CHIAPAS INDIANS MARCH TO MEXICO CITY

MEXICO CITY — It's the latest installment of a “revolution” that never happened.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has decided to fulfill one of his electoral promises by signing a peace agreement with the Marxist guerrilla group “Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional” — the Zapatista National Liberation Army, also known as EZLN. But Fox is coming under criticism, including from some of his own supporters, for being so accommodating to a rebel group that has never managed to seriously threaten the Mexican government.

However, Mexico's bishops are guardedly supportive of the initiative, hoping it will help address the legitimate grievances of the impoverished indigenous residents of the state of Chiapas, where the Zapatistas are based.

In preparation for the peace talks, two dozen Zapatista leaders have embarked on a highly publicized march from Chiapas to Mexico City, hoping to bolster their position by winning media coverage and acclaim.

The Zapatistas, named after the early-20th century agrarian revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata, took up arms for two weeks in Jan. 1, 1994, the same day in which the NAFTA agreement became active, supposedly bringing Mexico into the globalized world.

The rebellion in the poor, mostly Indian southern state of Chiapas was followed by six years of generally low-level conflict and tensions between Mexico's then ruling PRI party and the rebels.

Media reporting on the rebellion, dismissed by many Mexicans as mere “Guerrilla Theater,” made world-famous its ski-masked, white-skinned leader, Subcomandante Marcos.

Despite the fact that the Zapatistas have never become a real threat, Marcos has kept the world's attention focused on his grievances, making of the EZLN more than a simple annoyance for a country starved for foreign investment.

Over the years, several commissions and committees, and the intervention of the former bishop of Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, failed to bring the government and the Zapatistas into serious peace negotiations.

After assuming power late last year, Fox called for a direct dialogue with Marcos, knowing that his July 200 presidential election had already achieved a central Zapatista goal: The defeat of the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party that had ruled Mexico since 1929.

Marcos responded by requesting the pullout of government troops from an area in Chiapas. Fox immediately withdrew many troops and freed 20 Zapatista prisoners, leaving only about a dozen in jail.

“In this media-dominated battle”, Roger Bartra, an analyst of the Zapatista conflict, wrote Feb. 25, “Marcos knew he was now facing another media star, and knew also it was his turn to strike out something to impress the audience.”

Marcos on the March

Marcos responded by announced a 15-day march through about a dozen states, with plans to arrive in Mexico City on March 11, supposedly to promote a bill aimed “to expand the rights of Indian communities to enact laws, control lands and be free to use their own languages.”

Marcos and 23 rebel commanders started the march with a nationally broadcast speech from La Realidad, a small town in the heart of Chiapas, and began their trek through southern and central Mexico, followed by hundreds of foreign and Mexican supporters and a coterie of media representatives.

Fox again responded positively, declaring Feb. 24 that he “welcomes this march because we believe, feel and bet that this march will bring us to a solid peace process.”

The march became a national event, but very rapidly acquired ridiculous tones. A state congressman from Morelos, one of the Zapatista stops, challenged Marcos to a shootout, while Marcos imitators were used to sell everything from furniture to appliances on TV commercials.

On Feb. 26, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City held a short press conference, expressing his concern that “the march may turn into a mere show, leaving no concrete fruits for peace.”

Cardinal Rivera strongly supported changes to “improve the inhuman conditions of indigenous groups,” but added that “neither a march nor a document, by themselves, will be enough to bring true peace.”

Cardinal Rivera's secretary, Father José Ortiz, told the Register, “His Eminence is hoping that the march will take place in a peaceful manner, but even more than that, he wants less spectacular acts and more effective means to achieve a peace agreement.”

In his stop in Oaxaca, where the Zapatista caravan arrived with some 300 vehicles, Marcos said that “this is the march of victory; we are here because we have never been defeated.”

Said Zapatista analyst Bartra, “Marcos will keep combining these saber rattles with generic calls for peace, because his main problem is what to do after he arrives in Mexico City. I have no doubt that at the Zócalo [Mexico City's main square] he will stage a great show, but what is he going to do after that?”

Out-Foxed by Fox?

Bartra added that the Zapatistas are between a rock and a hard place, since if they sign a peace agreement, they “will look like they were domesticated by Fox”, while if they go back to Chiapas, they will be regarded as the enemies of the peace process.

But Magdalena Gomez, an EZLN spokeswoman, said this is a simplistic analysis.

In a written statement to the Register, Gomez said, “The date of Feb. 24, 2001, is as important as Jan. 1, 1994. Both mark two historic moments for the EZLN, the first one at a military level, this one at a purely political level.”

For the EZLN, Gomez continued, “this march is not a mere act, it is the beginning of a whole new process in the Zapatista fight against neo-liberalism and globalization.”

But according to Bartra, “things are more complicated. There is an evident tension within the Zapatista Movement between a core of militants who want a military solution and those who are listening to the people's cry for peace and concrete solutions.”

“Among the latter are most of the ethnic groups the EZLN claims to speak for, and certainly Marcos himself,” he adds.

The new bishop of San Cristóbal de la Casas, Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, publicly stated Feb. 27 that the government should protect the life of Marcos against any potential menace during the march.

Arizmendi, who has inherited a deeply divided diocese from his predecessor

Bishop Ruiz, was the target of heavy criticism from right-wing paramilitary groups as well as from PRI congressmen, who accused him and the Catholic Church of being “a subsidiary of the EZLN.”

Bishop Arizmendi countered that “we defend Marcos' life not because we support the EZLN, but because we are concerned for Chiapas and for Mexico.”

Added Bishop Arizmendi, “The Church has been offended by Marcos in several occasions, he has even called [the bishops] ‘Orthodox demons,’ but we believe that any attempt against his life would only inflame those who want more violence.”

Some columnists have accused both the bishops and Fox of “bringing a corpse back to life,” arguing that Marcos' popularity was already low when the president called for peace talks.

In an editorial, the daily Excelsior said that “we Mexicans want to live in peace and tranquility, but President Fox is guilty of bringing Marcos back to the cameras and the spotlights, thus opening a war on the Internet that has permitted the interference of foreigners into issues that concern only Mexicans.”

However, Bishop Arizmendi said that “those who believe that the problems of

Chiapas can be solved by the physical destruction of the Zapatistas are grossly mistaken.”

Added the bishop, “The indigenous groups have really deep and ancient problems of which the EZLN is not a representative, but a symptom.”

Roger Gonzalez Herrera, a congressman for Fox's National Action Party, known as PAN, acknowledges that even within PAN “there are many who are against the president's openness toward the Zapatistas.”

“Nevertheless, I believe that welcoming the march is a great opportunity for peace,” said Gonzalez Herrera, recalling that the Zapatistas announced on Jan. 1, 1994, that one of their objectives was to “march victoriously over the capital defeating the Federal Army and opening a new stage in our democracy.”

Said Gonzalez Herrera, “Today, the Zapatistas are marching, but without shooting even one bullet, and accepting the legitimacy of the new government.”

However, in the view of many Mexicans, it is uncertain that this is a sign of a peaceful future. As one verse of a popular “Ranchera” Mexican song says, “only time will tell.”

Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.