A collection of autonomous rural communities in the Chiapas state of southern Mexico controlled and governed by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), a guerrilla movement comprised largely of farmers that sought to revolt against the high-poverty and low-social service environment of the rural Mexcian south — facts of life that were presumed to worsen under the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement.