In Mexico on January 1,1994, Indians of Mayan origin staged an armed take-over of several Chiapas municipalities. But the Zapatista Army of National Liberation did not wish to sieze power; rather it demanded land, work, housing, education, healthcare, food, justice, independence, freedom and democracy. The Indian’s spokesman and head of military operations, Subcommander Marcos, is not an Indian. He has been able to rally public opinion on the Indian’s tragic living conditions. Now a war of words has replaced the armed struggle. The Zapatista movement’s cause echoes world-wide, but the lives of the Indians today in the mountains and the jungles of Chiapas are no less precarious than before. In this documentary it is the Indian men and women who speak. It re-situates their struggle in its human, cultural and historical context.