DOWNTOWN : Rally Backs Mexican Rebels, Protests U.S. Loan Program

Activists allied with Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Army rallied in Downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday to protest the multibillion-dollar U.S. loan guarantee program for Mexico approved Tuesday and the Mexican government’s military deployment in the southern state of Chiapas.

“The United States ignores the fact that the only solution to Mexico’s economic problems is a political change, a transition to democracy,” said Cecilia Rodriguez, an El Paso activist who was entering the sixth day of a public hunger strike near Olvera Street.

Rodriguez, the official representative of the Zapatista rebels in the United States, said she will refuse to eat until one of a number of conditions are met. Among her demands: a retreat of Mexican federal troops from former rebel-held territory in Chiapas, a withdrawal of arrest warrants against rebel leaders there, and the suspension of the U.S. aid package to Mexico.

The group, the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, USA, plans a series of protests in Los Angeles, including a 4 p.m. demonstration outside the federal courthouse Downtown today.