Author
amoshaun
this will undoubtedly be in the news tomorow, so we should do a more recent story. but here is what ap said on monday. Also, check chiapas.indymedia.org for the strait shit.
Monday, February 26 7:32 PM SGT
Rebel leader presses on toward Mexican capital in rights campaign
JUCHITAN, Mexico, Feb 26 (AFP) -
Zapatista rebel group leader "Subcomandante Marcos" continued his trek across Mexico Monday, accompanied by an entourage
of some two dozen aides de camp and hundreds of well-wishers supporting his agenda of greater rights for the country's
indigenous people.
Late Sunday, at the 383-kilometer (240-mile) mark, the protesters reached Juchitan, the first stop in their journey, to the cheers of
thousands of indigenous supporters.
Marcos' Zapatista followers set out Sunday from San Cristobal on the 3,000-kilometer (1,900-mile) march to the federal capital,
Mexico City, where the marchers plan to lobby Congress for an indigenous rights bill.
Hundreds of Mexican federal police officers, along with two police helicopters, are escorting the marchers to guarantee their
safety.
The Zapatista struggle is "for the dignity of the Indian people of Mexico," Marcos told the crowd that filled the central plaza of
Tuxtla Gutierrez, the Chiapas state capital.
On Saturday, a vanguard of thousands of members of Mayan communities streamed into San Cristobal to join US citizens,
Europeans and Mexicans offering their support to the march, which could determine the political future of the Chiapas rebels.
Jose Perez, a textile worker from the conflict zone, said he had waited seven years for the chance to see Marcos in the flesh.
"I wanted to see this man who has come to us with so many ideas, said Perez, a Tzotzil Indian from the Chiapas highland town of
Chenalo.
The foreigners in the crowd said they felt their presence was important, to demonstrate solidarity with the cause for the people of
southern Mexico.
"The Zapatista movement is relevant to the whole world because it's symbolic of (protest against) the worst aspects of the global
economy," said Judy Wicks, a Philadelphia restaurant owner and member of a business group that supports the Indians by
purchasing organic coffee and other goods from them.
The Zapatista march would be "a bridge to peace and to the vindication of indigenous people's rights," Mexican President Vicente
Fox said Friday.
Fox has put his reputation on the line with his overtures to the Zapatistas, who generally are reviled by his conservative National
Action Party.
"My priority, in these coming days is that the Zapatista march turns out well," Fox said. "I'm putting at risk my presidency, all my
political capital. We have to give Marcos a chance."
The Zapatista rebel group first launched their revolt in January 1994. Dialogue between government and rebel representatives
broke off in September 1996 over the rebel demands for new legislation on indigenous rights.
Since he led a rag-tag band of rebels in the 1994 uprising, the pipe-smoking Marcos has become a near-idol of the international
left, and has cultivated an image reminiscent of legendary revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
The Zapatistas and government troops have not engaged in fighting since the initial uprising, but hundreds of Chiapans have died in
local feuds and thousands more made refugees as a result of the divisions between rebel and government supporters, human rights
groups say.
Marcos said that peace talks with the government could be reintiated if federal officials release more Zapatista sympathizers from
jail, and move to close more of the army bases set up since 1994 in the predominately Indian region of Chiapas.