As country marks centennial of Zapata’s death, government’s agenda makes ‘mockery’ of insurgent’s ideals, grandson says

Sitting back in the shade of a sapodilla tree, Jorge Zapata González takes a slow drag on his cigarette and tells a cautionary tale of revolution and betrayal.

His grandfather, the Mexican insurgent Emiliano Zapata, rallied poor campesinos under the battle cry “land and liberty” a century ago – only to be double-crossed by a former ally and murdered.

As the centennial of Zapata’s 10 April 1919 assassination approaches, his grandson senses a fresh whiff of treachery. “After a hundred years, the government is betraying Zapata’s ideals again,” he said.

Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has expressed admiration for Zapata, pledged to revive Mexico’s rural economy, and declared 2019 the year of Emiliano Zapata.

But in the revolutionary leader’s home region of Morelos, a battle has broken out over his legacy, as López Obrador pushes for the completion of a power plant and pipeline that have faced strong opposition from the local community.

“It’s a mockery – declaring 2019 the year of Gen Emiliano Zapata and then commemorating it by handing over the water from farmers in his birthplace to multinationals,” Zapata González said.

Zapata’s revolutionary call for “reform, freedom, justice and law” still resonates in a country where all four ideals have often been in short supply, and the Caudillo del Sur (Strongman of the South) has long been claimed as an inspiration by Latin American radicals – mostly notably the Zapatista rebels who took up arms against the Mexican government in 1994.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emiliano Zapata. Photograph: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

Images of Zapata with a broad sombrero, thick mustache and bandoleer rival Che Guevara as icons of both romantic rebellion and capitalist entrepreneurialism. Zapata’s descendants recently applied to trademark his name and envisage earning royalties on merchandise ranging from T-shirts to tequila.

“There’s always been a dispute over the legacy of Zapata. It was already at play shortly after his death,” says Emilio Kourí, a historian at the University of Chicago, who attributes Zapata’s enduring appeal to his being “a malleable figure … who is for everyone”.

As a key figure in the country’s revolutionary pantheon, Zapata is routinely invoked by politicians of all stripes.

The former president Carlos Salinas – the driving force behind a string privatisations and free trade deals that ended up forcing many campesinos from their land – named a son Carlos Emiliano. He said that his land reforms – which enabled the sale of commonly held land – would have been what Zapata wanted.

López Obrador, commonly called Amlo, last year brought Mexico’s left to power for the first time since the establishment of democracy in 2000. He has campaigned tirelessly against the structural reforms of the past 25 years and recently declared the death of Mexico’s “neoliberal period”.

Observers say Zapata’s legacy holds a special importance for the president, who has promoted his administration as “the Fourth Transformation” in Mexico’s history – putting it on the same level of importance as independence from Spain, the revolution, and 19th century legal and anti-clerical reforms.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest López Obrador brought the left to power but has followed a conservative path in office. Photograph: Carlos Tischler/REX/Shutterstock

But since taking office, Amlo has struck a decidedly conservative path, especially on social policy, and Mexico’s indigenous communities have expressed concern over the president’s enthusiasm for megaprojects on their lands.

“López Obrador wants to construct a new official history and seize the legacy of Zapata as a symbol that he also is concerned for campesinos,” said Harim Gutiérrez, history professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

Mexico’s Zapatista rebels, 24 years on and defiant in mountain strongholds Read more

Zapata González is scornful of the politicians who claim common cause with his grandfather and fiercely protective of the family surname.

He still lives in Zapata’s birthplace, the town of Anencuilco, where a museum has been built around the revolutionary’s childhood home. Like many of Zapata’s male heirs, he sports a thick dropping moustache.

“My dignity as a man and my last name don’t have a price,” he said.

Recently, he has thrown his support behind a campaign against the construction of a power plant, gas pipeline and aqueduct in the town of Huexca – which the president has backed.

Amlo took office in December 2018, channeling anger over corruption into a landslide victory. He swept Morelos, where violence was rife and narcos acted with impunity.

The president initially opposed the Huexca plant but changed his mind after coming into office, saying the electricity was needed and billions had already been spent.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jorge Zapata González says Amlo has ‘done the opposite of what he promised’. Photograph: David Agren

“He’s done the opposite of what he promised,” Zapata González said of the president.

Locals complain that when the plant opened for testing the noise was unbearable. And Zapata said effluent from that time contaminated the nearby Cuautla River.

López Obrador tried to assuage local worries by putting the project to a hastily called plebiscite, but tensions in the region were exacerbated when a local indigenous activist who opposed the project was shot dead days before the vote.

Amlo denounced the 20 February murder of Samir Flores Soberanes as “vile and cowardly” – but he then offended local residents by saying the killing was intended to sabotage the plebiscite. The vote eventually went in the president’s favour.

“López Obrador is not welcome in the state of Morelos,” said Teresa Castellanos, an opponent of the power plant in Huexca. “He betrayed the people.”

State prosecutors say they are still investigating leads which point to the involvement of organised crime – a common refrain in Mexico, where the murders of environmental activists, human rights defenders and journalists often go unsolved.

“All of us here feel threatened,” said Yasmin Ríos, a former local official who opposed the project.

“What our president is doing,” she added, “is stepping all over us, just like every other president.”