Zapatista Rebels Eye 2006 Mexico Election

[sintax]

Zapatista Rebels Eye 2006 Mexico Election

Saturday August 13, 2005 10:01 PM

By WILL WEISSERT

Associated Press Writer

CARMEN PATATE, Mexico (AP) - After four years of near silence, the ski-masked Zapatista rebels suddenly have a lot to say as they try to build a national political movement and reshape the campaign for next summer's presidential election.

But whether the rebels can recapture the attention of the world - and sway Mexican voters - remains unclear. Unlike the 1994 armed uprising in Chiapas state that grabbed headlines and gave the Zapatistas a romantic aura, their latest effort seems oddly timed.

Rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos has grown pudgy and quarrelsome, and Mexico's left seems to have moved on, gathering around former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads opinion polls on potential candidates for the 2006 presidential race.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5208234,00.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Muiy Interesante !

eom

[goforit]

2. Hmmm....I wonder if Bush has a hand in this.

[LSU_Subversive]

3. they have my attention! i hope to hear more about this. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

4. "pudgy and quarrelsome"?

Only the AP would come up with such description of the Zapatista leaders. It appears the Mexican elites are leaning in favor of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mayor of Mexico City, succeeding President Fox. Well, you know how some of us feel about the elites anywhere!

Here are a couple of articles from leftist sources that ask the same question and provide some background on the Zapatistas:

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

Where are Mexico’s Zapatistas headed?

By Lance Selfa | July 8, 2005 | Page 4

IT WAS with its characteristic flair for surprise that the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) declared a “red alert” on June 20.

In a communiqué issued by Internet that shot around the world, the EZLN told its supporters that it was taking this precaution in preparation for a meeting of its supporters in Chiapas to consider “a new step in the struggle, a step which entails, among other things, risking the much or little which has been achieved and worsening the persecution and harassment of the Zapatista communities.”

At the same time, the Zapatistas released a letter in which they blasted all of the political parties of the Mexican establishment, including the party of the presumed favorite in the 2006 presidential race, Andrés Manuel López Obrador--the populist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

<snip>

One well-placed observer, Ana Esther Ceceña, a professor at the National Autonomous University in Mexico and a specialist on the EZLN, thinks the Zapatistas might be preparing to launch themselves as a legal political force. “(The red alert) could be a step into the underground, to strengthen the armed organization,” Ceceña told the Argentinian newspaper Clarín. “Or it could be a step to turn itself into a legal political organization. The latter is more likely, without discarding the possibility that the Zapatista army will be left on the one hand, with a political arm on the other.

In their Sixth Declaration from the Lacandón Forest, issued June 26, the Zapatistas wrote: “A new step forward in the indigenous struggle is only possible if the indigenous join together with workers, campesinos, students, teachers, employees--the workers of the city and the countryside.”

For a movement that had remained largely isolated in Chiapas and refused to project itself as a leadership for working-class people throughout Mexico, this could be a significant shift. But whether it means the Zapatistas see that their fate is tied to that of the Mexican working class or whether they are simply adjusting their populist rhetoric for the upcoming elections remains to be seen.

http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/550/550_04_Zapatistas.shtml

Zapatistas have a surprise up their sleeve, say observers

MEXICO CITY - The Zapatista guerrillas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have pledged that they will not take up their weapons again. But they have also announced their determination to ensure that the ”scoundrels” - a catch-all term to describe all politicians - ”will not get their own way,” but rather will ”be held accountable” and forced to pay.

<snip>

Among the ”scoundrels” of Mexican politics, the rebel leader included Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-leaning mayor of Mexico City and potential presidential candidate who has been leading the polls for the last six months.

According to Marcos, the political and macroeconomic stability that López Obrador has pledged to establish if he is elected president will merely mean ”growing profits for the rich, poverty and growing plunder for the dispossessed, and an order that keeps the discontent of the latter under control.”

The main demand of the Zapatistas is for the state to guarantee full autonomy rights for the country`s indigenous people, as was stipulated in 1996 in the only agreement signed between the EZLN leadership and the government, led at the time by president Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000).

But the Zapatistas have also consistently demanded justice for the poor.

Almost half of Mexico`s 103 million inhabitants live in poverty, and the poorest of the poor are its roughly 10 million indigenous people.

http://www.galdu.org/english/index.php?odas=502

[burrowowl]

5. I hope they get there!

"The main demand of the Zapatistas is for the state to guarantee full autonomy rights for the country`s indigenous people, as was stipulated in 1996 in the only agreement signed between the EZLN leadership and the government, led at the time by president Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000).

But the Zapatistas have also consistently demanded justice for the poor.

Almost half of Mexico`s 103 million inhabitants live in poverty, and the poorest of the poor are its roughly 10 million indigenous people."

Viva Zapata!

[Voltaire99]

6. Not long ago elites were furious with López Obrador...

...for spending on welfare in Mexico City.

Maybe they've been mollified by recent cozy contracts and his inviting sleazeball Giuliani to design anti-crime policies.

Came across this NY TImes piece where he declares himself "a centrist now":

"It has been said that López Obrador writes his speeches with his left hand and governs with his right," said Héctor Zagal, co-author of a biography of the mayor. "He's a product of the old PRI, with all its flaws and virtues."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050405H.shtml