Tentara Pembebasan Nasional Zapatista
and sometimes it is decided to not consider the person a Zapatista. This for example implies that the person has to pay for medicine in zapatista pharmacies (although not for medical care). Membership in the Juntas rotates continuously, so that all members of the community have an opportunity to serve the community and also to prevent people in power to become addicted to it or become corrupted.
The EZLN placed since the beginning a very high priority on communication with the rest of Mexico and the rest of the world. Subcommander Marcos writings (almost the only ones) were initially in plain prose, with references to indigenous cultures and influenced by their style. These declarations and analysis were sent to national and international media. They also made excellent use of technology, in the form of satellite phones and the Internet to communicate with supporters in other countries, helping them gain international solidarity and support from other organizations and people. For some time, on almost every trip abroad the president of Mexico was confronted by small activist groups about "the Chiapas situation".
Their public spokesperson is Subcommander Marcos, a pipe-smoking middle-aged man whose real identity, according to the Mexican government, is Rafael Guillén, a middle-class university lecturer. Marcos himself denies this, but keeps his identity secret. His skin tone is paler than that of the average Mexican. He is clearly not indigenous, something his critics use to question his goals and motives. Marcos has been recognized by many as an outstanding and eloquent communicator; his writings, colloquial, ironic, and with references to indigenous stories were eagerly published by the media in the first years. However, after 2001 a long period of silence brought his relationship with the media to a standstill. In 2002 he began writing again, but this time his style was different and his declaration more aggressive, even against former allies.
By 2004 the EZLN's communication strategy was not clear. Except for isolated letters and "comunicados" about the political climate, mostly criticism, the EZLN had been silent for almost three years, and the media (except "La Jornada" newspaper) stopped covering them as there was no public interest.
For the first half of 2004, Marcos remained silent. By the middle of the year Luis H. lvarez, Head of COCOPA, the official communication link between the EZLN and the Mexican government, declared Marcos hasn't been seen in Chiapas for some time, and that he didn't know his location. However the EZLN was still active, mostly tending the local governments it has created.
In August 2004, Marcos sent to the Mexican press eight brief communiques, the whole set titled "Reading a video", published from August 20 to August 28. They were probably intended as a mocking of the political video scandals earlier in the year, the set beginning and ending as a kind of written description of an imaginary low-budget zapatista video, the rest being Marcos' comments on political events of the year and the EZLN current stance and development. The communiques went mostly unnoticed, partly because of the Olympic Games of Athens 2004 and the Congress reforms to the IMSS pension system, and partly because of loss of interest by the public.
In 2005 Marcos made headlines again by comparing Andrés Manuel López Obrador with Carlos Salinas de Gortari (as part of a broad criticism to the three main political parties in Mexico the PAN, PRI and PRD) and publicly declaring the EZLN in "Red Alert". Shortly communiques announced that the EZLN had undergone a restructuring that enabled them to withstand the loss of their public leadership (Marcos and the CCRI). A consultation with the zapatistas support base led to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
The EZLN claims to represent the rights of the indigenous population, but also sees itself and is seen as part of a wider anti-capitalist movement. The neozapatistas oppose globalization, or neoliberalism, the economic system advocated by the Mexican presidents from 1982 to 2000. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is an example of neoliberal policy, and spawned the 1994 Zapatista revolution because those who would later become the EZLN believed that it would destroy the rights of Mexico's impoverished indigenous community. The group takes its name from the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata; they see themselves as his ideological heirs, and heirs to 500 years of indigenous resistance against imperialism.
The EZLN differs from most revolutionary groups by having stopped military action after the initial uprising in the first two weeks of 1994. They never attempted their announced campaign against the capital, in fact they didn't leave the jungle, but in any case they were no match for the Mexican army. They organized a nationwide vote in which the general public chose to stop armed confrontation and continue through peaceful means as their course of action. They say these channels have been ineffective for the indigenous and for everyone else for too much time ("500 years", as they say), thus the EZLN motto: "Ya Basta!" ("Enough!"). This stance weakened after the electoral victory of Vicente Fox Quesada, who peacefully assumed the presidency as the first president from the opposition in 72 years. However, they have not participated in elections and now propose a non-electoral political front.
Only once, EZLN representatives have publicly visited (unarmed) Mexico City, marching down the streets, doing press conferences and organizing meetings with the civilian population and some political parties. This great march to Mexico City, described in a different part of this article, was also relatively peaceful, with some minor, mostly verbal, incidents. This peaceful approach is one of the reasons for its longevity and some popularity with the civilian population.
The EZLN has been mainly fighting for autonomy of the indigenous population as a solution to poverty; they promote a kind of state within a state where peoples can retain their ways of government and communal way of life yet receive outside support in needed areas. Many leftist groups have attempted to "adopt" the Zapatistas by portraying them as Trotskyists, Anarchists, Socialists, etc., when in actuality, the Zapatista ideology of autonomy is unique.
Pada 28 Juni 2005, EZLN mengeluarkan lanjutan dari apa yang disebut "Deklarasi Rimba Raya Lacandon ke-enam". Mengacu pada komunike, EZLN telah menggambarkan dalam sejarah dan memutuskan keharusan untuk melakukan perubahan dalam kelanjutan perjuangannya. Dengan demikian, EZLN telah memutuskan untuk menyatukan "para buruh, petani, pelajar-mahasiswa, guru, dan pekerja... para buruh di kota dan
pedalaman." Mereka mengusulkan untuk melakukan sebuah "non-electoral front" untuk membicarakan dan menyusun bersama sebuah konstitusi baru untuk mendirikan suatu kultur politik baru.
Pada 1 Januari 2006, EZLN memulai sebuah tur besar-besaran mengelilingi seluruh 31 provinsi Meksiko untuk menyambut tahun pemilu presiden yang demokratis. EZLN telah menjelaskan bahwa mereka tidak akan ikut serta secara langsung. Mereka akan berkeliling ke 31 provinsi tanpa membawa senjata.