San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. The main victim of the current stage of capitalism is the nation-state, which now has no decision-making capacity, Captain Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) stated.
He added that “in our opinion, and we may be wrong, the reconstruction of the nation-state is not possible because it no longer has fundamental bases.”
Marcos expressed this during the second day of activities of the April 2026 Seedbed: The Storm Inside and Outside, according to the Zapatista communities and peoples, which is being held in San Cristóbal with the participation of 418 people from some thirty countries, including Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the United States, France, England, Iran, and Italy, in addition to members of the EZLN.
Speaking this Friday on “A Peep into the Storm in the World: Nation-States Under Attack,” he said that “the nation-state is born for capitalism; that is, the bourgeoisie needs a state, a territory, a currency, laws, a geographical boundary, a coat of arms, a flag. And so, nation-states are born.”
In fact, he added, “in Europe, where feudalism was displaced and revolutions began to form the nation-state, that is where capitalism found fertile ground and began to develop. It developed to such an extent that the nation-state becomes an obstacle, and capitalism, the system, requires that goods circulate, are sold quickly, and generate the greatest profit as quickly as possible.”
He pointed out that “national currencies, the national legal structure, the governance they call it—that is, the form of government and the entire legal system—are obstacles to them. Then, free trade agreements come along, and borders open up for investments and goods but close down for human beings.”
The captain reiterated that “the nation-state has no decision-making capacity. Sovereignty is a bad joke. They can’t say that Mexico is sovereign, even if they say so at the morning press conference, if it can’t even decide whether to send oil to Cuba. It is not possible. In a developed nation-state, that decision rests with the government, to say who to give or sell to, or who not to. That is no longer possible.”
He stated that “the entire offensive under the names of (Donald) Trump and (Benjamin) Netanyahu is related to this. Israel thinks it is defending the nation-state, and that’s not true. As long as the people of Israel don’t understand that Palestine is the home of the Palestinians, that they will always want to return, and that they carry the key to their land wherever they go, until they die, are killed, or disappear, this will not stop.” In reality, he elaborated, “Netanyahu isn’t defending the State of Israel, that’s a lie. He’s conquering territory, but the Palestinians aren’t going to surrender. I don’t know how many years it will take; they’re not going to surrender. There’s something deep within them that I can’t explain, I don’t know if anyone can: Why, with everything against them, do the Palestinian people continue to resist? Why are the Cuban people preparing for an invasion? If they’re supposedly under a dictatorship, why don’t they take to the streets and say: Yes, invade us and liberate us?”
He added: “Why did the U.S. military enter Venezuela to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and Cilia—it was funny how the media didn’t want to say ‘to kidnap’ and intstead said they went ‘to detain’ them—and if they won the elections, why didn’t anyone take to the streets to welcome them? They had to make a one-way trip. It’s not that they had almost no casualties; they didn’t have any because the U.S. military uses mercenaries for that. These people don’t exist; they’re paid, and if they’re killed, they just die, they have no names’. So, the U.S. military casualties during the kidnapping in Venezuela don’t appear on the lists, and the major left-wing analysts, including those from Cuba, take it for granted that what Trump says about them having no casualties is true. They did have casualties. The thing is, they used mercenaries. Just as Putin had to use them in Ukraine. Not even a country’s national army can sustain a war on its own anymore. They have to rely on other means.”
Marcos asserted that in the US and Israel’s war against Iran, the big oil companies are the ones who win because the price of oil has risen. “That’s what needs to be discussed: who is winning with these wars?”
He said that “we should also delve deeper and specify who wins with Netanyahu’s war against Palestine. Who won with the US attack on Venezuela, and who will win if they attempt to invade Cuba, which won’t be the same, you know? The Cuban people were born in resistance. They’ve been resisting for over 60 years. It won’t be as easy as they think.”
Sub-commander Moisés, who spoke at “A Window into Zapatismo: A Window into Government Counterinsurgency Programs in the Territories of Zapatista Indigenous Peoples I,” stated that the migration of Indigenous people and farmers to the United States has resulted in lenders seizing their lands because they are unable to repay the loans they took out to emigrate.
“Because of poverty and migration, some people mortgaged their land in exchange for loans. They left, some died, others returned, but they have no way to pay, and the lender keeps the land,” he said.
He added that the fact that “the five, ten, or twenty people who mortgaged or sold their two and a half hectares has led to the emergence of small landowners. Within the ejido, a small or medium-sized landowner has emerged who owns 100, 200, or 300 hectares. Before, it was communal land, plots of 20 hectares, and now two, three, or four people own 300 or 400 hectares. What was once a community has been erased. Now it’s just an empty shell.”
Original article by Elio Henríquez, La Jornada, April 3rd, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.