Mexico: The Chiapas Uprising

On New Year’s Day 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army launched a series of coordinated attacks on government facilities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The insurgents, largely indigenous, invoked the name and spirit of the revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata and his slogan “Tierra y Libertad” (land and liberty). The uprising stunned the Clinton and Salinas Administrations, which during the NAFTA debate trumpeted Mexico as a model democracy.

Recorded at MIT.