Zapatistas Stake Future on Historic March to Capitol

by Diego Cevallos

"We want peace, we want to stop being what we are, we want to show our faces," said Marcos, who the intelligence services have identified as Rafael Sebastian Guillen, the son of a middle-class Catholic family who was born in 1957 in Tampico, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico.

But Marcos, who represents "Zapatismo within and outside the country, whether we like it or not," according to analyst Denise Dresser, denies that he is Guillen.

He also claims to detest fame, although since the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) first went public in 1994, he has remained in the spotlight, and has made numerous declarations and public appearances in the run-up to the march on the capital.

The leader of the indigenous rebel movement from the southern state of Chiapas is a talented writer who speaks several languages, as well as an entertaining public speaker and a master at using the media to further his movement.

The EZLN leadership -- made up of 23 Native commanders, and Marcos, the only "mestizo" or mixed-race leader -- set out on Feb. 24 from Chiapas in a convoy of buses that will wind its way through 12 Mexican states on the way to the capitol, which it is scheduled to reach on March 11.

In a communique issued Feb. 21, Marcos accused the government of Vicente Fox of opposing the EZLN march -- which he described as a "peaceful political initiative" -- and of endangering the incipient peace process by getting the International Committee of the Red Cross to announce that it would not provide protection for the convoy.

The Red Cross, which has accompanied movements of guerrilla leaders within Chiapas in the past, declared on Feb. 20 that it would not accept the EZLN's request for protection this time, because the conditions for providing such support were not in place, and the request was not based on the principles of international humanitarian law.

But despite the harsh tone of Marcos's latest declaration, local observers say the renewal of the peace talks is closer than ever before.

The representatives of the EZLN -- which engaged in just 12 days of fighting with the army after bursting on the scene in January 1994, and which insists that it is seeking neither power nor socialism -- will visit the capital unarmed, wearing their trademark ski masks.

In its less than three months in office, the Fox administration has met several EZLN demands, including the withdrawal of four military detachments from Chiapas, the release of jailed Zapatistas, and the re-introduction of the bill on Native rights to Congress.

Government spokespersons said the marchers would be welcome.

Foreign observers, EZLN followers and even members of a parliamentary commission of mediators will accompany the convoy as it stops along the way to the capital to hold rallies and meetings with indigenous groups, political leaders and organizations of civil society.

If the stalled peace talks get back on track after the march and a peace deal is reached, the members of the EZLN will return to their normal lives, to farming, said Marcos, who added that "we do not want to engage in electoral politics."

According to intelligence reports, based partly on information provided by former EZLN commander Daniel, considered a deserter by the rebels, Marcos was a professor of philosophy.

Marcos went to the jungles of Chiapas in the mid-1980s along with several young members of a now-defunct Marxist group, the Forces of National Liberation, and led the creation of the EZLN, a small insurgent organization made up of poorly-armed indigenous people.

However, during the uprising and in its communiques, the EZLN has insisted that it is not a Marxist group, and is only seeking democracy and justice in Mexico.

Marcos said that "we young people who were dreaming about a revolution changed our political ideas and learned a lot" after coming into contact with the lifestyle and culture of Native people -- who number around 10 million in this country of 100 million.

"What I would like to do (in the future), as a symptom of normality, is to be able to go to a store and buy a dress for my wife, without anything happening," said the rebel leader. "Being able to do something like that means for us, for me personally, that we have already landed on the other side, that we did it."

But the future doesn't look that simple. Few imagine Marcos, who has become an icon of leftist movements around the world and even a sex symbol, removing his face-mask and living a normal life without participating in politics, said analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio.

The EZLN's most famous guerrilla fighter, who claims to speak several Native tongues, besides English and a smattering of French, captivated the world with his non-traditional leftist discourse.

The march and Marcos's return to the headlines have led to praise -- such as a description of the rebel leader as the "moral conscience of the poor" -- as well as criticism.

"With the march on the capital, Marcos is trying to stage a show. But if he takes off his ski mask, everyone will see that he is just a nobody, a poor devil," said Catholic Bishop Onesimo Cepeda.

A parliamentary deputy of the governing National Action Party (PAN), Salomon Salgado, who represents the central state of Morelos, called Marcos a "maricon" (a slur for homosexual), and warned that the march would be met by vigilante brigades.

Another member of the PAN, Governor Ignacio Loyola of the central state of Queretaro, through which the EZLN convoy will pass, termed the rebel leader a "coward," and said he deserved the death penalty.

But President Fox said "I have told those who are not happy with the Zapatista march that they must respect it, because we share the desire to vindicate Mexico's indigenous peoples, and because after the march, we will have to achieve the peace for which we have been longing."