ABSTRACT
On January 1, 1994, armed peasants occupied several towns and small cities in Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico. The activity occurred on the very day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which the Mexican government hoped would help modernize the national economy, took effect. The guerrillas called themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, after Emiliano Zapata, the legendary commander of an army of peasant Indians during the Mexican Revolution about 80 years earlier. Within days, government military forces regained control of the towns, following fighting that cost more than 100 people their lives.
