On the same day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army and people of Chiapas declared war on the Mexican government, saying that NAFTA meant death to indigenous peoples. They took over five major towns in Chiapas with fully armed women and men.

The Zapatistas control about a third of the territory of the state of Chiapas, which they organized into five autonomous regions. And each one of those regions has a capital, a capital town or seat of administrative government called a caracol, which means "snail" in Spanish.

The Zapatistas have collective and rotating self-government, with their own autonomous education system, autonomous healthcare system, production cooperatives and societies, the recovery of the local economy, their own system of administration of justice—in other words, their own legal system.