It’s hard to believe that 15 years have passed since we first heard about the Zapatista movement in Mexico, with its charismatic leader Subcomandante Marcos getting most of the international spotlight. To mark the anniversary of the EZLN, top Zapatista leaders gathered together with supporters in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, to celebrate and to speak about the current state of Mexican society. Marcos had a lot to say, particularly with regard to the government’s war on drugs:

Marcos couldn’t avoid addressing drug violence in his discussion of violence against social movements. He says Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the corporate media “use and abuse the word ‘violence’” for their own means. “They say they condemn violence, but in reality they condemn action.” Marcos accuses Calderon of using the drug war to pacify discontent with his government. “Mr. Calderon decided that, instead of bread and circuses, he would give the people blood.”

Referencing the lack of confidence in Calderon’s government, which is ridden with corruption scandals and has failed to meet its own economic benchmarks, Marcos continued, “The professional politicians are the circus and bread is very expensive…. Perhaps…[Calderon's] goal is to distract people. The public is so busy with the drug war’s bloody failure, it could be that it doesn’t even notice Calderon’s failure in political economy.”

But it wasn’t just President Felipe Calderón that Marcos takes issue with. Leftist ex-presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador was also the target of some the Subcomandante’s vitriol:

“We are accused of being sectarian and intolerant, but the truth is that no movement in Mexico has exhibited such a degree of sectarianism, intolerance and hysteria as the one headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who threatens us with [the idea of] saving Mexico.”

Earlier this year it was speculated that the EZLN might be losing political ground in Chiapas, and Mexico’s Reforma newspaper reports that 34 of the 40 communities in which EZLN is present still show a marked lag in solving the social problems that the organization originally sought to combat. Whether that’s true or just government or media manipulation is unclear, but what is evident is that the EZLN no longer enjoys the national and international adulation it did back in 1994.