The Zapatista Movement is Ongoing and Indigenous

San Cristobal de las casas, chiapas mexico

zapatista artesania, San cristobal chiapas

Chiapas, a southern state in what is now Mexico, is home to a wide range of indigenous communities, and as an integral part of the ancestral food landscape cacao has thrived and been cultivated in this region for thousands of years.

As a result of the Spanish invasion and later Mexican occupation, indigenous people in Chiapas have been struggling to maintain their sovereign land for centuries. A continuation of this struggle, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation or the EZLN, have worked toward land justice and indigenous rights since their first major militia encuentro at the heart of San Cristobal de las Casas, a colonial tourist city in Chiapas on Januray 1st 1994 - the same day that NAFTA came into effect.

December 31, 1993 First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

“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…"

After the 1994 uprising large land holdings were reapportioned by the movement and distributed to landless indigenous. Efforts to dismantle the patriarchy became a central theme in the Zapatista struggle, addressing the experience of women by working to end domestic violence and gender based inequalities both in the home and in the movement. Improving access to health care & education based on a system of mutual aid also became a priority and alcohol was banned on Zapatista territory. They outlined 11 important points for the struggle: housing, land, work, food, health, education, justice, independence, liberty, democracy and peace.

June 1994 Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

"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 for 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.”…

The region now known as Chiapas, has been home to indigenous people for thousands of years. As a part of the ancestral food landscape, cacao has been a part of indigenous Mayan culture for millennia. The Zapatista movement, the vast majority indigenous descendants of ancestral communities, exist within a country now called Mexico and struggle within its modern political landscape.

January 1995 Third Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

"We call upon all social and political forces of the country, to all honest Mexicans, to all of those who struggle for the democratization of the national reality, to form a NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT, including the National Democratic Convention and ALL forces, without distinction by religious creed, race or political ideology, who are against the system of the State party. This National Liberation Movement will struggle from a common accord, by all means, at all levels, for the installation of a transitional government, a new constitutional body, a new constitution, and the destruction of the system of the Party- State. WE CALL UPON THE WORKERS OF THE REPUBLIC, THE WORKERS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE AND THE CITIES, THE NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENTS, THE TEACHERS AND THE STUDENTS OF MEXICO, THE WOMEN OF MEXICO, THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY, THE HONEST ARTISTS AND INTELLECTUALS, THE RESPONSIBLE RELIGIOUS MEMBERS, THE COMMUNITY- BASED MILITANTS OF THE DIFFERENT POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS, to take up the means and forms of struggle that they consider possible and necessary, to struggle for the end of the Party-State system... Peace will come hand in hand with democracy, liberty and justice for all Mexicans. Our path cannot find a peace with justice which our dead demand, if it is at the cost of our Mexican dignity. The earth does not rest; it walks in our hearts. The mockery to our dead demands that we struggle to wash away their shame. We will resist. The oppression and the arrogance will be overthrown."

Chiapas has been home to indigenous cacao cultivation for thousands of years. As a result of its fertile land and abundant water the struggle for indigenous autonomy during centuries of expanding capitalist land grabs continues today. In 1995, a year after the first declaration made by the Zapatistas, the Mexican military launched constant small scale warfare against the civilian population in attempts to disrupt indigenous organizing. Instead of returning the violence, thousands of people retreated to the jungle where they continued their efforts of peaceful negotiations with the Mexican government.

January 1996 Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

"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 cities, 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"

The Mayan are a network of indigenous peoples living across Mesoamerica, cacao has held an important place in diverse Mayan food pathways for thousands of years. As a result of a system that leaves them landless many Mayan people joined the efforts of the EZLN.

In 1996, after two years of peace talks, the San Andrés Peace Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture was created promising autonomy and ensuring basic rights for indigenous people in Mexico. It was never implemented and the movement rejected a tepid version presented in 2001 as a betrayal. As a result the EZLN retreated from politics to focus on building autonomy on Zapatista held land.

July 1998 Fifth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

"We summon all honest men and women to struggle for the... RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES AND AN END TO THE WAR OF EXTERMINATION. There will be no transition to democracy, no State reform, no real solutions to the principal problems of the national agenda, without the Indian peoples. A better and new country is necessary and possible with the indigenous peoples. Without them there is no future at all as a Nation. This is the hour of the Indian peoples of all Mexico. We call on them so that, together, we can continue struggling for the rights that history, reason, and truth have given us. We call on them so that, together, reclaiming the inheritance of struggle and resistance, we will mobilize across the entire country and we will let everyone know, through civil and peaceful means, that we are the roots of the Nation, its dignified foundation, its struggling present, its inclusive future. We call on them so that, together, we will struggle for a place of respect alongside all Mexicans. We call on them so that, together, we will demonstrate that we want democracy, liberty, and justice for everyone. We call on them to demand to be recognized as a dignified part of our Nation. We call on them so that, together, we will stop the war which the powerful wage against everyone"

In March 2018 the women of the EZLN organized three days of convivir and invited women of all countries and backgrounds to join them on Zapatista autonomous territory “If you are a woman in struggle who is against what is being done to us as women; if you are not scared (or you are, but you control your fear), then we invite you to gather with us, to speak to us and listen to us as the women we are.” While the event was open to women only, the men involved did the cooking, cleaning and childcare so that all women who wanted to participate could do so freely. It was a way of demonstrating the active efforts Zapatistas make to dismantle the patriarchy.

June 2005 Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

"The EZLN maintains its commitment to an offensive ceasefire, and it will not make any attack against government forces or any offensive military movements. The EZLN still maintains its commitment to insisting on the path of political struggle through this peaceful initiative which we are now undertaking. The EZLN continues, therefore, in its resolve to not establish any kind of secret relations with either national political-military organizations or those from other countries. The EZLN reaffirms its commitment to defend, support and obey the Zapatista indigenous communities of which it is composed, and which are its supreme command, and - without interfering in their internal democratic processes - will, to the best of its abilities, contribute to the strengthening of their autonomy, good government and improvement in their living conditions. In other words, what we are going to do in Mexico and in the world, we are going to do without arms, with a civil and peaceful movement, and without neglecting nor ceasing to support our communities"

Sienna Trapp BowieApril 16, 2021