Zapatista Billboard At The Entrance To The Mayan Tonina Ruins, Chiapas, Mexico Stock Image

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN, often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a left-wing revolutionary political and militant group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Since 1994 the group has been in a declared war against the Mexican state, and against military, paramilitary and corporate incursions into Chiapas. This war has been primarily defensive. In recent years, the EZLN has focused on a strategy of civil resistance. The Zapatistas` main body is made up of mostly rural indigenous people, but it includes some supporters in urban areas and internationally. The group takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, the agrarian reformer and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and sees itself as his ideological heir.