Rebel Steals Mexican's Spotlight By Kevin Sullivan
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 30 -- The Mexican guerrilla leader known as Subcommander Marcos has surfaced on the eve of President-elect Vicente Fox's inauguration, blasting outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo as a "nightmare" and threatening to provide Fox with the first major challenge of his presidency.
In an open letter to Zedillo written from Marcos's hideout in "the mountains of southeast Mexico," the ski-masked rebel leader accused Zedillo of aggravating the six-year-old rebel uprising in Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state on the border with Guatemala.
Marcos said Zedillo waged war rather than negotiating with the rebels, specifically blaming Zedillo for the massacre of 45 indigenous women and children by paramilitary units in the town of Acteal in December 1997.
"You did everything you could to destroy us, and we resisted," wrote Marcos, who had made no public statements since Fox was elected July 2. "You will go into exile, and we are still here."
Marcos has reappeared on the public scene at a delicate time for Fox, as heads of state and business leaders from around the world arrive for his inauguration Friday.
Fox has pledged to resolve the Chiapas conflict. Immediately after his swearing-in, he is expected to announce a partial withdrawal of army troops from the conflict area, as well as economic aid for Chiapas's impoverished Indians. Fox also intends to announce government support for a 1994 peace accord with the rebels that Zedillo's government failed to ratify.
But while Marcos offered no criticism of Fox in his letter, he offered no support either, despite Fox's repeated pledges to negotiate with his Zapatista rebels. "For us, the nightmare ends today," Marcos said of Zedillo's term. "Another could follow, or it could be a new dawn."
Fox has been criticized for raising public expectations unrealistically with promises on a broad range of issues, including Chiapas. A rebuke by Marcos could add to Fox's problems in his first days in office.
"It's really going to be the first challenge to his campaign promises," said Beatriz Mariscal Hay, a professor at Colegio de Mexico.
On a weekend when Fox will be crisscrossing the country celebrating his inauguration, Marcos, who has a flair for the dramatic, has stolen some of Fox's thunder by inviting the media to a news conference in the Chiapas jungle on Saturday afternoon.
Fox will use part of his inaugural address to respond to Marcos's letter, said Luis H. Alvarez, Fox's adviser on the Chiapas conflict. Alvarez praised Marcos and the Zapatistas for keeping the plight of Mexico's indigenous people in the public eye. "We have to keep in mind our obligation to lighten the load for millions of our Mexican brothers," he said.
The rebels have lost considerable public support since they began their movement with an armed uprising in Chiapas on New Year's Day 1994. While many Mexicans remain sympathetic to the issues that led to the uprising--particularly the extreme poverty in much of the state--Marcos and his rebels have lost much of the romantic luster they once had. Many Mexicans simply want the conflict resolved.
Still, human rights groups say violence in Chiapas has worsened since the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was toppled in the July elections. Fox is the first non-PRI president in 71 years, and Chiapas also elected its first non-PRI governor in decades, Pablo Salazar, who takes office Dec. 8.
"There is clear evidence that the situation in Chiapas is rapidly deteriorating," Amnesty International said recently. "Entire communities have been displaced, and many people within the region have seen their loved ones face violent death, arbitrary detention, torture, disappearance and death threats."
Human rights activist Sylvia Aguilera Garcia said that many of the paramilitary groups responsible for the worst violence in the Chiapas conflict have been controlled by the PRI. Now that the party is no longer in power, "We are afraid there will be no control over paramilitary groups," she said.