Mexico's Zapatista rebels were emerging from their jungle hideout yesterday to launch a nationwide campaign tour billed as a pacifist alternative to this year's already contentious presidential race.
The beginning of the six-month tour was timed to coincide with the anniversary of a brief Zapatista uprising in the name of Indian rights, on New Year's Day 12 years ago. This time, however, the Zapatistas say they will not wield Kalashnikov rifles or declare war.
Instead, the ski mask-wearing, pipe-smoking Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos -- who is adopting a more civilian-sounding title, "Delegate Zero" -- has promised to build a nationalist leftist movement that will "shake this country up from below" during a visit to Mexico's 31 states.
PHOTO: AP
Marcos has also said the Zapatistas won't run for elected office or join Mexico's mainstream political process, which he describes as corrupt and out of touch with the people -- leaving some in Mexico confused about the rebels' intentions.
"What kind of movement is it going to be? That is the million-dollar question," said Miguel Alvarez, head of Serapaz, a pacifist group that helped with negotiations between the government and the Zapatistas. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."
When the Zapatistas first stormed San Cristobal de las Casas on New Year's Day in 1994, they called for equal rights for Mexico's Indian minority and an end to one-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico without interruption for most of the 20th century.
After the PRI's defeat in 2000 at the hands of current President Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, the rebels focused on building a network of Zapatista-run schools and medical clinics in dozens of Indian villages they control in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas.
The Zapatistas say this year's tour is a third phase of their revolution.
"A step forward in the struggle is only possible if we unite with other sections of society," the Zapatistas' command council said in a recent statement.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in