Lest we forget: 2004 marks the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatistan Rebels

[invisibleplanet]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=477624

With its bright red bougainvillea bush, neat wooden fence and pretty gate painted in bright colours, the casual visitor to the village of Oventic could be forgiven for thinking that this is just another hillside settlement clinging to the slopes of the steep valleys that range across the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

But a few tell-tale signs point to something more. Just outside the village, a Mexican army unit guards the highway from a hill-top vantage point, while at the side of the road, a large sign reads: "You are now entering Zapatista territory in rebellion. The people are in charge here." Since Zapatista guerrillas launched an armed uprising on 1 January 1994, the army and the rebels have lived in uneasy proximity in various parts of the state. Although almost all of the fighting was over within weeks, the Zapatistas have never renounced their declared war on the mal gobierno - or bad government - the North American Free Trade Agreement and the grinding poverty that affects not only the indigenous people in Chiapas, but thousands more across the country.

and from the Guardian on 27th December 2003:

Through a door under a painted rainbow Zapatistas sit in an office with a computer, a couple of manual typewriters, a satellite phone and not much else.
"We are satisfied and proud to be working against the system," says José Luis Hernández, spokesman for the "junta of good government" recently established in his village of Mayan peasants. "We are creating a new culture."

A decade after its brief but bloody uprising the largely indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation, led by the mestizo (mixed race) Subcomandante Marcos, is still talking big.

The difference is that far fewer people are listening.

The rebellion began on New Year's Day 1994, shaking Mexico to its core and catapulting Marcos and his ragtag army on to the world stage.

Their rhetoric against centuries of racism and neglect, the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which was launched he same day, and the party that had governed Mexico since 1929 struck many chords.

The fighting lasted 12 days, killed a few hundred and turned the Zapatistas into an international symbol of indigenous struggle and the fledgling anti-globalisation movement. It made Marcos the most romanticised Latin American revolutionary since Ché Guevara.

Ten years on the Zapatistas have been largely forgotten in a world caught up in more pressing battles, and even in Mexico Marcos's communiques barely make the newspapers.

[emef]

Originally posted by invisibleplanet
Lest we forget: 2004 marks the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatistan Rebels

as if any of us could have forgotten about that.
personally i haven`t thought of anything else since 12.01am new years day

[MUX]

wow.. i thought that would be spud.. likesay talkin bout the great zappa cat like u know..