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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Zapatistas Ready to Disband Army, Enter into Politics
 USNewswire
Mexico City - The self-styled Subcomandante Marcos, spokesman for the Zapatista rebels of the southern state of Chiapas, aims to transform the insurgent "army" into Mexico´s principal leftist party, La Cronica newspaper reported Monday.
Citing what it claimed were government intelligence reports, the daily said that Marcos - identified by Mexican authorities as Rafael Sebastián Guillén - plans to use an impending nationwide tour he has dubbed "the other campaign" to complete the repackaging of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) as the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN).
La Cronica said Mexico´s Cisen spy agency sees the Zapatista movement as having lost support at the grassroots level in Chiapas and in need of rejuvenation.
The EZLN´s political goal in 2006 will be to "reposition itself in Mexico as the only genuine leftist option," the newspaper said, referring to the contents of a Cisen document. The left in Mexico´s political spectrum today is dominated by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
The PRD and smaller leftist parties form a coalition that support the 2006 presidential candidacy of former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the front-runner to succeed conservative Vicente Fox, who is barred from seeking a second term.
The paper said that Marcos "moves freely between Chiapas and Mexico City" in search of followers and to gain stature as an important political leader.
The newspaper cited unnamed sources as confirming that a Cisen operative was present at internal Zapatista meetings earlier this year where the new strategy was formulated.
Marcos´ next tour of the republic will begin on Jan. 1 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where he announced his movement to the world in 1994 with an armed uprising; he won a quick truce before the nation´s armed forces could quash the insurgency.
Since then the EZLN has laid down its arms and, led by Marcos, has sought support among academics, literary figures and journalists, while seeking to spread the cause of Mexico´s poor and indigenous peoples throughout the country and internationally.
Cisen analysts, according to La Cronica, have concluded the disbanding of the EZLN is a foregone conclusion and that Marcos is serious about supplanting the PRD´s López Obrador as standard-bearer of the Mexican left.
In late August, Marcos issued a statement blasting "AMLO," as the former capital mayor is known, as well as some of the people supporting López Obrador´s presidential bid. |
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