aka.
EZLN. They are and organised group of
Mexican rebels that seek to defend the
rights of the nation’s 10 million
Indians. The
Zapatista believe that
globalization threatens the rights of
impoverished workers and
indigenous people everywhere. They also want
lands seized from
Indian people to be returned so that they may continue their otherwise peaceful and
rural existence. Most of the
conflicts have involved the
war torn Mexican state,
Chiapas, with much of the
fighting taking place between the rebels and the
PRI (the
Institutional Revolutionary Party). The PRI has been the
ruling party in Mexico for the past 71 years, but
Mexicans new
President Vicente Fox has broken this tradition. (He’s a member of the
National Action Party) He has also promised to address the
Chipas conflict and has released many of
Zapatista prisoners held in Chipas, withdrawn
military occupation and initiated
peace talks.
Even though Vicente Fox has proved more sympathetic towards the goals of the EZLN, peace talks are still quite rocky and an end to the
violence may be far off. Many
non-Indian Mexicans are still ambivalent towards the Indian population, When a bill was passed in April
2001 affirming the rights of Indians many
conservative Mexicans protested fearing that the bill would give
too much power to local
Indian governments.
Clearly, as long as a vast
economic and
cultural divide exists between Indians and other Mexicans
the violence will continue. But at least, now some moves are being made to address the
injustice.