Zapatistas – CounterVortex https://countervortex.org Resisting Humanity's Downward Spiral Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:46:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://countervortex.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/newsflash_logo-1-300x300.png Zapatistas – CounterVortex https://countervortex.org 32 32 Zapatistas: ‘nation-state under attack’ https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-nation-state-under-attack/ https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-nation-state-under-attack/#respond Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:46:11 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=25215 Marcos." He delivered an exegesis entitled "A Peephole into the Storm in the World: Nation-States Under Attack" (Una mirilla a la Tormenta en el Mundo: Los Estados-Nación bajo ataque). Marcos portrayed a supra-national imperialism under Donald Trump, in which "the nation-state has no decision-making power." Marcos decried the "kidnapping" of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, and the US oil blockade on Cuba, noting that Mexico has been effectively barred from shipping oil to the Caribbean island nation. He also asserted that in the US-Israeli war against Iran, the big oil companies are the ones who benefit, as the price of oil rises. "That's what needs to be discussed: who is profiting from these wars?" (Image: Enlace Zapatista)]]> Mexico’s Zapatista rebels—who have observed a long ceasefire but still have a zone of control in the back-country of Chiapas state—just concluded an international gathering in the highland city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Convened on the premesis of the Indigenous Center for Integral Training (Centro Indígena de Capacitación Integral—CIDECI), the gathering was entitled “Seedbed: The Storm Inside and Outside According to the Zapatista Communities & Peoples” (Semillero: La Tormenta dentro y fuera según las comunidades y pueblos zapatistas).

Featured speaker on April 3 was a ski-masked “Captain Marcos,” presumably the same charismatic spokesman once known as “Subcommander Marcos.” He delivered an exegesis entitled: “A Peephole into the Storm in the World: Nation-States Under Attack” (Una mirilla a la Tormenta en el Mundo: Los Estados-Nación bajo ataque). Marcos portrayed a supra-national imperialism under Donald Trump, in which “the nation-state has no decision-making power.” Marcos decried the “kidnapping” of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, and the US oil blockade on Cuba, especially noting that Mexico has been effectively barred from shipping oil to the Caribbean island nation. He hailed the tenacious resistance of the Cubans and Palestinians.

Marcos asserted that in the US-Israeli war against Iran, the big oil companies are the ones who benefit, as the price of oil has dramatically risen. “That’s what needs to be discussed: who is profiting from these wars?” (La Jornada via Mexico Solidarity Media)

Image: Enlace Zapatista

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-nation-state-under-attack/feed/ 0 Zapatistas reorganize autonomous zone structure https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-reorganize-autonomous-zone-structure/ https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-reorganize-autonomous-zone-structure/#comments Sat, 11 Nov 2023 18:27:22 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=23080 statement signed by Zapatista leader Subcomandante Moisés said the decision was taken "after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis." The Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ), overseen by rotating Good Government Juntas, have been maintained since the Zapatistas' initial uprising in 1994. Moisés said that future communiques "will describe the reasons and the processes involved in taking this decision," as well as "what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy will look like." The communique did, however, mention a new pressure in the growing power of "disorganized crime cartels" in Chiapas, a reference to the narco-gangs seeking to control "the entire border strip with Guatemala." (Wikimedia Commons via Mexico New Daily)]]> The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) indigenous rebel group in southern Mexico has announced the dissolution of its “autonomous municipalities” in the mountains and jungle of Chiapas state. A statement signed by Zapatista leader Subcomandante Moisés said the decision was taken “after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis.” The Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ), overseen by rotating Good Government Juntas, have been maintained since the Zapatistas’ initial uprising in 1994. Moisés said that future communiques “will describe the reasons and the processes involved in taking this decision,” as well as “what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy will look like.” The communique did, however, mention a new pressure in the growing power of “disorganized crime cartels” in Chiapas, a reference to the narco-gangs seeking to control “the entire border strip with Guatemala.” (AP, Mexico New Daily)

