Posted on 01/02/2006 1:22:38 PM PST by Flavius
By IOAN GRILLO, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 45 minutes ago
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Zapatista rebels met Monday with leaders of poor and Indian groups at the start of a campaign that has carried them from their jungle strongholds for the first time in four years in a bid to reshape Mexico's politics. ADVERTISEMENT
The rebels' ski-masked spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, arrived Monday in a caravan of minivans, SUVS and pickup trucks for the meetings with non-governmental organizations in this mountain city in southern Mexico.
The night before, Marcos formally launched the nationwide tour with a speech railing against capitalism, free trade and the Mexican government before 15,000 rebels and sympathizers who waved banners ranging from black and red anarchist flags to communist hammers and sickles at a platform beside the city's cathedral.
In the capital, Mexico City, meanwhile, President Vicente Fox's office said Monday that the Zapatista tour would strengthen democracy.
The government "recognizes the Zapatista caravan that is attempting to make its ideas and points of view known by political means," Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said, drawing a contrast with the Zapatistas' guerrilla origins.
Fox closed some military bases near Zapatista territory and freed jailed rebel sympathizers shortly after starting his six-year term in December 2000, but peace efforts stalled when Congress watered down a Zapatista-backed constitutional amendment for Indian rights in 2001.
"At some time this country will have to begin a new debate about the rights of Indian communities," said Xochitl Galvez, head of the government's Commission for the Development of Indian Communities, at a news conference with Aguilar.
"There are issues pending about the use of natural resources. There are issues pending about land and territory. There are issues pending about the judicial standing of Indian communities — and these are things that will have to be dealt with at some time," she said.
In speeches Sunday, Marcos said the the Zapatistas' tour would consist not of big marches but of meetings with ordinary people. "We will listen to people in the places where they work, in the places where they are exploited, where they suffer racism," he said.
Clad in a red and white traditional Indian dress and a ski mask, another rebel leader, Comandante Kelly, spoke in favor of women's rights.
"Women are not only for the bed and the kitchen," she said. "We can also wear the trousers."
Marcos roared through the village of La Garrucha on a black motorcycle with a Mexican flag tied to the back and the initials of the Zapatista military army, EZLN, painted in red on the front to start the tour earlier Sunday.
The caravan will head to all 31 states and Mexico City in a bid to impact the July presidential election.
Witnesses said Marcos lost balance on his motorcycle while traveling at low speed on his way to San Cristobal de las Casas and fell, injuring his right hand slightly.
Identified by Mexico's government as a former university lecturer, Marcos has said the tour will allow Zapatista leaders to reach out to leftist groups across the country, creating a national movement that will "turn Mexico on its head."
The rebels have pledged to move away from armed struggle and toward politics, but the group has not clearly defined what form of political participation it will adopt.
Marcos has abandoned his military title in favor of the civilian moniker "Delegate Zero."
It has been 12 years since Zapatistas seized San Cristobal de las Casas and several other Chiapas towns in the name of Indians rights and socialism. A cease-fire with government forces quickly took hold, but there has since been sporadic violence between rebel supporters and other Indian groups in southern Mexico.
This latest tour marks the first time the group has left its strongholds in the jungles of southernmost Chiapas state since a triumphant march to Mexico City in 2001. The Zapatistas largely disappeared from public view following that trip.
Fox ended 71 straight years of single-party rule when he took office in 2000, but is barred from running again. A favorite to replace him during elections in July is former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.
In the run-up to the tour, which the Zapatistas call "the other campaign," Marcos has sharply criticized Lopez Obrador. He also has said the Zapatistas won't run for elected office or join Mexico's mainstream political process.
Between Venezuela, Castro, Iran, and now Putin shutting off natural gas to Europe, we got a real can of worms here.
Where is the CIA and NSA - its time to crush some nuts.
Let's see, poverty, shortages, government corruption and oppression, the population is risking their lives to get out. I thought Mexico was already communist.
I'm with Pat Robertson, lets take Chavez out!
I think zapata means "shoe" in spanish.
Mexico rivals the South African apartheid regime for racism.
The dirty secret is that Fox and his white cronies love immigration to the US, because it helps reduce the number of Indians in Mexico.
He is also a "big" mexican from the north.
What they want is an autonomous region. The problem is that the autonomous region they want lies above significant oil deposits.
Yes, before you know it he'll send his mestizo children to jump the border.
**Where is the CIA and NSA - its time to crush some nuts.**
Goodness, you would hope they are on the side of America's constitutional freedom.
But after watching Bill and Hillary and their mob in power in total awe of Castro, and liberals' current love for Saddam, I am afraid that liberals love the trend of growing communism. They see it as "progress." They rationalize and deny the mass murder and enslavement that always accompanies communism. They can see what happened with the other comrades - Nazis. But they can't see what happened with their friends the commies. We need to elect real Americans who are really committed to fighting for freedom right now. The anti-Americans are making progress and we need to keep them away from power for a long time.
Build the wall, and then build it higher.
Only if we don't build the wall.
Let's build the wall instead.
There is no future for American engagement with low-IQ societies which crave socialism.
Let them have it. They have nothing we need.
But for God's sake, let's build defenses to keep them the Hell out of here, and keep them from stealing our stuff.
I hate to tell ya, but the commies are not going to leave us alone. Communists have a hard time justifying the total poverty and oppression of their system with America right under their noses. They always hate and go after us and we have plenty of "liberals" who see this as "progress" and who will welcome the attacks and glorify the "equality."
There is no safety in walls when it comes to another struggle between communism and freedom for the world. We ought to kill it in the crib with cold war tatics.
**If the Commies take over maybe Mexico will build it's own wall. Commie governments tend to really protect their borders.**
They have to keep people in or they would all flee the suffering! Also, they would worry about us going over to destabilize their utopia - not that the US would EVER do something like that. We have to be realistic - there are worse things that could happen with Mexico than our current problems with border control.
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