MEXICO CITY, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Though the image of faces hidden behind the ski masks of ragamuffin soldiers who tore down from the highlands in 1994 survives as a powerful visual relic of modern Mexican history, the Zapatista movement, according to President Vicente Fox, is "a thing of the past."
In a tour of the southern state of Chiapas, home to the tiny army of indigenous people known as the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN -- a logo which today can be found emblazoned on t-shirts in liberal outposts in the United States -- Fox said Tuesday that the people of Chiapas "say no to the politics of weapons and yes to the political weapons of dialogue, solidarity and harmony."
Though Fox's Tuesday statements seemed to indicate that the Zapatistas no longer have power nor are as adamant about pursuing their goals as they once were, evidence of their sustained social influence in Chiapas is abundant.
The EZLN, who received international attention in the 1990s with its armed rebellion against the Mexican government and became a symbol of resistance to authority on par with Che Guevara, was only active on a military scale for a few weeks in January 1994. In its first act of armed resistance, the EZLN, lead by the enigmatic Subcomandante Marcos, stormed and occupied the Chiapas city of San Cristobal de las Casas, which lead to several standoffs with the Mexican army and the development of a volatile relationship between the government and the Zapatista leaders.
In their original statement, the Zapatistas called for the government to recognize the needs and rights of the indigenous people of Chiapas who make up about 40 percent of the state's population. Chiapas remains the poorest and most marginalized region of Mexico.
A tumultuous dialogue ensued in the late 1990s, with the Zapatistas offering the government the San Andres Accord, an indigenous rights bill asking for more rights to the land and natural resources the Zapatistas said the local people had tended for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The government dodged the approval of the accord, claiming it granted too much autonomy to the region's people.
When Fox campaigned for the presidency in 1999, he said he would be able to resolve the conflict in Chiapas "in 15 minutes." His attempts for reconciliation were bolder than his predecessors, but the Zapatistas ended talks with Fox administration officials in 2001, after Congress approved an abbreviated version of the San Andres Accord.
Today, the Zapatistas still tend to think of themselves as managing an autonomous region, and maintain control over several small villages in the highlands of Chiapas, particularly in the extremely remote Lacandon jungle region.
On one November visit to Oventic, one of the five Zapatista capitals, United Press International was denied entrance to the town and the permission to speak with any of its residents until credentials and objectives had been fully verified by the town's junta, or Zapatista council. Junta members still wear the black ski masks synonymous with the Zapatista movement when filling official roles.
After meeting with the junta, UPI was given a piece of paper, equivalent to a tourist card, indicating entrance to the Autonomous Zapatista village of Oventic.
According to Micoela Jimene Patistan, a member of an artisan weavers' collective in Oventic, she is part of the Zapatista movement because it's about living in dignity.
"Before 1994, we were not organized, but now we have a cooperative and there are equal rights for women and everyone in our community," Patistan said. "We make very little money selling our crafts, but at least we live with dignity."
In a small shop in Oventic, Patistan and her fellow weavers sell pillowcases, blouses and blankets with intricate, colorful designs. The women make less than $1 per hour for their work, which requires painstaking attention to detail.
But the abundance of cooperatives like Patistan's in Oventic and other Zapatista villages suggest that the social goals of the Zapatista's movement have infused themselves in a small way into the lives of the indigenous people in Chiapas. Coffee farmers, weavers and medicine producers all work together in ways they did not 10 years ago toward common community goals of equality and preservation of tradition.
Still, a tone of standoffishness remains in the way the Zapatistas and the government talk about each other.
During Fox's tour, Luis H. Alvarez, the Fox administration's representative for the dialogue with the Zapatistas, said that although the government has not established formal communication with Zapatistas leaders, particularly with the elusive Marcos who continues to live deep within the jungle, the government's actions have given reply to the social demands of the Zapatista communities.
According to a Zapatista junta member in Oventic who would not provide his name, the government has not done all it can to bring social justice to the people of Chiapas.
"They gave us land to farm ruined by their chemicals so we remain very poor," the junta member said, adding, however, "We are ... working toward a better, more just way of life."
