Mexico
1994 · Five photographs from Chiapas — four in the town's open-air market and one on the road, with armed men.
At New Year 1994, as correspondent for SKAI, the then newly founded television station, Argyris Dinopoulos went to Mexico, to the south-eastern province of Chiapas, and covered the uprising of the indigenous farmers, the "Zapatistas", against the government of Mexico over the signing of the NAFTA agreement, by which they were losing rights to the land they farmed.
The farmers in revolt were asking for land, work, food, health, education, independence and justice for the indigenous populations.
The revolt lasted two weeks and ended in a ceasefire, with the central government of Mexico granting the farmers in revolt a form of community self-administration.
This included substantial rights over the land they farmed, while it raised the questions of the indigenous populations to a global level.
And this because there was extensive press coverage of the "Chiapas uprising" and of their leader, Comandante Marcos, by the international media.
5 photographs · Click a photograph to enlarge.
