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: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 09:35:39 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Commandante Null <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: (Extensive Coverage) Zapatistas get second chance to bring Note: This is by far the most extensive coverage I have seen. Rs, Null ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Zapatistas get second chance to bring change to Mexico Unarmed rebels turning to politics in struggle for Indian rights 03/21/99 By Laurence Iliff / The Dallas Morning News MEXICO CITY - Masked Zapatista rebels fanned out across the Mexican countryside last week under the noses of police and government troops, in preparation for their big offensive on Sunday. But their first national deployment after five years in the jungles of southern Mexico hardly presages an armed struggle. Instead it represents a symbolic military defeat for the unorthodox fighters who found sympathy throughout Mexico and the world five years ago but who are now struggling to regain the nation's attention, analysts say. Five thousand unarmed rebels with names like "Maximo" and "Cornelio" are organizing an informal national referendum on Indian rights this Sunday. And in their campaign swing through Mexico City, they mixed with protesting university students, angry electricity workers and top soccer players. The Zapatistas' appearance at elementary schools, restaurants and outdoor markets would once have been unthinkable. But now, some analysts say, it marks the formal beginning of their integration into civil society after years of fruitless peace talks in the southern state of Chiapas that stalled over the issue of Indian autonomy. "This is a military defeat in favor of a political vision of how to bring about change in Mexico," said Luis Hernandez Navarro, a political columnist and Zapatista supporter who has worked on development projects in Chiapas. "The Zapatistas never planned to take power. Their message has always been that there can be no democracy in Mexico without the nation's indigenous people." Lost opportunity Others said the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN, has squandered a unique opportunity to negotiate a broad civil rights accord for Indian peoples - although they applauded the apparent end to an armed uprising that has directly or indirectly taken several hundred Indian lives. "They could have negotiated many laws, promoted economic development and guaranteed civil rights for Indian peoples," said Primitivo Rodriguez, a political analyst. The government offered just that during peace talks that followed the Jan. 1, 1994, Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. The rebels rejected the accord. "Now they are back to square one, but they have a second chance," said Mr. Rodriguez. "They still have the sympathy of the people in terms of Indian rights and [Zapatista leader] Subcomandante Marcos is still very much alive, as this national consultation shows." Mexicans remain split on the Zapatistas, even if most agree that Mexican Indians have been denied basic rights for centuries and left in economic misery. Tables have been set up across the country for voting on Sunday's referendum. Featuring one-sided questions that guarantee a favorable outcome for the Zapatistas, it is seen by some Mexicans as pure propaganda for a moribund rebel movement that no longer makes the front pages of national newspapers. Back on the map More than a true gauge of public opinion, the referendum is seen by some analysts as an attempt to influence the presidential race in the year 2000 and put the Zapatistas back on the political map. And suspicions remain about the origin of the Zapatistas and its white leaders. "We're not guerrilla supporters here and we have our own problems," said Teresa Rivera, 58, a street vendor in southern Mexico City who will not be participating in Sunday's referendum. "And this Marcos, who is he anyway? With his manicured finger nails, white skin and blue eyes, he doesn't look like an Indian to me. And why the masks? If you're asking for something, you should show your face." The EZLN, in fact, was never a traditional rebel movement at all, analysts agree. Marcos is a middle-class northerner named Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente who took his leftist beliefs to Chiapas in the 1980s. On Jan. 1, 1994, he and a rag-tag band of Indians took over several towns from ill-trained and ill-equipped local police and quickly held news conferences to declare war on the government. But Mexican troops contained the rebellion in days, forcing the Zapatistas to retreat deep into the jungle. The government then declared a unilateral cease-fire amid international scrutiny and public pressure. President Ernesto Zedillo traveled to Chiapas this week, declaring that the government has done far more to improve the lives of Indian peoples than the Zapatistas, who he accused of being unwilling to restart peace talks. "The people of Chiapas, like all Mexicans, recognize those who run from dialogue and solutions," said Mr. Zedillo in Las Margaritas, a hotbed of Zapatista activity. "They know who is being intransigent for their own interests and political calculations, which have nothing to do with Chiapas, democracy or the dignity of Indian communities." A national telephone poll this week by the University of Guadalajara found broad support for the rights of Mexico's many Indian peoples, who make up about 10 percent of the population. The vast majority of Mexicans have some Indian blood. In the poll, however, 70 percent of those surveyed did not know about the Zapatista referendum. Furthermore, 44 percent had a poor opinion of Marcos, and just 32 percent a positive one. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, according to the university's Center of Opinion Studies. But the presence of 172 rebels in the Mexican capital has generated lots of attention. Wearing their trademark ski masks, rebel "delegates" have become celebrities to people sympathetic to their cause. At National Autonomous University of Mexico, students danced to modern cumbias with the rebels and showed them around the campus. Donning a T-shirt bearing an image of Marcos on horseback, Ivan Galindez, 17, debated with his fellow political science students over whether the Zapatistas were guerrillas at all. "It's now a peaceful, unarmed guerrilla movement so that people will be more likely to accept them," he said. Nonetheless, Mr. Galindez said he didn't think the Zapatistas should have played a soccer game with former star players in Mexico City this week because it makes the rebels look silly. Rebel delegates also mixed with Mexicans and Americans alike in the tourist town of San Miguel de Allende in the central state of Guanajuato. Nobody seemed to mind. "For them, it's a triumph to enter all these different cities, wearing their ski masks, without the government doing anything to them," said homemaker Amalia Tabla, 50. "They are Mexicans, like us, and we're with them as long as they leave the violence behind." CR1999 The Dallas Morning News ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NPC Information Associates "Intelligence for the Underdog!" 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