Mexico’s Zapatista rebel movement says it is dissolving its ‘autonomous municipalities’

By ÉDGAR H. CLEMENTE
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Zapatista rebel movement in southern Mexico says it is dissolving the “autonomous municipalities” it declared in the years following the group’s 1994 armed uprising. The Zapatistas led a brief rebellion to demand greater Indigenous rights. Since then, they have remained in their “autonomous” townships in the southern state of Chiapas, refusing government aid programs. In a statement issued Monday, the group cited waves of gang violence that have hit the area of Chiapas that borders Guatemala, but did not say whether that was a reason for dissolving the townships. The area held by the Zapatistas includes zones near the border.