Zapatistas Today: What Is the EZLN Doing Now? | SanCrisGo
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Zapatistas Today: What Is the EZLN Doing Now?
The EZLN remains active in 2026, but its autonomy structure changed after 2023. Current communications use GAL/CGAZ and evolving higher coordination bodies, while Moisés and Capitán Marcos remain public signatories.
Published
Yes — the EZLN is still active in 2026. It continues to publish communiqués, hold political and cultural gatherings and maintain Zapatista support-base communities in Chiapas. But the movement's institutions no longer look exactly like the system usually described in travel articles from the 2000s and 2010s.
The largest recent change began in 2023, when the EZLN announced the end of the old MAREZ (Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities) and Juntas de Buen Gobierno as governing structures and began reorganizing autonomy around much more local Gobiernos Autónomos Locales (GAL).
The clearest current point is that autonomy is now described from the community upward through GALs and coordination structures. Even that terminology is not fully fixed. In March 2026, an official EZLN text explicitly warned readers not to treat the names as definitive because the new system — referred to in recent communications as el Común — is still changing in form and name.
Current communications also continue to use the titles Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés and Capitán Insurgente Marcos.
Quick answer
The EZLN still exists and publishes public communications in 2026.
The old MAREZ/Juntas de Buen Gobierno model ended as that governing structure in 2023.
The new local building block is the Gobierno Autónomo Local (GAL).
Several GALs can coordinate through CGAZ; terminology for higher coordination levels has continued to evolve.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés remains a central public EZLN voice.
The figure once known as Subcomandante Marcos, then Subcomandante Galeano, is currently presented in official EZLN texts as Capitán Insurgente Marcos.
In 2026 the movement continues public political, cultural and educational activity, including events connected to CIDECI in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Zapatista autonomy is de facto community self-government inside Mexico, not a separate internationally recognized state.
The January 1994 uprising made the EZLN globally visible, but most of the movement's subsequent history has not been a continuation of twelve days of open warfare.
After the January ceasefire came negotiations, the 1996 San Andrés agreements, national political initiatives and the construction of autonomous institutions in Zapatista support-base communities.
From 2003, the best-known model was organized publicly around the Caracoles and Juntas de Buen Gobierno, alongside the autonomous municipalities known as MAREZ.
That is the model many older books and travel pages still describe in the present tense. It is no longer accurate to do so without explaining the 2023 reorganization.
What changed in 2023?
On November 5, 2023, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés announced the disappearance of the Municipios Autónomos Rebeldes Zapatistas (MAREZ) and the Juntas de Buen Gobierno (JBG) as those institutions. A week later, he published an explanation of a new autonomy structure.
The model announced then was organized roughly as:
Gobierno Autónomo Local (GAL) — local autonomous government in communities with Zapatista support bases, subject to the assembly of the people/community itself.
Colectivos de Gobiernos Autónomos Zapatistas (CGAZ) — coordination among several GALs when a problem or project extends beyond one locality.
A higher assembly of those collectives at zone level — called ACGAZ in the 2023 explanation.
The EZLN presented the change as an attempt to invert what Moisés called a “pyramid” in which too much information and decision-making had moved away from the base communities.
The short version is: more local authority, coordination upward when needed, and a structure that is still evolving.
The 2023 model described GAL → CGAZ → a higher zone-level assembly. But later communications show that labels have continued to change. Some official texts use ACGAZ, others ACEGAZ; a March 2026 explanatory note also mentions INTERZONA and a PERMANENTE assembly and then says directly that the structure is still changing “in form and name.”
So a 2026 Guide should not pretend there is one permanently fixed organizational chart.
What can be said safely is:
GAL remains the clearest local building block;
regional and zone-level coordination exists above individual GALs;
the movement itself describes the new model as under construction;
the old MAREZ and JBG labels should not be presented as the current governing structure.
Who speaks publicly for the movement today?
Two names are especially visible in current official communications.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
Official EZLN material continues to use this title. Moisés signed central documents explaining the 2023 autonomy reorganization and remains one of the movement's main public voices in 2025–2026.
