And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: This message is forwarded to you as a service of Zapatistas Online. Comments and volunteers are welcome. Write [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send submissions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 09:55:20 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Commandante Null <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mexico's Zapatistas Pay Homage to Dead in Capital Mexico's Zapatistas Pay Homage to Dead in Capital Reuters 15-MAR-99 MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Wearing the Zapatistas' trademark black ski masks, Indians from Mexico's troubled southern state of Chiapas on Monday payed tribute to 45 of their number who died in a bloody massacre 15 months ago. Heating up a nationwide campaign ahead of a Zapatista-led national plebiscite on indigenous rights next Sunday, the 10 rebels said the ideals of the Indians killed in the Christmas 1997 massacre in the village of Acteal would live on. "Their ideas, their words, are still present with the rest of us," said a man identifying himself only as Benito and belonging to the Tzotzil tribe. Benito's small group, paying homage at the feet of the "Angel" independence monument in the heart of Mexico City, included three masked indigenous women, one holding an infant in her arms. Just before Christmas in 1997, para-militaries apparently backing the local government opened fire on the people of Acteal in the Chiapas highlands, killing 45 unarmed Indians, most of them women and children. The massacre focused international attention to the continuing problems of Mexico's indigenous population following the breakdown of peace talks with the government after a short-lived but bloody Indian uprising three years earlier. The Zapatistas started their rebellion on Jan. 1, 1994, the day that Mexico entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada. Benito's group arrived in the Mexican capital on Sunday as part of a nationwide campaign by 5,000 "Zapatista delegates" ahead of the March 21 national referendum on improved rights for the country's 10 million Indians. In Mexico's central state of Morelos, Zapatista delegates gathered in the small town of Anenecuilco, birthplace of the 1910-1917 revolutionary leader Emilio Zapata from whom they take their name. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.All rights reserved. NPC Information Associates "Intelligence for the Underdog!" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 770-457-6758 -- To unsubscribe from this list send a message containing the words unsubscribe chiapas95 to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Previous messages are available from http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html or gopher://eco.utexas.edu. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
