Nuevo Jerusalen, Chiapas
A hundred farmers wielding machetes seized a Mexican ranch owned by an American couple, and vowed this week to keep it. “We’re here to stay,” the invaders, supporters of the leftist Zapatista rebels, shouted to journalists who hiked to the ranch. Ellen Jones and her husband, Glen Wersch, fled last month after Zapatistas cut off the road leading to their property, Rancho Esmeralda, in the southern state of Chiapas. The Zapatistas have denounced foreign investment in Chiapas and demanded local autonomy. Jones and Wersch, former Peace Corps volunteers, ran a tourist resort where guests learned about tropical agriculture and visited Mayan ruins. “We just had our lives destroyed,” Jones said.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Burkina Faso's misinformation warUnder The Radar The president of the West African country has quickly become the face of a viral, AI-powered propaganda campaign
-
Jeffrey Epstein's secretsFeature Six years after his death, conspiracy theories still swirl around the sex trafficker. Why?
-
Voting: Trump's ominous war on mail ballotsFeature Donald Trump wants to sign an executive order banning mail-in ballots for the 2026 midterms
