{"id":8324,"date":"2023-11-06T22:49:58","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T03:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8324"},"modified":"2023-11-06T22:49:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T03:49:58","slug":"mexicos-zapatista-rebel-movement-says-it-is-dissolving-its-autonomous-municipalities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8324","title":{"rendered":"Mexico\u2019s Zapatista Rebel Movement Says It Is Dissolving Its \u2018Autonomous Municipalities\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
A supporter of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN, holds up a poster whose Zapatista Mayan community was allegedly shot at by paramilitaries, during a march against the recent wave of violence that shook the Mexican state of Chiapas, in Mexico City, Thursday, June 8, 2023. The Zapatista indigenous rebel movement in southern Mexico said in a statement posted Monday, Nov.6, 2023, that it is dissolving the \u201cautonomous municipalities\u201d it declared in the years following the group\u2019s 1994 armed uprising. (AP Photo\/Fernando Llano, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Zapatista indigenous rebel movement in southern Mexico said in a statement posted Monday it is dissolving the \u201cautonomous municipalities\u201d it declared in the years following the group\u2019s 1994 armed uprising.<\/p>\n

The Zapatistas led a brief rebellion to demand greater Indigenous rights, and since then have remained in their \u201cautonomous\u201d townships in the southern state of Chiapas, refusing government aid programs.<\/p>\n

In the statement, dated \u201cNovember\u201d and signed by rebel Subcommander Moises, the group cited waves of gang violence that have hit the area of Chiapas that borders Guatemala, but did not say whether that was a reason for dissolving the townships. The area held by the Zapatistas includes areas near the border.<\/p>\n

There is also a possibility the changes may be related to the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The movement has run candidates in the past.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn upcoming statements, we will describe the reasons and the processes involved in taking this decision,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe will also begin explaining what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy will look like, and how it was arrived at.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said Zapatista community centers, known as \u201cCaracoles\u201d (snails), will remain open to locals but be closed to outsiders. They serve as administrative, health care and education centers, but were also the main point of contact between the Zapatistas and the outside world.<\/p>\n

The group has been known in the past for issuing cryptic, often poetry-laden statements.<\/p>\n

Anthropologist Gaspar Morquecho, who has studied the movement for decades, said the Zapatistas \u2014 known as the EZLN, after their initials in Spanish \u2014 have become increasingly isolated, leading many young people to move out of the townships in search of work or more formal education opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EZLN has also closed off ties to other groups and organizations, and so they have become isolated,\u201d Morquecho said.<\/p>\n

The statement also said the Zapatistas will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their uprising in late December and early January. And though it said Chiapas is no longer safe for residents or outsiders, it invited people to come.<\/p>\n

The statement did not say whether the celebrations would be held in San Cristobal de las Casas, the colonial-era city that was briefly taken over by Zapatistas during the 1994 uprising. The southern city is popular with tourists.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Chiapas has seen the rise of migrant smuggling, drug cultivation and trafficking, and bloody turf battles between the Sinaloa and Jalisco drug cartels. Those cartels often operate through local gangs or self-styled vigilante groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are road blockades, robberies, kidnappings, extortion, forced recruitment, shootouts,\u201d said the Zapatista statement, which in line with the movement\u2019s ideology linked the violence to Mexico\u2019s political parties, the tourism industry and the government.<\/p>\n

The Mexican government has sent thousands of soldiers and quasi-military National Guard troopers to Chiapas, but the Zapatistas said they have not had any effect in combatting crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only reason they are here is to stem migration. That is the order they got from the U.S. government,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

– \u00c9Dgar H. Clemente, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Zapatista indigenous rebel movement in southern Mexico said in a statement posted Monday it is dissolving the \u201cautonomous municipalities\u201d it declared in the years following the group\u2019s 1994 armed uprising. The Zapatistas led a brief rebellion to demand greater Indigenous rights, and since then have remained in their \u201cautonomous\u201d townships in the southern state…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/9855e8c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5068x3377+0+58\/resize\/980x653!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F6b%2F1e%2F536b344f8d2d5872f11ff4ec8d20%2F5169c6ac3f344763aae8439f4682a1b3","fifu_image_alt":"Auto Draft","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8325,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8324\/revisions\/8325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}