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“Marcos is a post-modern rebel, a local, non-violent guerrilla who’s still found many ways, often through technology instead of guns, to short-circuit the dominant network of power."

Brian Gibson Vue Weekly

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Population: 4,293,45940% Indigenous35% speak native language3% Mexican

1983

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20052009

On Nov. 17, 1983, The EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional, or Zapatista National Liberation Army) is founded by three indigenous activists and three mestizos.

EZLN grows to over 1,300 armed members.

Zapatista communities approve a military offensive by the EZLN.

January: NAFTA is implemented January 1. That morning 3,000 members of the EZLN occupy six large towns and hundreds of ranches in Chiapas. Within 24 hours the arm responds, bombing indigenous communities and killing a minimum of 145 ndigenous people. Mexican civil society responds with massive demonstration calls for peace. A cease-fire is declared on January 12.

February: Peace talks begin. The government peace proposal is rejected by the Zapatista communities.

On the 9th the army mount a massive invasion of Zapatista territory, implementing a strategy of low-intensity warfare (civilian-targeted warfare). The army displaces 20,000 campesinos, destroys Aguascalientes and occupy much of the state (there are currently approximately 60,000 army troops in Chiapas). The Zapatistas respond by constructing 5 more Aguascalientes.

February: The EZLN and the government sign the San Andres Accords, outlining a program of land reform, indigenous autonomy, and cultural rights. December: President Zedillo formally rejects the San Andres Accords.

Zapatistas arrive in Mexico City for the founding of the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN), the civil political arm of the movement.

The army begins to try an dismantle autonomous Zapatista communities. Over 1,000 troops and police invade four communities, destroying records and arresting community leaders.

Zapatista communities register to vote in historic numbers.

The senate unanimously approves a mutilated version of the San Andres Accords. The Zapatistas and all other major indigenous organization denounce the laws. The Zapatistas go into SILENCE.

The Zapatistas break their silence with a 20,000+ person march on San Cristobal de Las Casas. It is the largest show of Zapatista strength to date.

The EZLN celebrates the 10th anniversary of the uprising. The Mexican military invades Zapatista communities in Montes Azules, burning houses and dislocating several families.

Marcos writes mystery novel with Mexican novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II.

Subcomandante Marcos speaks about the drug violence in Mexico for the first time.

Subcomandante Marcos

www.chiapaspeacehouse.org

Subcomandante Marcos has never revealed his true identity, but the Mexican government believes his real name is Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente. Guillén was an active member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party while he was teaching Philosophy at Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) in Mexico City, which would go along with Subcomandante Marcos's speech that the "Zapatista movement is more about ideas than bullets." Since 1996, Subcomandante Marcos has written 21 books, some of which have gone on to be printed in

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“The aim is to listen and learn about the struggles, the resistance and rebel movements, support them and bind them together to build a national anti-capitalist, leftist program.”

-Subcomandante Marcos

numerous editions and translated into several languages. La Historia de los Colores / The Story of Colors, a bilingual edition of one of his most famous books, is actually a retelling of an old Mayan children's fable that speaks of tolerance and solidarity. Subcomandante Marcos is also an avid correspondent, having written more than 250 stories and essays directed to newspapers and magazines, or used as press releases.

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Timeline

Chiapas, Mexico