Rebels Take to Heartland of Mexican Revolution

Rebel leader Subcommander Marcos on Thursday took his campaign for indigenous rights into the heartland of the Mexican Revolution, placing a floral wreath on the spot where peasant hero Emiliano Zapata was assassinated 82 years ago.

On the 13th day of a 2,100-mile trek from his base in the southern state of Chiapas to the nation’s capital, Marcos pointedly followed Zapata’s famous trail in the central state of Morelos.

The Chiapas insurgents call their organization the Zapatista National Liberation Army, recalling Zapata’s determined battle for land rights during the 1910-17 revolution. Zapata, a Nahua Indian, waged a ferocious war against the sugar plantation owners who exploited the peasants in Morelos, his native state.

Marcos repeatedly invoked Zapata’s struggle to underscore the Chiapas rebels’ modern campaign for Mexican indigenous rights.

“Zapata did not die here on that April 10 [in 1919]. His face changed. . . . He is the face of all of you,” Marcos told several hundred villagers gathered here around a statue of Zapata atop a rearing horse, built on the site of Zapata’s assassination at the hands of rivals.

President Vicente Fox, whose election in July ended seven decades of one-party rule, has welcomed the Zapatista march. And Fox has worked hard to convince Mexicans that he is sincere in wanting to address problems of indigenous poverty and strike a peace deal for Chiapas.

But Marcos has shown himself to be suspicious of the government’s professed willingness to negotiate an accord and end the stalemated conflict in Chiapas, where the Zapatista army rose up Jan. 1, 1994.

“We don’t want this march to be converted into a duel of personalities between Marcos and Mr. Fox,” Marcos declared in Chinameca, where Zapata was killed. “The problem is not whether Fox or Marcos is more popular but whether the indigenous peoples are going to keep living as folkloric objects, stuffed in the trunk of history of this country.”

The “Zapatour,” as people call the journey of Marcos and 23 other rebel commanders to Mexico City, was designed to demonstrate nationwide support for indigenous rights. And the warm reception along Marcos’ route through Morelos on Thursday suggested that the Zapatistas indeed have considerable support outside Chiapas.

Entire families turned out, waving Zapatista pennants, in tiny hamlets as the caravan of buses and trucks and journalists’ vans weaved along a two-lane highway through arid countryside and sugar cane fields.

In Zapata’s birthplace, Anenecuilco, the rebel caravan paused long enough for Marcos and the other leaders to slip inside the faded, single-story museum on the site of Zapata’s family home.

Some who watched were just curious, and others were troubled by aspects of the caravan and the ski-masked rebel leaders.

“What we don’t like is that he comes here with his face covered,” said Macario Isidoro Bustos, 61, who grew up next to the Zapata house. “The door is open here for everyone, but those who come should show their face.”

He said the memory of Zapata is still powerful for the people here. “He fought for all of us; he fought for justice. The hacienda owners just gave people crumbs,” he said. “Perhaps Marcos is fighting for the same thing for his people, but we don’t know much about what is happening in Chiapas.”

Another resident, 81-year-old Artemio Camarillo, was more effusive in hailing Marcos as a new Zapata. Camarillo, wearing traditional peasant huaraches and carrying a machete in his satchel, said: “Zapata gave himself for the country and got land for those who wanted to work it with their own hands. . . . The struggle of Marcos is the same as the struggle Zapata fought for us.”

As elsewhere on the tour, Mexican and foreign militants formed a security phalanx for Marcos and the other rebel leaders. The militants at times used a heavy hand to keep away those who tried to approach the rebels.

Peasant villagers gawked at the multiple body piercings of some of the camp followers. Some activists wore Zapatour T-shirts with the list of rallies on the march route printed like rock concert tour dates.

Children threw pink blossoms at Marcos’ bus, and a hand-drawn sign at one house said, “Keep fighting for the dignity and the rights and the respect for the indigenous of Mexico.” It was signed, “Your friends.”

After leaving Chinameca, Marcos and his entourage headed to Milpa Alta, a village on the outskirts of Mexico City where Zapata stopped on his triumphant journey to the capital in December 1914, with the other famous leader of the revolution, Gen. Francisco Villa.

Marcos will conclude the 16-day journey with what is expected to be a giant rally in Mexico City on Sunday and a meeting Monday with legislators to appeal for adoption of Indian rights legislation.