Mexico Rebel Chief Says the Fight Is Now for Peace
By GINGER THOMPSON
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico, Jan. 28 - There was a different kind of fight in the rebel leader's voice.
The urgency was unchanged from the day seven years ago when he first declared war against the Mexican government on behalf of a ragtag mob of Indians called the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Their cause, the pursuit of equal rights for all of Mexico's 10 million indigenous people, remained their primary goal.
But in an interview in the jungles of Chiapas, his first with an American newspaper in four years, the elusive Subcommander Marcos made it clear that the masked rebels want peace.
"We want to stop being what we are," he said, his dark eyes so intense that the ski mask covering the rest of his face could not conceal his expression. "We are people without faces, armed and fighting for what we believe."
"We would like to show our faces," he continued. "We would like to put down our weapons, but to keep fighting for our beliefs like people in every other part of the world."
Although his words at times shifted from caution to outrage, the message that rang like a church bell was that peace could soon come to Chiapas.
In seven years, there have been only a dozen days of combat between the Zapatistas and government troops, leaving 145 people dead. But hundreds have been killed in clashes between rebel supporters and pro-government paramilitary groups. Thousands of others have been forced to flee their homes.
"I'm optimistic," the guerrilla leader said. "I think we will have a successful dialogue with the government, that the war will be ended and that we will be able to move on to new work."
For a man and a movement that have been shrouded in mystery, it was a rare moment of candor. It comes one month before he and a 23- member commission of Zapatista leaders are planning to march on Mexico City in a caravan snaking across at least six states and more than a dozen cities, and culminating in an address before Congress. The rebels will campaign for the passage of a series of new Indian rights - known as the San Andrés accords - which, if passed, would mark the most significant achievement of the movement. It would also mark the Zapatistas' first step toward becoming a legitimate political organization.
During the interview, Subcommander Marcos, who has become an idol to leftist groups around the world, shunned his signature theatrics and sharp sarcasm to talk forthrightly about the lingering obstacles to peace, about the achievements of the Zapatista movement, and about his own postwar plans.
He and another rebel commander known as Tacho had sneaked on horseback into the tiny village of La Realidad. They came with no body guards, and they did not orchestrate any gimmicky displays of force.
Perhaps because of the larger-than-life image of the subcommander that has been perpetuated by leftists around the world, he seemed surprisingly small, perhaps 5 feet, 8 inches, with narrow shoulders and hands that looked ill-suited for combat. His eyes were watery, and he sniffled from a cold. The automatic rifle slung across his back seemed the only threatening thing about him. When asked about it, he said it was not loaded.
Seated in a tumbledown mess hall, dimly lit with candles, he acknowledged during the 90-minute interview that a brewing political storm in the Mexican Congress could wreck the prospect for peace. But what worried him most was whether Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, would respond fully to a list of rebel demands and keep the stalemated Zapatista conflict moving toward a resolution.
The demands include the withdrawal of troops from seven key Zapatista areas in the Lacandón Jungle. Mr. Fox has so far removed troops from four of them.
"If this government truly represents change, and wants to show that it is not going to repeat the old errors, then it will address all the issues that provoked war," the subcommander said, smoking a pipe through a hole at the bottom of his ski mask. "We are prepared to end this, but the government must give us a sign of good will because, in our experience, we have been deceived. Those in power have sat down with us to negotiate, and then conducted new acts of war. They have signed agreements with us, and reneged."
Speaking of Mr. Fox, he continued, "What we are asking him is, `Show us that you are not going to do the same.'"
In lighter moments, he talked about his marriage to another insurgent who keeps trying to teach him to dance, complained about wearing a wool ski mask in the jungle heat, and asked how he might get a tape of the Super Bowl. "You can learn a lot about military strategy from American football," he quipped.
Since he emerged Dec. 2 after nearly five months of silence, news about the Zapatistas has made front-page headlines in Mexico almost every day. The rebels' plans to march and address Congress have raised the hackles of the political old guard, who complain that it would be unseemly, if not unconstitutional, to allow masked insurgents into government chambers. Mr. Fox, who came into office promising an end to the Zapatista conflict, complied quickly with a number of their demands in an attempt to lure them back to the negotiating table.
Besides removing troops near rebel strongholds, the president has dismantled dozens of military checkpoints in Chiapas. He revived the San Andrés accords. And some 17 Zapatista prisoners have been released from jail.
The moves have touched off concerns among some of the president's advisers that he is giving in too quickly without asking for anything in return. And last week, in a small but significant change in position, the president said there would be no further troop withdrawals until the rebels made it clear that they really intended to resume peace talks.
Subcommander Marcos said the government's shift threatened to stall the move toward peace.
"We have asked for seven positions," he said. "For us that number is not negotiable. If they do not give seven, then we cannot start peace negotiations, no matter how intense the media pressure."
The rebel leader has refused to meet with the president and members of the cabinet despite a flurry of public and private invitations.
"We know from Fox's campaign that all he really wants is a media event," he said. "What we want is a solution. What good would it be to have a photo circulating around the world when the conditions for our people remain the same?"
But it takes a showman to know one. And among modern leftist rebels, the guerrilla leader has proved himself a formidable political talent, often running the Zapatista conflict like a one-man play. His writings - ranging from scathing attacks on the government to children's fables - have been sent via the Internet around the world, transforming the Zapatista struggle from an isolated uprising in an obscure corner of Mexico into a matter of intense international scrutiny.
One result is that the government has been put under pressure - some say shamed - into seriously addressing its long mistreatment of the largest indigenous population in Latin America, some 10 million Indians. They have the nation's highest rates of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and infant mortality.
The subcommander - who is not an Indian, but who the government believes is a philosophy professor who lit out for the jungle - called the Indians "the forgotten ones." They lived outside of the Mexican conscience, he said, until that New Year's Day in 1994 when a couple thousand of them put on masks and went to war.
Masks have since become more than a way for the Zapatistas to conceal their identity, he said. They have become a symbol of the indigenous condition. He vowed that the rebels will not take off their masks when they speak before Congress.
"The moment that legislators started focusing on our masks, our response was, `This is what you have forced us to be,'" the subcommander said. "Because of the masks, you are finally listening to us. Because of them there is interest."
Eventually, he said, he would like the Zapatistas to take off their masks and become a legitimate political force that presses its issues against the government face to face. If there is anything that the seven-year Zapatista rebellion has been achieved, he said, it is that he, his fellow insurgents and the Indians they represent will not have to cover their faces to be seen.
"I am sure that this country never again will forget its indigenous people," he said.