On June 8, several thousand people marched in Mexico City and elsewhere in the country, including the Chiapas highland city of San Cristobal de las Casas, to demand an end to attacks by paramilitary groups against Zapatista communities. (EFE)

Wikimedia Commons via Mexico New Daily

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-reorganize-autonomous-zone-structure/feed/ 1 Protest paramilitary attacks on Zapatistas https://countervortex.org/blog/protest-paramilitary-attacks-on-zapatistas/ https://countervortex.org/blog/protest-paramilitary-attacks-on-zapatistas/#respond Thu, 15 Jun 2023 17:34:57 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=22689 small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, the Zapatista base community of Moisés Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May armed incursion at the community, a resident was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: "Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]...with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio Escandón Cadenas and [Mexican president] Andrés Manuel López Obrador." (Photo: Chiapas Support Committee)]]> An international mobilization was held June 8, with small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, issued a week earlier, the Zapatista base community of Moisés Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May 22 armed incursion at the community, Moisés Gandhi resident Jorge López Santíz was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: “Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]…with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio Escandón Cadenas and [Mexican president] Andrés Manuel López Obrador.” (El País, Spain; National Indigenous Congress, Mexico)

Moisés Gandhi is part of the Zapatista “autonomous municipality” of Lucio Cabañas, a rebel zone of control within the “official” municipality of Ocosingo. Although the Zapatistas have honored a ceasefire with the government for a generation now, government-aligned paramilitary groups have sought to reduce their territory through a campaign of attrition. ORCAO is an acronym for the Regional Coffee Growers Organization of Ocosingo, but following similar attacks by the group in September 2021, the Zapatistas released a statement charging that it is “a political-military organization with paramilitary characteristics: they have uniforms, equipment, weapons, and ammunition purchased with money they receive from [government-sponsored] ‘social programs’… They fire on the Zapatista community of Moisés Gandhi every night with these weapons.” (Mexico News Daily)

The new statement was signed by leading left-wing intellectual figures around the world, including Noam Chomsky.

Photo: Chiapas Support Committee

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/protest-paramilitary-attacks-on-zapatistas/feed/ 0 Podcast: Mexico and the struggle for the genetic commons https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-mexico-and-the-struggle-for-the-genetic-commons/ https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-mexico-and-the-struggle-for-the-genetic-commons/#respond Mon, 27 Mar 2023 05:10:08 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=22524 Episode 166 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how a little-noted US-Mexico dispute on trade and agricultural policy has serious implications for the survival of the human race. Washington is preparing to file a complaint under terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico's decree banning imports of GMO corn, slated to take effect in January 2024. Concerns about the (unproven) health effects of consuming GMO foods miss the real critique—which is ecological, social and political. GMO seeds are explicitly designed as part of an "input package" intended to get farmers hooked on pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, and protect the "intellectual property" of private corporations. Agribusiness, which can afford the "input package," comes to dominate the market. Eased by so-called "free trade" policies, agbiz forces the peasantry off the market and ultimately off the land—a process well advanced in Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994, and which is related to the explosion of the narco economy and mass migration. The pending decree holds the promise of regenerating sustainable agriculture based on native seed stock. It is also a critical test case, as countries such as Kenya have recently repealed similar policies in light of the global food crisis. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Sin Maíz No Hay País)]]> In Episode 166 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how a little-noted US-Mexico dispute on trade and agricultural policy has serious implications for the survival of the human race. Washington is preparing to file a complaint under terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico’s decree banning imports of GMO corn, slated to take effect in January 2024. Concerns about the (unproven) health effects of consuming GMO foods miss the real critique—which is ecological, social and political. GMO seeds are explicitly designed as part of an “input package” intended to get farmers hooked on pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, and protect the “intellectual property” of private corporations. Agribusiness, which can afford the “input package,” comes to dominate the market. Eased by so-called “free trade” policies, agbiz forces the peasantry off the market and ultimately off the land—a process very well advanced in Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994, and which is intimately related to the explosion of the narco economy and mass migration. The pending decree in Mexico holds the promise of regenerating sustainable agriculture based on native seed stock. It is also a critical test case, as countries such as Kenya have recently repealed similar policies in light of the global food crisis.

