Para todos todo, para nosotros nada

"Everything for everyone, and nothing for ourselves."
-Zapatista slogan.

The group was founded on November 17, 1983 by non-indigenous members of the FLN guerrilla group from Mexico's urban north and by indigenous inhabitants of the remote Las Caadas/Selva Lacandona regions in eastern Chiapas. Over the years, the group slowly grew, building on social relations among the indigenous base and making use of an organizational infrastructure created by peasant organizations and the Catholic church. The Zapatistas appeared on the national and international scene on January 1, 1994, the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada became operational, as a way of stating the presence of indigenous peoples in a globalized world.

Indigenous fighters wearing the black ski masks (pasamontaas) or red bandanas (paliacates) that have since become the group's trademark, some of them armed only with fake wooden rifles, took hold of five municipalities in Chiapas. There was token resistance in four of those and hundreds of casualties in and around the city of Ocosingo. The Zapatistas officially declared war against the Mexican government, and announced their plans to march towards Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, either defeating the Mexican army or allowing it to surrender and imposing a war tax on the cities that they conquered in their way. After just a few days of localized fighting in the jungle, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, then in his last year in office, offered a cease-fire agreement and opened dialog with the rebels, whose official spokesperson was Subcomandante Marcos. After twelve days, the fighting stopped.

The dialogue between the Zapatistas and the government extended over a period of three years and ended with the San Andrs Accords, which entailed modifying the national constitution in order to grant special rights, including autonomy, to indigenous people.