The Mexican Revolution began in 1910, deposing the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Concentration of land ownership, feudal slavery and brutal repression of dissent combined to create a decade of civil war. Emiliano Zapata (from whom the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional take their name), an indigenous peasant from the state of Morelos, led the Revolutionary Armed forces of the South, and together with Pancho Villa they took the capital in 1917.

However, Zapata was duped and murdered by his supposed ally, Alvaro Obregon in 1920, who then became President, setting up the precursor to the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). The PRI ruled a perfect dictatorship for over 70 years, until July 2000, where they lost the national elections to the PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional), a conservative party representing big-business.

In Chiapas, dissatisfaction and revolutionary fervour has been growing for decades due to the extreme poverty faced by indigenous groups. Since the 1970s, guerrila groups have grown in the state, inspired by Cuban and other Central American revolutionaries. The most prominent of these was the Frente de Liberacion Nacional, forerunner of the EZLN. The EZLN itslef was established in the Chiapas Jungle in 1983, its leaders spending over 10 years working with indigenous groups to achieve the armed uprising in 1994....