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Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:33:41 -0600 (CST)
From: Andrew Willis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: En;Otra intelligence report -latinnews.com
Copyright 2006 Intelligence Research Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Mexico &NAFTA Report
January 17, 2006 Tuesday
LENGTH: 933 words
HEADLINE: ZAPATISTAS: Out of the jungle and on the road
BODY:
On 1 January, Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the Ejercito Zapatista
de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), launched what he called El Otra Campana (The
Other Campaign). The goal of this campaign is to transform Mexico: Marcos's
increasingly dismissive comments about politicians and democratic politics
suggest that he believes that nothing in Mexico will be changed by the
election campaigns, which will dominate 2006.
Unfortunately for Marcos his campaign was almost immediately derailed by
the sudden death of one of his most important colleagues, Comandante Ramona.
She was one of the most popular Zapatista leaders. She died, suddenly, on 6
January. She was only 40 and had been with the Zapatistas since the
beginning. She had long suffered from kidney trouble and 10 years ago had
had a transplant.
The Subcomandante immediately suspended the campaign, which had begun
with
12 Zapatista vehicles, led by Marcos on a motorbike, driving from the
Zapatista village of La Garrucha to San Cristobal de las Casas. The next
stop was Palenque where Marcos and the Zapatistas were welcomed by a crowd
of at least 5,000.
Palenque is famous for its Maya ruins but not much else.
Even the federal government was moved by Ramona's death. The federal
peace commissioner, Luis H Alvarez, said that Ramona had been an example to
Indian women. She was a Tzotzil who sprung to prominence when she took
command of San Cristobal de las Casas in the 1994 uprising. She was the
first Zapatista leader to visit Mexico City in 1996, when she attended the
first Congreso Nacional Indigenista. The Mexico City government also sent
its condolences.
Marcos resumed the campaign, after Ramona's funeral, on 9 January. The
campaign wandered about Chiapas for the first half of January before
entering Quinatan Roo on 15 January. It is designed to culminate in a rally
in Mexico City on 25 June, a week before the presidential and congressional
elections.
What Marcos appears to be trying to achieve through his Otra Campana is
to encourage people not to vote in the presidential and congressional
elections. On
5 January he called for his supporters to abstain in the elections of 2
July, claiming that they won't change anything. Don't work to get the vote
out for other people, said Marcos, because nobody can deal with what we have
to deal with ourselves.
Marcos was particularly dismissive of the (leftwing) frontrunner in the
presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He said that Lopez
Obrador was not a leftwinger and had surrounded himself with disciples of
disgraced president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Marcos is aiming to build a broad left front in his Otra Campana. The
Zapatistas have tried, at least three times, to become a political movement
but failed on each occasion. They came to international prominence in 1994
with an uprising against President Salinas's government, which had just
implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the US and
Canada.
Most conventional politicians in Mexico discount Marcos as a political
force. They say that they cannot take him seriously as a politician until he
takes off his balaclava. Meanwhile, political commentators in Mexico say
that the most significant points about the Otra Campana are twofold. First,
that Marcos appears to have rejected the idea of the armed struggle; second,
that the Mexican political landscape has changed so much in the past 12
years since the uprising that the Zapatistas now believe they have a chance
of becoming a political force.
Marcos's criticism of Lopez Obrador seems to stem from a fit of pique,
that Lopez Obrador has replaced him as the great hope for the Mexican left.
As such, Marcos claims that Lopez Obrador is not truly leftwing. Even more
galling for Marcos must be the de haut en bas response from Lopez Obrador's
Partido de la Revolucion Democatica (PRD). It said that it would not deign
to respond to Marcos's criticism.
The PRD spokesman said that it wished the EZLN luck in its campaign
because it was clear that it and the PRD had taken two completely different
tracks. The PRD said that its competitors were the two other political
parties, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional and the Partido Accion
Nacional. The Otra Campana had a different objective, though what it was,
the PRD spokesman said he did not know.
Internationally, Marcos still has a following. Bolivian president-elect
Evo Morales has invited the Zapatistas to his inauguration on 22 January.
The Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, reacted huffily to the
news.
Derbez said that an invitation should only be offered to governments, not to
individual groups. The Zapatistas were not, however, the only dissident
group in Latin America to have received an invitation. The Brazilian
Movimento Sem Terra are also set to attend.
Relations between Bolivia and Mexico have been under pressure because of
some offensive remarks made by President Vicente Fox to a Mexican radio
station.
President Fox announced on 11 January that he would not be attending
Morales's inauguration, even though he has been invited. In a diplomatic
snub, the Mexican government is fielding its ambassador to Bolivia, Juan
Antonio Zabalgoitia.
Pointedly, Fox is going to attend the inauguration of the Honduran
president, Manuel Zelaya, on 27 January.
Mexican foreign policymakers have become touchy under President Vicente
Fox and are quick to take offence where none is probably meant. In the past
year the government has had diplomatic rows with Cuba, Venezuela and
Argentina.
