Students for Justice is sponsoring the third annual benefit concert to raise public awareness of the Zapatista movement. The concert takes place on Friday, Oct. 27, from 6 p.m. until 12 a.m. at The Works in downtown San Jose.

The event will feature local punk, reggae and ska bands Monkey, The Brownies, Firme, Aggro, and The Forgotten. It will also include speakers from the women’s delegation to Chiapas, the October 22 Coalition, Food Not Bombs, and will have political literature from the AK Press in English and also en Español. Proceeds from the event will go directly to the Zapatistas.

The Zapatistas are an indigenous insurgency movement demanding political and economic democracy in Mexico. The Zapatista movement, headquartered in Chiapas, is largely made up of Mayan Indians.

The Zapatista’s guerrilla activity began in January of 1994 as a global protest to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Also among their demands are fair elections and basic human liberties for all Mexicans.

The NAFTA agreement is thought of more as a death sentence to these indigenous peoples than as a free trade agreement. They believe free trade will mean increased corporate exploitation of the region’s workers.

Reports from the New York Times to e-mail newsgroups tell stories of brutal massacres carried out against the Zapatistas by the Mexican army. One e-mail report cited a letter that the Chase Manhattan bank sent to investors recently, urging action against the Zapatistas.

For more information on Mexican politics and the Zapatista movement visit www.cs.unb.ca/~alopez-o/politics/chiapasagri.html. The benefit’s organizers hope to generate humanitarian aid for the Chiapas region during Friday’s concert.

The Works is located at 30 N. Third St. Admission to this all ages event is $6.