Zapatista Convoy Leaves For Mexico City
by Diego Cevallos
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by Diego Cevallos |
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The February 25 farewell ceremony, in which they accused President Vicente Fox of being insincere in his desire for peace, was less solemn than the rally organized on the night of Feb. 24 in the central square of San Cristobal, the capital of Chiapas, which began five hours earlier than expected and stretched almost to midnight. This is a "march for dignity," not a "march of peace," as Fox has been publicizing it, said Subcomandante Marcos, the charismatic masked leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), who maintained that the president wanted to arrange a "false peace." Some 20,000 masked Native people -- the Zapatistas' support base -- foreign observers, and local and foreign reporters filled the square on Feb. 24 to greet the rebel leaders. The organizers had been hoping for 40,000 sympathizers. San Cristobal, a city of 140,000, was occupied on Jan. 1, 1994 by the poorly-armed rebel group, which was demanding justice, democracy and respect for the rights of Native peoples, who account for at least 10 million of Mexico's 100 million people. As the EZLN convoy pulled out of San Cristobal yesterday on its march for justice and Native rights, hundreds of local Indians lined the road and cheered.
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The
Zapatista march is a profound expression of the desire for peace, Portuguese Nobel Literature prize-winner Jose Saramago, U.S. linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone, and Laura Bonaparte, a spokeswoman for Argentina's Mother of the Plaza de Mayo rights group and others stated in an open letter on Feb. 24.
In a televised national address on Feb. 22, Fox welcomed "this march, which will be the bridge for peace and the vindication of Native peoples...the government wants a real peace, not one of mere words." But while Fox congratulated the marchers and wished them luck, Marcos continued to criticize the president and question his sincerity. Marcos is mistaken about the political climate reigning in the country, and underestimates the popular support Fox has won in his attempts to find a solution for the simmering conflict in Chiapas. And that could isolate the guerrilla leader, warned analyst Carlos Ram’rez. In his less than three months in office, the president -- whose election put an end to 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party -- has submitted a bill on Native rights to Congress, as demanded by the rebel group, and designated people respected by the EZLN for key posts linked to the Chiapas question. He also closed four military bases in Chiapas and secured the release of a number of Zapatistas from prison. In addition, Mexico's two leading TV stations, Televisa and TV Azteca, launched a campaign last week calling for peace, and are organizing a March 3 rock concert in Mexico City to raise funds for the impoverished Native people of Chiapas. Marcos insists, nevertheless, that three more military detachments must be withdrawn from Chiapas, all of the Zapatista inmates must be released, and the Native rights bill must be passed before the EZLN will return to the negotiating table. The 24 rebel leaders, whose caravan will travel through 12 states before reaching Mexico City on March 11, say the trip is not aimed at reviving the peace talks with the government, which broke off in 1996, but at lobbying Congress to pass the Native rights legislation and at drumming up popular support for their cause. The hotels, restaurants and shops of San Cristobal did brisk business with the brief visit of the EZLN leaders, and poor Native people who live on the outskirts of town sold their arts and crafts to the foreign visitors who came to wave the rebels off. Decked out with cameras and Native dress or berets and t-shirts with the masked image of Marcos above the name of the rebel group, hundreds of visitors from abroad, mainly Europe, arrived in San Cristobal over the weekend to see the guerrilla chiefs or even join the convoy on its way to Mexico City. The weapons that the rebels used for just 12 days in 1994 were left behind in the group's jungle stronghold. The Zapatistas rose up against the government of Carlos Salinas (1988-94), and in 1996 broke off the peace talks with the administration of Ernesto Zedillo when the government refused to accept a draft law on Indian rights that was based on the San Andres accords, the only agreement signed in the peace talks. As their interlocutor in Congress, the group has named Fernando Yanez, known in the past as Comandante German, a former leader of Marcos's now-defunct National Liberation Forces, a small Marxist grouping that in the early 1980s went to Chiapas to help create the EZLN. While 42 Zapatista prisoners have been released since Fox took office in December, the rebels are demanding the release of the rest, who number around 58 and are being held -- most of them -- in a prison in San Cristobal. According to Abelardo Mendez, who represents the inmates, the release of the prisoners was really the work of state governments. Most of the alleged insurgents were arrested in 1995, when then-president Zedillo accused the EZLN of preparing armed actions, despite the fact that the rebels were involved in peace talks with the government.
Albion Monitor
February 26, 2001 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor) All Rights Reserved. Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to use in any format. |
