[StJacques]

A Mexican Left Watch ping for you all.

Subcomandante Marcos is now touring Mexico trying to stir things up. It appears he has found new sources of funding to support his activities. His "Other Campaign" (Otra Campaña) is a broad-based attempt, and which he probably can be credited with starting, to address social and economic change in Mexico outside of the political process. The Otra Campaña seeks a new Mexican Constitution and enhanced powers for Mexico's poor and indigenous minorities and it denies that the electoral process can ever be a means for securing true change. For a long time it was presented as a unique proposal of the Mexican Left, but it now appears to be aligning itself with other Latin American leftist movements and it is also bringing Lopez Obrador and the radical elements of the PRD, who are promoting their own "Alternative Government" with Lopez Obrador as "Legitimate President" right now, closer to the EZLN than they have been in the past.

But anyone who thinks that Subcomandante Marcos speaks for Mexico is woefully mistaken. His popularity is really among radicalized university students and the radical fringe, who see him as a romantic figure, and among certain rural indigenous communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca where the EZLN has a very small base. Almost everywhere else in Mexico he is treated as a curiosity and his political support is almost non-existent. I would wager that there are large numbers of outside agitators counted amon those attending his rallies. This does not represent the sentiments of the locals in any way.

[CedarDave]

His popularity is really among radicalized university students and the radical fringe, who see him as a romantic figure, and among certain rural indigenous communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca where the EZLN has a very small base.

I guess we can include some students and at least one professor on the campus of NMSU in that group.

Thank you again for your perspective on events south of the border.

[SAJ]

The only reason Marcos is still breathing is that effectively nobody considers him worth the cost of a bullet.

[Ben Ficklin]

The Zapatistas are seeking an autonomous, indigenous region with indigenous customary law.

See page 6, number 7:
Mexico's Unfinished Symphony: The Zapatista Movement

This sets up conflicts on Mexico's reforms in the ag collectives(ejidos). Mexico's attempts to privatize the collectives by passing land titles to the ejidiantros is opposed by the indians. These ejidos are pre-columbian.