The **Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities** or **Municipios
Autónomos Rebel des Zapatistas** (**MAREZ**) are an autonomous society
within the Mexican state that emerged as a result of the [Zapatista
Revolution](Zapatista_Revolution "wikilink") inspired by the
[indigenist](Indigenism "wikilink") ideology of
[Neo-Zapatismo](Neo-Zapatismo "wikilink"). They control roughly a third
of the [Mexican](Mexico "wikilink") state of Chiapas with a population
of around 360,000 people.\[1\]

## Decision-Making

At a local level, people attend a [popular
assembly](Democratic_Assembly "wikilink") of around 300 families where
anyone over the age of 12 can participate in decision-making, these
assemblies strive to reach a [consensus](consensus "wikilink") but are
willing to fall back to a majority vote.

Each community has 3 main administrative structures: (1) the
*commissariat*, in charge of day-to day administration; (2) the *council
for land control*, which deals with forestry and disputes with
neighboring communities; and (3) the *agencia*, a community police
agency.

The communities form a [confederation](confederation "wikilink") with
other communities to create an autonomous municipalities, which form
further confederations with other municipalities to create a region. The
Zapatistas are composed of five regions, who in turn form the whole of
MAREZ.<ref>Niels Barmeyer (2009) Developing Zapatista Autonomy: Conflict
and NGO involvement in Rebel Chiapas - Chapter Three:

`Who is Running the Show? The Workings of Zapatista Government.`</ref>

## Crime

Each community has an autonomous police agency (agencia), more akin to a
[neighborhood watch](Neighborhood_Watch "wikilink"), and a judicial
council. There is almost no [crime](crime "wikilink") and
[prison](prison "wikilink") population, due to an emphasis on
[restorative](Restorative_Justice "wikilink") and [transformative
justice](Transformative_Justice "wikilink") over [punitive
justice](Punitive_Justice "wikilink") and due to [common
ownership](Commons "wikilink") of land preventing
[hunger](hunger "wikilink"), the [control of
work](Workers'_Self-Management "wikilink") and
[education](Democratic_Education "wikilink").

The only two people in jail (in a society of 360,000, which means they
have the lowest prisoner population per capita in the world) are in jail
for being admitted foreign agents planting marijuana crops to justify
military incursions into their communities using the [war on
drugs](War_on_Drugs "wikilink") as a pretext.

## See Also

  - [Zapatista Army of National
    Liberation](Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation "wikilink")
  - [Zapatista Revolution](Zapatista_Revolution "wikilink")
  - [Neo-Zapatismo](Neo-Zapatismo "wikilink")
  - [Zapatismo](Zapatismo "wikilink")
  - [Chiapas Conflict](Chiapas_Conflict "wikilink")
  - [Mexican Revolution](Mexican_Revolution "wikilink")
  - [Mexico](Mexico "wikilink")

## References

<references />

1.  [Wikipedia](Wikipedia "wikilink") -
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Municipalities>