ABSTRACT
Guatemala's long history of political violence, military repression, and human rights abuses was underscored in the 1970s and early 1980s with the massacres of thousands of peasant farmers living in the Guatemalan highlands and in the lowland rain forests of the north. Following these massacres and the militarization of the countryside, an estimated two hundred thousand refugees fled to Mexico and the United States. Many of the refugees escaped across the border into the Selva Lacandona, which is an extension of the lowland rain forest of Guatemala. Ostensibly, the Zapatista Rebellion has been considered an indigenous-based uprising caused by extreme poverty and marginalization. Although many people frame it as an exclusively Indian rebellion, others feel that it is more accurately described as a peasant rebellion. Despite the remote location of the Selva Lacandona, most settlers are indeed dependent to some extent on the market for their subsistence.
