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Mexican Narcoterrorist Region May Abandon Catholicism for Islam It would seem as if Bishop Ruiz’s brand of Liberation Theology has had the same effect on Chiapas as on Europe. Chiapas is poor, but it’s now also appearing to trend Islamic as any region under the influence of the left eventually does. When you kill the local religion and replace it with social justice, foreign religions eventually take its place. In the mid-1990s, a leftist resistance group which calls itself The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made Chiapas its home. Its attempts to fight the Mexican Army repeatedly failed, but...

On January 1st, 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation catapulted itself from the jungles of southern Mexico onto the international political stage. The leftist rebels declared war against the Mexican state — while proclaiming indigenous rights and seizing land. The Zapatistas formed autonomous settlements, places to put their Marxist theories into practice. Those settlements are still there today in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. But in recent years, grinding poverty has led many young Zapatistas to leave in search of construction work in luxury resort cities like Cancún and Playa del Carmen. This migration from the epicenter of...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Mexico condemns the excessive use of force associated with the Israeli army operation in Gaza, " a statement from the Mexican Foreign Ministry said late Tuesday. It also condemned "the continued launching of mortars into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip". Latin American countries have largely condemned Israel over its launch of 'Operation Cast Lead' on Gaza on December 27. Immediately after Israeli warplanes attacked the strip, Cuba called the offensive an "act of genocide" and a "criminal military operation, the bloodiest one executed by Israel against the Palestinian people." Three day later, the Bolivian Foreign...

"THE BRIEF LIFE AND EXQUISITE MARTYRDOM OF A HAMAS MORTAR CREW" Snippet: "Via Hamas' al-Aqsa TV station, said to be filmed in Jabaliya on 06 January 2008. At about 1'15" the crew is hit by an apparent Israeli counter-strike."

Mexico's Zapatista rebel leader "Subcomandante" Marcos slammed US president-elect Barack Obama for failing to speak out on Israel's bombing of Gaza, in a speech on Friday marking the 15th anniversary of his rebellion. The masked leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation -- which rose up in arms in Chiapas, southeast Mexico, on January 1, 1994 -- also critized a government clampdown on spiraling drug violence, in his first public appearance in more than a year. Obama "supports the use of force" against Palestinian people, Marcos said in a speech to some 2,500 leftist politicians and activists from 25...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Blanca Navidad is the name of a dusty squatter's quarters that doesn't have too much to cheer about. It is a barren plot of land where some of Nuevo Laredo's poorest residents live, literally, in oversize plywood boxes. There's no water and no electricity. This year, the mayor unsuccessfully tried to dislodge the residents of Blanca Navidad and force them to move to already-developed low-income areas. On Tuesday, Subcomandante Marcos, the near-mythical masked leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, rallied the neighborhood and used it to launch a tirade against politicians from here to Mexico...

Mexican guerrilla leader to march from US Embassy Sat Apr 29, 6:49 PM ET A coalition of unions and anti-capitalist groups, including Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, will march in Mexico on Monday to mark international labor day and to support a U.S. immigrant boycott. Marcos, a pipe-smoking icon of the left who led a short but bloody uprising in southern Mexico in 1994, will head an anti-capitalist march from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. "We will create a clearly anti-capitalist May Day and we ... are going to take the property from the (owners of) the means of...

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - The Zapatista movement's ski-masked leader began his public meetings on Monday in a six-month national tour to form a new leftist movement, pledging to "listen to everybody" as he met with Indian groups and rights activists. ADVERTISEMENT Apparently competing for the attention of Mexico's 13 million Indians, President Vicente Fox on Monday began his own tour of the country's indigenous communities. The Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos, arrived at the University of the Earth, a school for Indians in a dirt-road slum on the outskirts of San Cristobal. Accompanied by a dozen masked companions,...

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...

Zapatista Rebels Threaten American RanchTuesday February 4, 2003 11:50 PMNUEVO JERUSALEM, Mexico (AP) - Zapatista rebels are threatening to seize a ranch and guest house owned by U.S. citizens and are running tourists out of parts of southern Chiapas state - an unexpected turn for a country whose third-largest income source is tourism. The conflict is part of the rebels' battle against foreign investment and eco-tourism, the small-scale, environmentally friendly operations that were supposed to help save the jungles where the Zapatistas have their last redoubts. ``We don't want any American tourists. ... We don't want any tourists at...

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Scores of Zapatista rebel supporters seized an American-owned tourism ranch in the southern state of Chiapas on Friday. Rebels denouncing foreign influence have said they want to drive out the American owners of the Rancho Esmerelda, and since mid-December residents of the rebel village of Nuevo Jerusalem had blocked roads leading to the ranch. At about 7:30 a.m., about 100 intruders arrived and threw out the two caretakers who were the only people left on the 26-acre property, said Ellen Jones, who owned the ranch with her husband, Glen Wersch. "This is a...

San Rafael, Mexico, Aug 7 (EFE).- Subcomandante Marcos, leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebels, said early Sunday he would like to form an alliance with grassroots organizations and launch "another campaign" to take on the traditional political parties at the national level, including leftist parties. The proposal came after Marcos appeared in public for the first time in five years on Saturday and accused leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of "treason." Wearing a ski mask and escorted by five people, Marcos appeared at a rally in the village of San Rafael, in the southern state of Chiapas, to...

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (Reuters) - Islam has joined a battle for the hearts and minds of Mexico's volatile Tzotzil Indians in Chiapas state, home of Zapatista rebels and a hotbed of sectarian strife between Christians. In an unlikely meeting of two worlds, an idealistic Muslim sect has converted some 300 Tzotzils, a Maya Indian group known for drink-fueled fiestas and religious fervor. "It was difficult to learn the prayers in Arabic at first but now I have them in my heart," said Muhammad Emin Lopez, 46, a Tzotzil fruit merchant who boasts that his conversion to Islam...

Mexican Resort Overrun By Zapatista Rebels By Christina Salinas MEXICO - A mexican resort owned by a Boise couple, is overrun by the Zapatista rebels. Just after 7 this morning, 100 rebels threw out the properties two caretakers. No one was harmed by the intruders, who carried machetes. The Zapatista's have been threatening to take over Rancho Esmerelda for over two months.

SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico -- Six weeks after rebellious peasants forced the government to scrap plans for a $3 billion airport on their land, new conflicts are brewing in this town on the edge of Mexico City. The most radical farmers have established a "People's Council," declaring the elected municipal authority defunct and putting themselves on a collision course with the state and federal governments. Many believe their efforts can serve as a model for other communities with grievances against the state. But others in town have grown weary of the revolutionary rhetoric and want to return to the way...