Zapatista National Liberation Army

Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), guerrilla group in Mexico, founded in the late 20th century and named for the early 20th-century peasant revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. On Jan. 1, 1994, the Zapatistas staged a rebellion from their base in Chiapas, the southernmost Mexican state, to protest economic policies that they believed would negatively affect Mexico’s indigenous population. The insurgency later developed into a forceful political movement that advocated for Mexico’s disenfranchised Indians. The early history of...