By Gloria Muñoz Ramírez

“The EZLN has plenty of ideas about what an organized and free people looks like. The problem is that there isn’t a government that obeys you, but rather a bossy government that ignores you, that doesn’t respect you, that thinks Indigenous peoples don’t know how to think, that wants to treat us like bare-foot Indians. But history has already given them back and shown them that we do know how to think and that we know how to organize ourselves. Injustice and poverty make you think, they generate ideas, they make you think about what to do, even if the government doesn’t listen to you,” said Major Moisés, in a 2003 interview with this journalist.

More than 20 years later, the now Subcomandante Moisés, the highest-ranking military commander within the Zapatista structure, continues to explain, alongside the Captain, the horizon of their struggle. Many theories have been put forward about the more than 30-year public history of the predominantly Mayan army that challenged the powers that be in January 1994. But nothing can be understood without the daily practice of their struggle. Autonomy, or however each person defines it, is a difficult internal construction and often invisible to the outside.

During the recent Rebel and Reveal Art Encounter, convened by the EZLN in rebel territory and at the CIDECI (Center for Research, Development and Comprehensive Training — Centro de Investigación, Desarrollo y Capacitación Integral) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, among many other performances, the play “Nature Reveals and Rebels,” was featured. In this performance, very young Zapatista men and women, disguised as pumas, bees, roosters, trees, peacocks, butterflies, fish, penguins, snails, tigers, pumas, lions, macaws, bears, zebras, turtles, and other natural beings, staged the defense of Mother Earth.

In approximately one hour, in addition to the message about non-property and the Common to face each anti-capitalist challenge, the internal organization of hundreds of communities was deployed to make the play happen. The actors are surely from different communities. How were they chosen? How did they get to the rehearsals? What difficulties did they face? What happened in the communities during the rehearsals? Who created the costumes? How many hands made them? What if there was no money? How long did they rehearse their lines? Did they laugh a lot? Paulo Freire would surely have jumped for joy. Autonomous organization in its splendor to raise awareness both internally and externally.

“It’s a work of young Zapatistas, which they invented because they said, ‘No one listens to us, and maybe this way they’ll listen to us, understand what we want, the future we want for ourselves, our children, and those who follow,” explained Subcomandante Moisés at the start of the enormous wildlife-parade that occupied the Caracol Jacinto Canek esplanade.

The same work was carried out at the CIDECI center in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where the Zapatistas denounced the presence of the National Guard and the Pakal Rapid Response Forces (FRIP, Fuerzas de Reacción Inmediata Pakal) in the vicinity of the second meeting venue on April 19, 2025.

The justice that comes from below.

A few days later, following artistic demonstrations by Zapatista communities and other regions around the world, an arbitrary incursion by members of various police forces and the National Guard took place in a community with Zapatista support bases.

The events, reported by the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), are as follows: “On April 24, 2025, around 3:30 p.m., in the community of San Pedro Cotzilnam, official municipality of Aldama, Chiapas, Vicente Guerrero Autonomous Region, in a strong joint operation with around 39 vehicles from the National Guard, Mexican Army, Pakal Rapid Response Forces, the Ministerial Intelligence Investigation Agency, the State Preventive Police, the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection of the Federal Government, accompanied by two vehicles with armed civilians, carried out searches without judicial warrants in the homes of Zapatista support base families. They violently broke into the houses, detaining the Tsotsil compañeros José Baldemar Sántiz Sántiz, 45 years old, and Andrés Manuel Sántiz Gómez, 21 years old, and then the convoy continued towards the municipality of San Andrés Larráinzar.”

After 55 hours of being reported missing, Frayba documented that the two Zapatistas were brought before the Control Court and Trial Tribunal of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, accused of aggravated kidnapping. The arrests were carried out without judicial authorization and, according to Frayba, they received cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. State forces also raided homes, stole belongings, and sowed panic.

And this is where the Zapatista autonomous justice system comes in, and the fateful story takes another turn. While countless national and international pronouncements were made demanding the release of the two detainees, the autonomous authorities carried out their own investigation. This was, once again, a demonstration of their daily work, sometimes visible, as on this occasion, but mostly unannounced. Once again, it was Subcomandante Moisés who explained what had happened, but not before clarifying that in Zapatista zones “attacking the life, liberty, and property of others is prohibited… And in the case of murder, kidnapping, assault, rape, forgery and robbery, these are serious offenses. In addition, there are offenses against drug trafficking, its production, and consumption. Also, drunkenness and other offenses are determined to be common offenses.”

The Zapatista investigators confirmed that their two companions were innocent, but since there had indeed been a kidnapped person, they delved into the matter until they found two perpetrators. After their confessions, they were detained by the autonomous authorities, respecting their human rights, and later handed over to Frayba. But not before determining where the body had been buried, since they had not only kidnapped a man, but also murdered him.

“The government at all three levels knew all of this, but did nothing. Instead of immediately releasing our innocent compañeros, they dragged their feet and proposed an exchange of prisoners. This way, they could bribe the media and sell them the story that it was all the work of state and federal justice. And they could also keep what they stole from the poor indigenous people who suffered their attack,” Moisés said in a statement.

In the early hours of May 2, the confessed murderers were handed over to Frayba, and the human rights center channeled them to official authorities. That same day, with no choice, they released Baldemar and Andrés. Frayba and the mobilization, of course, did their part.

The outcome not only highlighted the prevailing lack of justice, but, above all, the ethical, courageous, and forceful exercise of a movement that remains a global benchmark.

The question of what the Zapatistas are doing could be answered by what happened in the last 15 days, between April 13 and May 2, 2025.

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Rebel art & the justice that comes from below by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez was published in the original Spanish by Ojarasca, a supplement of La Jornada, available here.