Attacks against Zapatismo serve to advance megaprojects and territorial control, according to this Mexican anthropologist and communicator with extensive experience as a researcher in various Mexican territories.
Francisco De Parres Gómez is a Mexican anthropologist, communications specialist, and photographer who works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Veracruz, where he has spent years studying the relationship between art, politics, and indigenous movements such as the Zapatistas. He has published two books on these topics: Poetics of Resistance: Zapatista Art, Aesthetics, and Decoloniality (CIESAS-UDG, 2022) and Art and Politics in Contemporary Zapatismo: An Indissoluble Relationship (CLACSO, 2022).
He also coordinated Critical Internationalism and Struggles for Life: Towards the Construction of Future Horizons from Resistance and Autonomy. In his current research, De Parres analyzes the contrast between aesthetic-political practices aimed at defending life and territory, and the aesthetic and cultural expressions of the necropolitics of neo-fascist figures such as Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, and Jair Bolsonaro.
What is the legacy of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in relation to Zapatismo and social movements?
As Raúl Zibechi has observed in similar cases, AMLO’s six-year term showed that so-called progressive governments tend to hit movements hardest. MORENA did not open up a broad space for difference, but rather an uncritical multiculturalism that served the system, centered on the category of “citizenship.” Although Mexico recognizes 68 indigenous peoples, no differentiated policies were implemented for indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples according to their territories. Furthermore, the spectacularization, racism, and exoticization of politics towards the peoples was imposed: a symbolic appropriation of Zapatista demands and a return to state indigenism. Despite the discourse of being a triumph “from below,” Zapatismo, the feminist movement, searching mothers and fathers, critical journalists, and migrants were disdained.
Structurally, neoliberalism deepened: corporatization of movements, breakdown of community fabric, and clientelistic atomization of resources. The “Sembrando Vida” (Sowing Life) projects, which were renamed in communities as “sowing envy/complaints” due to their divisive and environmental effects, and the “Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro” (Youth Building the Future) project, did not resolve the root causes of precariousness. Although he promised to return the army to its barracks, the institution that received the most funding was the military, and the armed presence became normalized. Governance was based on asymmetrical “roundtables,” co-optation, and welfare: the “fourth transformation” did not dismantle the structures of neoliberalism, but reinforced them under the guise of progressive discourse. Zapatismo, with its insistence on autonomy and outright criticism of the state, remains the most uncomfortable voice. The result is not a rupture but confirmation that the state, even in its progressive version, remains colonial and suffocates movements that exceed its margins of control; lasting change comes from the people.
And what about the new president, Claudia Sheinbaum? At the end of last year, she declared that she respects the Zapatistas, but that she will defend MORENA’s project.
The system shows the face of a female scientist without altering the logic of power. Sheinbaum presents herself as progressive, but she maintains a militaristic and neoliberal outlook: she does not plan to dismantle capitalist accumulation or “progress.” She maintains the narrative of inclusion while deepening militarization and state-crime collusion. She resorts to Zapatista phrases and it may seem that the movements have reached the government, but what is advancing is extractivism, population control, and community subordination. Instead of prioritizing health and education, control mechanisms such as the CURP (national identification code for citizens and residents) are being strengthened.
As with AMLO, it must be placed in the context of global reconfiguration: multiple crises (climate, economy, war) to which the empire responds by spreading death to sustain accumulation. Subcomandante Galeano warned that the missiles falling on Gaza today could fall on our cities tomorrow if we do not change course. Zapatismo proposes another horizon: an internationalism of peoples and differences. In 2021, the “Journey for Life” traveled through 19 European countries and linked the struggles of the Sami people, squatters, anarchists, unions, sex workers, and migrants. The current trap is to believe that transformation will come from above: megaprojects, ecological debt, and militarization continue with rhetoric about rights; but real alternatives are born from below. While the state militarizes and surveils, the peoples continue to build paths of autonomy and life.
Can we focus on security in Chiapas? Were there direct attacks by the state on Zapatista territory under Obrador or Sheinbaum?
In recent months, the autonomous Zapatista town of Belén, in Caracol 8 “La Luz que Resplandece al Mundo” (Dolores Hidalgo, Ocosingo), suffered a violent dispossession. The Assembly of Zapatista Autonomous Government Collectives denounced incursions since April 2025 involving civilian groups accompanied by the Army, National Guard, Ocosingo Municipal Police, and State Attorney General’s Office, presented as an “agrarian conflict.” There were burnings of houses, robberies, and dispossession, even documented by official channels. It is key to note that the lands had been compensated by the state after 1994 and are now worked jointly by Zapatista and non-Zapatista communities; an autonomous community-access operating room is being built nearby. This is another incursion with military presence under Claudia Sheinbaum’s government. The first, in April 2025, ended with the release of two support bases due to social pressure. Everything confirms a de facto state siege on the territory.
The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, known as ‘Frayba’, reported at least 13 displaced support bases and damage to non-Zapatista farmers’ communal cornfields; the aim is to convert recovered territory into “private land,” in the context of militarization involving elite forces such as the FRIP or “pakales.” In addition to overlapping forms of violence (clashes, trafficking, displacement, disappearances), there are also practices of control: aerial photogrammetry over autonomous communities; links between police training groups and the Mossad revealed by Guacamaya Leaks; and, during the Rebel y Revel (Art) festival, National Guard patrols in front of thousands of people.
The war also operates with ideological bullets: campaigns that spread absurdities such as the presence of “uranium” in Zapatista territory in order to stigmatize and isolate them. The Zapatistas themselves have described Chiapas as being “on the brink of civil war”; Frayba has repeatedly documented this. The state may deny a war against the EZLN, but the siege is permanent, demonstrating that counterinsurgency is part of a transnational machine. In the midst of this chessboard, Zapatista communities are exposed to multiple fires: criminal violence, state militarization, and the community breakdown caused by these dynamics.
