Research Article: The Chiapas Rebellion: Indigenous People's Rights in Mexico

The indigenous people of Chiapas—natives from before Europeans colonized Mexico—believe they are fighting for their rights and self-determination. The Mexican government believes the indigenous people can have their rights within the context of Mexico. Paramilitary groups are fighting to suppress what they view as terrorist acts by the Zapatistas—one group representing the indigenous people.

• The indigenous people want control over their own destiny.
• Mexican officials—and most Mexicans—want a united Mexico, and want the native people to find a place within Mexico.

• Conflict over land, and the control of land, increased with the shift from subsistence agriculture to cash crops. The land is now, potentially, very profitable, and so it becomes very important who controls it.

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect on January 1, 1994, the Zapatista rebellion in the state of Chiapas sent convulsions throughout Mexico as the indigenous people rose up in arms against the government. The Mexican Indians felt that Mexico's neo-liberal (practical, rather than ideological) economic policies had devastated their traditional way of life. In Mexico, and...
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