Mexico and the Zapatistas

The Zapatistas are a ragtag group of democratic/socialist rebels who largely occupy the Chiapas state of southern Mexico. They are descendants of the original Mexican Indians who survived by working the land. They and their supporters subscribe to the notion that the land belongs to the people, and thus no more than 1/3 of the land should ever belong to the state or any other corporate interest; in fact, because the land should belong directly to those who work it--there should be no outside ownership at all. They believe that the Mexican revolution should have settled such land ownership principles once and for all, but again the Zapa

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by hired assassins. (256) The above analysis of social control could have been written about the numerous accounts of violence against EZLN members and their supporters, including Cecilia Rodriguez. Rodriguez' colleagues believe that her high-profile work on behalf of the EZLN did not escape the attention of Chiapas' most powerful. In Washington a month before her rape at the hands of four masked men in Montebello Lakes (a tourist spot in a still tranquil pocket of Chiapas), she had announced the opening of a Chiapas office where international supporters would work together with Zapatista peasant communities. Ten years prior to her attack, Rodriguez had sat transfixed in front of her TV, gripped by the reports on New Years day about the Zapatista uprising that rocked Mexico. The grave faces staring out from the front pages of newspapers around the world made clear the identity of the combatants: they were Indians, and a startling number of them were women. (Banjac 20) The fact that so many women have an ethnocultural identification with the movement was not lost on Rodriguez. She realized that women were supporting their families, side-by-side; in fact, Mujeres de Mexico, a national women's rights organization, announced
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2605
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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