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Production by Chris Rywalt

Books discussed: Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction by Helen Anne Curry, University of California Press, 2022; War On the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America by Bill Weinberg, Zed Books, 1991

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our special offer! We now have 52 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 53!

Image: Sin Maíz No Hay País

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-mexico-and-the-struggle-for-the-genetic-commons/feed/ 0 Podcast: anarchism and the climate crisis https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-anarchism-and-the-climate-crisis/ https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-anarchism-and-the-climate-crisis/#respond Sun, 31 Oct 2021 23:23:15 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=21129 inauspicious opening of the Glasgow climate conference, activists around the world are increasingly looking to local action as an alternative to the moribund United Nations process on addressing what has been called a "Code Red for humanity." In Episode 95 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the ideas of Social Ecology and radical municipalism, developed by the late Vermont anarchist thinker Murray Bookchin, and how they provide a theoretical framework for localities struggling to lead from below on the climate question. Examples discussed include the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the Rojava Kurds in Syria, and the community gardens and ongoing struggles for reclaimed urban space on New York’s Lower East Side. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: East River Park Action)]]> With the inauspicious opening of the Glasgow climate conference, activists around the world are increasingly looking to local action as an alternative to the moribund United Nations process on addressing what has been called a “Code Red for humanity.” In Episode 95 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the ideas of Social Ecology and radical municipalism, developed by the late Vermont anarchist thinker Murray Bookchin, and how they provide a theoretical framework for localities struggling to lead from below on the climate question. Examples discussed include the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the Rojava Kurds in Syria, and the community gardens and ongoing struggles for reclaimed urban space on New York’s Lower East Side. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Erratum: The activists who chained themselves to a tree to demand protection of East River Park did not do so in ERP itself, but at City Hall Park.

Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 25 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 26!

Photo: East River Park Action

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-anarchism-and-the-climate-crisis/feed/ 0 Paramilitary violence escalates in Chiapas https://countervortex.org/blog/paramilitary-violence-escalates-in-chiapas/ https://countervortex.org/blog/paramilitary-violence-escalates-in-chiapas/#respond Sun, 17 Oct 2021 17:10:20 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=21023 Chiapas Paralelo)]]> Tensions are fast mounting in Mexico’s conflicted southern state of Chiapas following a new outbreak of paramilitary violence. Protests have been held in the state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez over the past weeks to demand the return alive of 21 residents of the highland village of Pantelhó, who were abducted July 26 amid raids by a self-proclaimed “self-defense force” in which houses and vehicles were also set on fire. On Aug. 10, the state prosecutor who was assigned to investigate the case, Gregorio Pérez Gómez, was himself gunned down on a street in the highland city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. An anonymous defector from “El Machete” self-defense force told national TV news program En Punto on Oct. 7 that 18 of the 21 missing men were publicly beaten to death in the Pantelhó village square. He said their bodies were buried near San José Tercero, the outlying hamlet that is the paramilitary group’s principal stronghold. Family members of the abductees have adopted the slogan from the infamous Ayotzinapa case, “They were taken alive, we want them back alive.”

El Machete reportedly accused the abducted men of being members of Los Herrera, a criminal gang that allegedly has links to the Pantelhó municipal government. The paramilitary group is demanding the ouster of Pantelhó’s mayor, Raquel Trujillo Morales of the center-left PRD, and instatement of a system based on usos y costumbres, a taditional indigenous model of government without elected leaders. (Mexico News Daily, La Jornada, Animal Politico, Proceso, Chiapas Support Committee)

Receiving far less coverage from Mexico’s national media, paramilitary violence is also escalating against followers of the Zapatista rebel movement, which continues to observe a truce with the government. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) issued a communiqué Sept. 19 listing a series of recent attacks on members of their support base. In the most serious, two members of the Zapatista base community of Patria Nueva (in the “official” municipality of Oxchuc) were said to have been abducted by gunmen from the local ORCAO paramilitary group on Sept. 11. The two men were freed eight days later following mediation by the parish priest of Oxchuc, but 6,000 pesos in cash belonging to the Patria Nueva autonomous administration was stolen. The EZLN communiqué warned that Chiapas is at “the brink of civil war.” (Enlace Zapatista, Radio Zapatista)

