Caravan Heads for Mexico City Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Tue, 9 Sep 1997 08:36:27 -0400 (EDT) c The Associated Press SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, (AP) - Four years ago, Zapatista rebels shocked Mexico by seizing five southern towns and pledging an armed march on Mexico City. On Tuesday, they begin that march, unarmed, in an effort to refocus attention on their struggle. President Ernesto Zedillo failed to note the conflict in his state-of-the-nation address a week ago, and members of the predominantly Indian rebel group say their caravan and weeklong stay in the nation's capital is aimed at showing that they are still an important part of the national agenda. They will demand that Zedillo implement an agreement, calling for expanded rights for Mexico's Indians, that his negotiators signed 19 months ago. Representatives from more than 1,000 villages began arriving here Monday from thatch-roofed homes and rough-board shacks in distant mountains and jungles in Mexico's southernmost state, Chiapas. By mid-day, about 1,500 men and women had arrived, wearing hand-woven blouses and shirts and white cotton trousers rolled to the knee. All wore red bandanas or dark ski-masks over their faces - a trademark of Zapatista rebel dress. About 50 trucks that had transported the rebels blocked a section of the city's outer loop, while sympathetic taxi drivers closed the road to traffic. ``Thanks to them, we have a new consciousness as Indians. We have the same needs as they have,'' said driver Juan Gomez, 24. Police said they would escort the convoy to prevent problems. The rebel leaders remain confined to a remote jungle-covered corner of Chiapas, surrounded by thousands of army troops. On Tuesday, the marchers embark on a four-day journey to the National Palace, on Mexico City's main plaza. Among other things, they will demand that an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 federal troops leave the heavily militarized southern state. While most senior rebel leaders are not expected, the government has indicated it welcomes the gathering as a step toward turning the rebel group into a political party. Several senior rebel officials have traveled to the capital in the past without incident. The Zapatista revolt on Jan. 1, 1994, drew world attention - and much sympathy - for the impoverished Indians of Chiapas. Fighting lasted less than two weeks, and the two sides then began a series of off-and-on peace talks. Other than a cease-fire, the most significant achievement was a February 1996 accord that included greater autonomy for Mexico's Indians. But Zedillo, later claiming that autonomy would threaten national unity, has failed to implement the accord. State and federal governments have, however, addressed other aspects of the pact, including the promise of improved social services and the redrawing of township boundaries. The Zapatistas also have tried to build a nationwide alliance of leftist and Indian rights organizations to pressure the government to stand by the agreement. But that struggle was overshadowed by the victories of mainstream opposition parties in recent elections that ended the Institutional Revolutionary Party's decades-long monopoly on power. Mexico's other rebel group, the Popular Revolutionary Army, said it was interested in forming common front with the Zapatistas. The EPR carried out mostly hit-and-run attacks on army and police facilities in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero in 1996. AP-NY-09-08-97 2336EDT ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-09.12.97-01:17:17-15825