LOAD-DATE: January 19, 2006
------_Part_5611_16078804.1137796418538
Content-Type: text/html; charsetISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline
Copyright 2006 Intelligence Research Ltd
All Rights Reserved
Mexico & NAFTA Report
January 17, 2006 Tuesday
LENGTH: 933 words
HEADLINE: ZAPATISTAS: Out of the jungle and on the road
BODY:
On 1 January, Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the
Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), launched what he
called El Otra Campana (The Other Campaign). The goal of this campaign
is to transform Mexico: Marcos's increasingly dismissive comments about
politicians and democratic politics suggest that he believes that
nothing in Mexico will be changed by the election campaigns, which will
dominate 2006.
Unfortunately for Marcos his campaign was almost
immediately derailed by the sudden death of one of his most important
colleagues, Comandante Ramona. She was one of the most popular
Zapatista leaders. She died, suddenly, on 6 January. She was only 40
and had been with the Zapatistas since the beginning. She had long
suffered from kidney trouble and 10 years ago had had a transplant.
The Subcomandante immediately suspended the campaign, which had begun with
12 Zapatista vehicles, led by Marcos on a motorbike, driving from the
Zapatista village of La Garrucha to San Cristobal de las Casas. The
next stop was Palenque where Marcos and the Zapatistas were welcomed by
a crowd of at least 5,000.
Palenque is famous for its Maya ruins but not much else.
Even the federal government was moved by Ramona's
death. The federal peace commissioner, Luis H Alvarez, said that Ramona
had been an example to Indian women. She was a Tzotzil who sprung to
prominence when she took command of San Cristobal de las Casas in the
1994 uprising. She was the first Zapatista leader to visit Mexico City
in 1996, when she attended the first Congreso Nacional Indigenista. The
Mexico City government also sent its condolences.
Marcos resumed the campaign, after Ramona's funeral,
on 9 January. The campaign wandered about Chiapas for the first half of
January before entering Quinatan Roo on 15 January. It is designed to
culminate in a rally in Mexico City on 25 June, a week before the
presidential and congressional elections.
What Marcos appears to be trying to achieve through
his Otra Campana is to encourage people not to vote in the presidential
and congressional elections. On
5 January he called for his supporters to abstain in the elections of 2
July, claiming that they won't change anything. Don't work to get the
vote out for other people, said Marcos, because nobody can deal with
what we have to deal with ourselves.
Marcos was particularly dismissive of the (leftwing)
frontrunner in the presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
He said that Lopez Obrador was not a leftwinger and had surrounded
himself with disciples of disgraced president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Marcos is aiming to build a broad left front in his
Otra Campana. The Zapatistas have tried, at least three times, to
become a political movement but failed on each occasion. They came to
international prominence in 1994 with an uprising against President
Salinas's government, which had just implemented the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the US and Canada.
Most conventional politicians in Mexico discount
Marcos as a political force. They say that they cannot take him
seriously as a politician until he takes off his balaclava. Meanwhile,
political commentators in Mexico say that the most significant points
about the Otra Campana are twofold. First, that Marcos appears to have
rejected the idea of the armed struggle; second, that the Mexican
political landscape has changed so much in the past 12 years since the
uprising that the Zapatistas now believe they have a chance of becoming
a political force.
Marcos's criticism of Lopez Obrador seems to stem
from a fit of pique, that Lopez Obrador has replaced him as the great
hope for the Mexican left. As such, Marcos claims that Lopez Obrador is
not truly leftwing. Even more galling for Marcos must be the de haut en
bas response from Lopez Obrador's Partido de la Revolucion Democatica
(PRD). It said that it would not deign to respond to Marcos's criticism.
The PRD spokesman said that it wished the EZLN luck
in its campaign because it was clear that it and the PRD had taken two
completely different tracks. The PRD said that its competitors were the
two other political parties, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional
and the Partido Accion Nacional. The Otra Campana had a different
objective, though what it was, the PRD spokesman said he did not know.
Internationally, Marcos still has a following.
Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales has invited the Zapatistas to his
inauguration on 22 January. The Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto
Derbez, reacted huffily to the news.
Derbez said that an invitation should only be offered to governments,
not to individual groups. The Zapatistas were not, however, the only
dissident group in Latin America to have received an invitation. The
Brazilian Movimento Sem Terra are also set to attend.
Relations between Bolivia and Mexico have been under
pressure because of some offensive remarks made by President Vicente
Fox to a Mexican radio station.
President Fox announced on 11 January that he would not be attending
Morales's inauguration, even though he has been invited. In a
diplomatic snub, the Mexican government is fielding its ambassador to
Bolivia, Juan Antonio Zabalgoitia.
Pointedly, Fox is going to attend the inauguration of the Honduran president,
Manuel Zelaya, on 27 January.
Mexican foreign policymakers have become touchy
under President Vicente Fox and are quick to take offence where none is
probably meant. In the past year the government has had diplomatic rows
with Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina.
LOAD-DATE: January 19, 2006
------_Part_5611_16078804.1137796418538--
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