Capitán Insurgente Marcos
Current 2026 material uses this title. This is the same public figure historically known as Subcomandante Marcos and later Subcomandante Galeano.
Calling either person simply “the president” or “the sole leader” would distort an organization that publicly presents collective command and community assemblies as important parts of its structure.
What happened to Subcomandante Marcos?
The public name and title changed several times:
In 1994, the public figure was known as Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
In 2006, during La Otra Campaña, he also used the public role/name Delegado Zero.
In May 2014, he announced that the name “Marcos” would cease to exist and subsequently used Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, honoring the murdered Zapatista teacher José Luis Solís López, known as Galeano.
In October 2023, an Enlace Zapatista text declared the end of the “SupGaleano” name and was signed Capitán Insurgente Marcos.
Official communications in August 2026 still use Capitán Insurgente Marcos.
The Mexican government stated in 1995 that Marcos was Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente. That remains a government identification claim and should be described as such rather than treated as a fact established by the EZLN itself.
What is the EZLN doing in 2025–2026?
The most reliable answer comes from dated primary material rather than a generic statement that the movement is “active.”
During 2025 and 2026, Enlace Zapatista published new communiqués, programs for political-cultural gatherings and material signed by current public figures of the movement.
In April 2026, a seminar at CIDECI in San Cristóbal de las Casas included sessions involving Capitán Insurgente Marcos and Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
In August 2026, Enlace Zapatista continued to publish seminars and arts programming connected with CIDECI in San Cristóbal.
On August 9, 2026, Moisés and Marcos published a joint communication stating that one purpose of their planned stay in Mexico City was to meet collectives of searchers and families of disappeared people. This is a concrete example of current political engagement beyond the movement's Chiapas base.
The movement continues to publish explanations and narratives about el Común and its autonomous organization. The March 2026 clarification about GAL, CGAZ and higher assemblies is especially important because it shows that the post-2023 system is still being worked out rather than simply completed once and for all.
Is the EZLN still armed?
The most careful answer is that the EZLN continues to describe itself with a military organizational component and current public titles remain military titles, while its public activity is not equivalent to a return to the open offensive warfare of January 1994.
In the November 2023 autonomy announcement, Moisés stated that the EZLN's structure and deployment had also been reorganized to strengthen defense and security of communities in case of aggression, attacks, disasters and other threats.
That supports saying the armed organization has not simply dissolved. It does not support inventing a current troop count, weapons inventory or claiming an ongoing offensive campaign.
Does the EZLN “control territory”?
This requires careful wording.
Academic research commonly describes Zapatista autonomy as de facto rather than de jure: support-base communities exercise their own forms of local organization and have built autonomous institutions, but they are located within the internationally recognized territory of Mexico and do not form a separate recognized sovereign state.
So it is more precise to say that Zapatista support-base communities practice de facto autonomy in parts of Chiapas than to say that the EZLN simply “owns” or “governs” a separate territory.
The geographic situation is also not a clean political map. Zapatista and non-Zapatista populations can exist in the same broader municipalities or regions.
Zapatistas and San Cristóbal today
San Cristóbal itself is not governed by the EZLN.
Its importance today is different from the January 1994 occupation. The city is a regional center where Zapatista history remains highly visible and where current political-cultural activity connected with the movement can still take place.
The clearest verified 2026 example is CIDECI - Unitierra. Official EZLN programming listed the CIDECI campus in San Cristóbal as the venue for seminars involving Moisés and Marcos in April 2026 and additional arts-related programming in August.
That does not make every CIDECI activity an EZLN event, nor does it mean CIDECI is simply an “EZLN headquarters.” It means there is a documented current relationship around specific public programs.
What about Oventik and other autonomous communities?
Access is volatile. In November 2023, an EZLN communication said the Caracoles would remain closed to outsiders until further notice. Later Zapatista communications documented specific events at Oventik and other autonomous spaces. That sequence itself proves why a permanent tourism instruction copied from a 2010s article would be unreliable.
This Guide therefore does not tell visitors to arrive with a passport, register at a gate, ask for a tour, take a particular colectivo or assume photography rules. For the current access evidence and event-specific exceptions, see Can You Visit Oventik?.