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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2005 
Zapatista Political Movement Marches to Own Clock
 China Post
| | Marcos asked listeners to judge the new Zapatista political activities for themselves. |
San Miguel, Mexico - Mexican rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos on Saturday said Zapatista efforts to build a new leftist political movement is a long-term effort not tied to Mexico's political calendar.
The Zapatistas are preparing for a national tour, 11 years after their brief armed uprising in the name of Indian rights in Chiapas state, asserting themselves just as political parties throw their full energies into the 2006 presidential election.
"We learned a long time ago that we should never subject ourselves to the schedules of the powerful," said Marcos, harkening back to the start of the Zapatista armed uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, that shocked Mexico. "We had to follow our own calendar and impose it on those above."
The Zapatista spokesman attended the fourth in a series of talks with Indian and leftist social groups, this time at a settlement known as San Miguel, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the Chiapas state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.
Zapatista sympathizers took hold of the once-private ranch in the course of the 1994 uprising and maintained a military-style checkpoint at San Miguel for several years.
Marcos on Saturday suggested the location be renamed Nuevo Juan Diego in honor of two Zapatistas who died in the initial armed conflict - and not after the Roman Catholic saint from Mexico named Juan Diego.
Marcos also called on Mexicans to help rewrite the Mexican Constitution to include all sectors of society.
The new political movement is for "those to whom it has occurred to pay attention to their conscience and not to political polls," said Marcos, whom Mexican officials identified in 1995 as former university instructor Rafael Sebastian Guillen.
Concluding his remarks, Marcos asked listeners to judge the new Zapatista political activities for themselves.
"Surely the agents of the government, businessmen and political parties have sent to inform you what happens here," Marcos said. "After hearing us and hearing you, they will write in their report a false alarm. There's nothing to be worried about. The suspects are crazy and they haven't noticed each other. End of report." |
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