Zapatismo http://mexicosolidarity.org/programs/alternativeeconomy/zapatismo/en
The Zapatistas presented themselves to the world on January 1, 1994, though the roots of the rebellion can be traced back 500 years to the European invasion of the Americas. During those five centuries, indigenous communities lost control of historic lands and were often forced into various forms of slavery and/or virtual slavery. Many rebellions occurred during this period, making the Zapatista uprising part of a long history of struggle and resistance. By the late 20th century, indigenous communities in Chiapas lived on the most marginal and isolated lands in the state. High levels of poverty, and lack of health care and education plagued the communities. The Zapatista uprising was a direct result of these conditions. The Zapatista movement finds its modern roots in the historical context of the last half of the 20th century. Mexico's "dirty war" turned many young people away from establishment politics and toward open rebellion. This was particularly true of the Fuerzas de Liberacion Nacional (FLN) and several Maoist groups that sent cadre to work in indigenous communities in southern Mexico. Simultaneously, the Catholic church was involved in a social awakening inspired by the "preferential option for the poor" of the Vatican II conference. Indigenous deacons under the direction of Bishop Samuel Ruiz spread a gospel rooted in a combination of Catholicism and indigenous beliefs. But most of all, the rebellion came out of the indigenous communities themselves. Tired of generations of abuse, mired in a crisis that combined land shortages with lack of economic opportunities, and seeing no political resolution, indigenous communities organized the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) in the mid 1980s. In 1992, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari modified Article 27 of the constitution, ending Mexico's historic commitment to land reform. Article 27 was the legal foundation for distribution of community-owned lands called ejidos. Land distribution was one of the major accomplishments of the 1917 revolution, and by 1992 about half of the farmland in Mexico was in the form of ejidos. Ejido land titles are held in perpetuity by the community. While families may control plots of land for generations, the land cannot be sold and is legally held by the community, not the individual. Most ejidos also include large tracts of land dedicated for community use. At the time of the constitutional reform, thousands of ejido petitions were pending with the agrarian reform commission, with some dating back generations. With the abolishment of land reform, these communities lost all hope of receiving ejido status. Reform of Article 27 was the most important of several hundred changes in constitutional and civil law made by Mexico at the insistence of the United States in anticipation of the signing of NAFTA. The reform represented an important element in the "de-territorialization" of the campesino class, part of a process that began in the 1970s when the Mexican ruling class began to abandon support programs for rural areas in favor of maquiladora-led industrialization. The process of "de-territorialization" forced millions of campesinos to enter the industrial workforce, providing cheap labor for the rapidly growing maquiladora sector. With strong ties to the land, campesinos were only marginally attached to international capitalist markets, but by breaking those ties, the capitalist class unleashed new profit-making opportunities involving the exploitation of millions of former campesinos as wage laborers. 1