The Zapatista National Liberation Army rebels declared war on the Mexican Government more than four years ago as part of a campaign to improve the lot of indigenous Indians in southern Chiapas.

Subcommandante Macro, and his people have been using the Internet to send communiqués to the outside world, in the hope that the ensuing attention will force the government to deal honestly with the parties involved.
1910 MEXICAN REVOLUTION
Today's Zapatistas take their name from Emiliano Zapata, the hero of Mexico's revolution. Zapata fought under the banner of "Tierra y Libertad" which translates literally into "Land and Liberty".

The Mexican revolution was a complicated affair involving many armies. Emiliano Zapata led a largely campesino (peasant) army which was fighting primarily for land. Eventually Zapata joined forces with amongst others, Pancho Villa, and in 1914 rode victoriously into Mexico City. He didn't stay long. It was clear to Zapata that other forces within the newly-formed political alliances were playing for power, not to return land to the campesinos. In 1919 Zapata was tricked and assassinated by the government. By 1930, the government's ruling party was calling itself the Institutional Revolutionary Party. It has been in power ever since.
1994 ZAPATISTA UPRISING
Who are the Zapatistas? Who is Marcos? On January 1, 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) took over 5 towns and over 500 ranches in Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico. The Zapatistas say they chose this date because it marked the first day of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which they claim "is a death sentence for the Indian peoples of Mexico."

The Zapatista demands stated they wanted control over their lives (indigenous rights, education, healthcare) and the land. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) is a guerrilla army made up of largely indigenous Mayan people including Tzotziles, Tzeltales, Tojolabales and Choles. The leadership calls themselves the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee (CRII-CG). They say they represent over 1000 Zapatista communities.

The military leader and spokesman for the Zapatista Army is Subcomandante Marcos who is not a Mayan and not from Chiapas. The government says he is a professor of philosophy and communications from Mexico City. It appears that Marcos came to the jungle 12 years before the uprising. He brought with him a quest for social change and an unerring sense of how to fight a revolution through the media. His poems, political harangues and short stories flood newspapers, magazines, television news and the Internet with stories of the Mexican Southeast. Together, Marcos and the Mayans of Chiapas, have created what the New York times calls "the world's first post modern revolution".