Photo: Chiapas Paralelo

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/paramilitary-violence-escalates-in-chiapas/feed/ 0 Podcast: for pragmatic anarchism https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-for-pragmatic-anarchism/ https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-for-pragmatic-anarchism/#respond Sun, 17 Oct 2021 03:19:19 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=21020 Episode 93 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg responds to the request from Patreon subscriber and legendary folksinger Dave Lippman to discuss the contemporary significance of anarchism. Weinberg cites recent examples of an "anarcho-pragmatism" that aspires to libertarian socialism but also works toward concrete victories in the here-and-now: the Zapatistas in Mexico, piqueteros in Argentina, the Rojava Kurds and other liberatory elements of the Syrian Revolution, and Occupy Wall Street in New York. Since last year's Black Lives Matter uprising, anarchist ideas have started to enter mainstream discourse—such as calls for "decarceration" and to abolish the police. Weinberg also makes note of pointed criticisms of some contemporary anarchist thought from the Marxist-Humanists. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr)]]> In Episode 93 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg responds to the request from Patreon subscriber and legendary folksinger Dave Lippman to discuss the contemporary significance of anarchism. Weinberg cites recent examples of an “anarcho-pragmatism” that aspires to libertarian socialism but also works toward concrete victories in the here-and-now: the Zapatistas in Mexico, piqueteros in Argentina, the Rojava Kurds and other liberatory elements of the Syrian Revolution, and Occupy Wall Street in New York. Since last year’s Black Lives Matter uprising, anarchist ideas have started to enter mainstream discourse—such as calls for “decarceration” and to abolish the police. Weinberg also makes note of pointed criticisms of some contemporary anarchist thought from the Marxist-Humanists.

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon—or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 25 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 26!

Image: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-for-pragmatic-anarchism/feed/ 0 Zapatistas launch symbolic ‘invasion’ of Spain https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-launch-symbolic-invasion-of-spain/ https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-launch-symbolic-invasion-of-spain/#respond Tue, 04 May 2021 04:26:49 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=20490 La Montaña, the delegation hopes to reach Madrid by Aug. 13, anniversary of the 1521 fall of Tenochtitlán, Mexico's ancient capital, to the conquistador Hernan Cortés. The delegation intends to land at Vigo, on Spain's northern coast, and then continue to Madrid, beginning a tour of some 20 European countries. (Photo: Pie Página)]]> Seven indigenous Maya members of Mexico’s Zapatista movement set sail May 3 from Isla Mujeres, off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, on a trans-Atlantic voyage meant to symbolically reverse the Spanish conquest of Mexico 500 years ago. Sailing in a 120-year-old fishing boat, La Montaña, the delegation hopes to reach Madrid by Aug. 13, anniversary of the 1521 fall of Tenochtitlán, Mexico’s ancient capital, to the conquistador Hernan Cortés. The delegation intends to land at Vigo, on Spain’s northern coast, and then continue to Madrid, beginning a tour of some 20 European countries.

Dubbed Squadron 421, the delegation consists of seven Zapatista adherents—four women, two men and one nonbinary person—and a crew of five international volunteers, from Germany and Colombia.

