first of many such "cyber-mobilisations", quickly isolated the corrupt and discredited regime of former President Salinas, forcing it into direct negotiations with the EZLN. Those liberated areas under the control of the EZLN instituted their own "revolutionary laws" on a range of issues from women's rights to collective land use, in direct opposition to the PRI regime's neoliberal policies. Although they have been broken off on various occasions, particularly during President Zedillo's treacherous attempt to arrest the EZLN leadership during a negotiation meeting in February 1995, these negotiations eventually led to the signing of the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture between the government and the representatives of not just the EZLN but all the 32 indigenous peoples of Mexico, including those close to the PRI regime itself. This was not a final peace agreement but the first of what would have been a series of five accords on different Issues which would eventually have led to the disbanding of the EZLN and its integration as a purely Political organisation as part of the FZLN (Zapatista Front for National Liberation), set up partially for this purpose in January 1996. Under the auspices of the peace process a remarkable and historically unique event also took place in early August 1996, the "First Intercontinental Gathering for Humanity and against Neoliberalism", which saw some 4,000 grassroots political activists and supporters of the EZLN from the five continents gather in five Zapatista Communities in Chiapas to share the experiences of their different struggles against global neoliberalism. The resulting "Second Declaration of La Realidad" helped to promote the organisation of a second gathering in Spain last year and the emergence of People's Global Action, an international network of local movements which is now campaigning against the plans of global neoliberal institutions such as the World Trade Organisation.
The EZLN suspended its participation in the peace talks, again on the orders of the indigenous Communities, in August 1996 when it became clear that the PRI regime was not taking a serious attitude towards negotiation but was simply buying time while paramilitary organisations were recruited, armed and trained under "Plan 1994", a Mexican army document published in the political weekly Processo in January this year. The document specifically saw The role of peace talks as a masquerade behind which the state's repressive cutting edge, the "plausibly deniable" paramilitary groups, would be organised and deployed. The EZLN then set five conditions for the peace talks to be restarted, the first being the immediate implementation of the San Andrés Accords, as revised by the COCOPA (the all-party Congressional Committee For Concord and Pacification) in December 1996, which the PRI regime has refused to do as it would "undermine national sovereignty" and lead to the "balkanisation" of Mexico. The peace process has not been officially ended by the government but its actions have effectively killed it off. This situation was acknowledged by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, the former chair of the independent CONAI (National Intermediary Commission), the main link in The previous dialogue between the EZLN and the government, when he resigned in June following a PRI smear campaign, so causing the CONAI to dissolve itself.