Jalisco now controls the border, and the dispute with Sinaloa is intensifying. How does this affect Chiapas and its communities?
The siege of organized crime—already pointed out by Subcomandante Moisés—is now intertwined with state operations and “legal” dispossession. The CJNG-Sinaloa conflict turns the southern border into a logistics corridor for drugs, weapons, trafficking, and extortion, while the state monitors, patrols, or raids autonomous zones under the pretext of agrarian issues. The result is a multi-fold siege: criminal violence, official militarization, and destruction of the community fabric. The narco aesthetic (corridos, ostentatious luxury, hypersexualization) symbolically penetrates everyday life, attempting to replace the logic of the common good with that of fear and consumption. The Belén case exemplifies how this criminal-state chessboard pressures to privatize collectively recovered and worked lands.
The situation is exacerbated by phenomena such as the first indigenous cartel, the Chamula Cartel, made up of Tzotzil residents and notorious for “ethnopornography” in which indigenous women are abused and videotaped, an extreme form of colonial and patriarchal violence against indigenous and female bodies, now capitalized on by criminals. Organized crime functions as a corporation of capitalism: it is not a deviation from the order, it is part of accumulation through militarized and criminal dispossession (as Gilberto López y Rivas argues), inserted into global money laundering chains. The southern border operates as a migration corridor, drug route, trafficking enclave, and laboratory for social discipline. Organized crime must be understood as one of the most effective corporations of capitalism. In this landscape, Zapatista autonomy is a radical act of defense of life.
On the “civil war” and armed groups: are there direct confrontations between the Zapatistas and these groups?
There are no reports of open clashes between the EZLN and other actors, but there are systematic attacks and dispossession operations that erode the material basis of autonomy (burning of houses, theft of crops, destruction of collective projects), now with the participation of state and paramilitary forces. Historically, Máscara Roja, Los Chinchulines, and “Paz y Justicia” operated in the area; in recent times, the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (Histórica) has intensified its attacks. There have been documented cases of poisoning of community ponds, death of livestock, and destruction of crops. This is not “spontaneous” violence: it is a strategy of attrition to force dependence on the state or submission to local powers.
Are paramilitaries linked to the state?
Yes, structurally. Since the 1990s, counterinsurgency has promoted or tolerated “civilian” groups and carried out dispossessions with military, police, and ministerial cover. Belén illustrates this: raids involving the Army, National Guard, Ocosingo Municipal Police, and the Attorney General’s Office; express resolutions; dispossessions disseminated even through official channels. This is how violence is externalized and impunity is shielded, instilling the idea that autonomy is “illegal” and that the commons can be privatized. It is contemporary necropolitics: deciding who lives and who is expelled.
The empire of death aspires to be total, but the Zapatista lesson—for cities and peripheries, for the West and the global South—is clear: even in war, other worlds are being built. In Chiapas, it is not only the fate of a people that is being contested, but also the possibility of collectively imagining a life beyond capital.
Attacks against Zapatismo serve to advance megaprojects and territorial control. By weakening autonomy, the way is cleared for militarization, predatory tourism, and large corporations. What is presented as a local conflict is in fact a key piece of capitalist necropolitics that seeks to eradicate any alternative that places life and autonomy above profit.
Jérôme Baschet, in his book La Experiencia Zapatista (The Zapatista Experience), describes how the recent transformation of autonomous institutions inverted the pyramid and gave greater power to local communities. How do you assess these changes?
These changes were announced in the context of the 30th anniversary of the uprising in 2024 and represent an extremely interesting exercise in the construction of the autonomous Zapatista society. Among the most significant transformations was the disappearance of the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipalities (MAREZ). Previously, several villages formed a community, several communities formed an Autonomous Municipality, and several municipalities formed a Caracol. However, after years of practice, the communities themselves recognized that this structure did not always guarantee the principle of “Leading by Obeying.” There were failures and, on occasions, a concentration of power in the Good Government Councils. That is why they decided to decentralize, return decision-making to the grassroots, and strengthen the community level. Thus, the Local Autonomous Governments (GAL) were born, where decisions are made more directly and closer to the needs of the territory.
I interpret this transformation as a radical deepening of autonomy. Zapatista territory was never homogeneous or compact: there are entirely Zapatista villages, and others where only one family maintains its allegiance to the EZLN. The GALs allow for a response to this diversity, adapting decisions to each context. Self-determination continues to be framed by Zapatista principles, but the particularities now depend on each collective subject. This allows autonomy to be lived in a more flexible way and embodied in the daily reality of each community, without depending on a centralized structure that can become rigid.
Coordination will no longer be in the hands of the 12 Good Government Councils, but will be carried out through collectives linked to the GALs. This does not mean a dissolution of autonomy, but rather a redistribution and expansion of its scope. In this sense, the reorganization can also be seen as a strategy for territorial defense, economic diversification, and strengthening the commons. The land can be cultivated by any person or community as long as they are not linked to organized crime or paramilitary groups. Thus, the structure not only opens up, but also extends the community logic of resistance to other peoples, even if they do not recognize themselves as Zapatistas.
I believe that the GAL embodies openness; it is not about building walls of belonging, but rather weaving networks of care and resistance that protect the territory from multiple threats. After three decades of walking the path of autonomy, the EZLN has shown that it is not afraid to transform its own structures, to recognize mistakes, and to reinvent itself. That capacity for self-criticism is, in itself, a revolutionary gesture. While states reproduce colonial hierarchies and cling to rigid forms of power, the Zapatista peoples experiment, correct, and experiment again.
Original interview and text by Jan Blažek published in El Salto on November 8th, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.