A press release signed by the Zapatistas’ Subcommander Galeano called the undertaking a “Journey for Life” that would fulfill a Mayan prophecy in which Ixchel, goddess of love and fertility, said: “From the east came death and slavery. Tomorrow, may life and freedom sail to the east in the word of my blood and bones, my children.” (Pie Página, Mexico, Al Día, Philadelphia, AP via Border Report)

Photo: Daliri Oropeza/Pie Página

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/zapatistas-launch-symbolic-invasion-of-spain/feed/ 0 Mexico: Zapatista community attacked in Chiapas https://countervortex.org/blog/mexico-zapatista-community-attacked-in-chiapas/ https://countervortex.org/blog/mexico-zapatista-community-attacked-in-chiapas/#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2020 05:03:37 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=19768 Julieta Venegas, issued a statement, protesting: "This new aggression is part of the intensification of the war of attrition in the state of Chiapas, characterized by an increase in violence by paramilitary groups and organized crime." (Photo via EspoirChiapas)]]> A communal coffee warehouse in one of the rebel Zapatista base communities in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas was burned down Aug. 22, in an attack by a rival campesino group that operates a paramilitary force in the area. The New Dawn of the Rainbow Commercial Center, maintained by small coffee cultivators loyal to the Zapatista rebel movement, was attacked by followers of the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO), according to a statement from the National Indigenous Congress (CNI). The warehouse was located at the community of Cuxuljá, part of the Zapatista autonomous municipality of Moisés Gandhi, which lies within the “official” municipality of Ocosingo.

In response to the attack, a group of prominent Mexican cultural and intellectual figures, including popular singer Julieta Venegas, issued a statement, protesting: “This new aggression is part of the intensification of the war of attrition in the state of Chiapas, characterized by an increase in violence by paramilitary groups and organized crime.” (Chiapas Support Committee, ContraLinea, Diario de Chiapas, Expreso Chiapas, La Jornada)

On June 14, following mediation by the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, three adherents of the  National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) were released after being held for several days in Ocosingo by the ORCAO-linked paramilitary group Los Petules. Local FNLS followers in turn handed over an ORCAO adherent who had been seized in retaliation. The exchange took place in the nearby city of San Cristobal, seat of the diocese. (SiPaz)

Chiapas has for years suffered ongoing low-level paramilitary violence. ORCAO has been repeatedly involved in violent land disputes with Zapatista base communities, some of which have turned deadly.

Photo via EspoirChiapas

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/mexico-zapatista-community-attacked-in-chiapas/feed/ 2 Fifth Estate Live with Bill Weinberg https://countervortex.org/blog/fifth-estate-live-with-bill-weinberg/ https://countervortex.org/blog/fifth-estate-live-with-bill-weinberg/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2020 01:34:32 +0000 https://countervortex.org/?post_type=blog&p=19650 David Rovics interviews CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg for Fifth Estate Live. The two discuss Weinberg's upcoming story for the anarchist journal Fifth Estate on the "two faces of fascism" the US confronts at this moment—a Trumpian dictatorship or a post-pandemic "new normality" of complete surveillance and social control. But the moment is also pregnant with possibility, witnessing the mainstreaming of anarchist ideas such as abolishing the police. Initiatives such as cannabis legalization as a first step toward this aim are gaining ground nationally. Looking back, they draw lessons for the current revolutionary moment from the Tompkins Square Park uprising on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1980s, and the rebellion of the Zapatistas in Mexico in the 1990s—who continue to hold liberated territory in the southern state of Chiapas even today. Watch the video archive on YouTube or listen to the audio version on SoundCloud.]]> Portland-based musician and vlogger David Rovics interviews CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg for Fifth Estate Live. The two discuss Weinberg’s upcoming story for the anarchist journal Fifth Estate on the “two faces of fascism” the US confronts at this moment—a Trumpian dictatorship or a post-pandemic “new normality” of complete surveillance and social control. But the moment is also pregnant with possibility, witnessing the mainstreaming of anarchist ideas such as abolishing the police. Initiatives such as cannabis legalization as a first step toward this aim are gaining ground nationally. Looking back, they draw lessons for the current revolutionary moment from the Tompkins Square Park uprising on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s, and the rebellion of the Zapatistas in Mexico in the 1990s—who continue to hold liberated territory in the southern state of Chiapas even today. Watch the video archive on YouTube or listen to the audio version on SoundCloud.

Erratum: The book Three Faces of Fascism is by Ernst Nolte (not “Eric”)

]]> https://countervortex.org/blog/fifth-estate-live-with-bill-weinberg/feed/ 1