LADEN WITH GIFTS, MEXICO'S ZAPATISTAS RETURN HOME


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    Copyright 1997 by Reuters
    Thu, 18 Sep 1997 19:50:47 PDT

         MEXICO CITY (Reuter) - More than a thousand unarmed
Zapatista guerrillas and their supporters Thursday wrapped up a
10-day rebel road trip to Mexico City that partly succeeded in
breathing new life into the flagging movement.
         Laden with gifts from admirers, including toys for their
children, the 1,111 rebels and their supporters left the capital
after a five day visit that included a rally for tens of
thousands of supporters in the city center last Friday.
         ``Our journey was a success. The show of support surprised
us,'' said Comrade Obed, a member of the group's new political
wing that formed at the weekend in Mexico City to help achieve
what the rebels have been unable to gain on the battlefield.
         Since their 1994 uprising stunned Mexico, the mostly Mayan
rebels have been deadlocked in talks with the government over
Indian rights and been surrounded by Mexico's army in a remote
corner of the country near the Guatemalan border.
         Their four-day, 750-mile journey to Mexico City -- the first
time a group of rebels had left southern Chiapas state --
gathered support as it criss-crossed southen states where other
Indian minorities joined the caravan of buses.
         And in the capital, thousands of hangers-on followed the
masked rebels' every move during four days of conferences and
public rallies aimed at pressuring the government to sign an
accord on Indian rights that rebels say is a key condition for
peace.
         But many observers doubted the rebels had been able to raise
their profile in a lasting way.
         More people turned out for Monday's Independence Day
celebrations in the Zocalo, the city's main square, than the
Zapatista rally three days earlier. And the Zapatistas angered
even their most ardent supporters by turning up hours late for
every scheduled event in the capital.
         In the face of a largely indifferent populace, which had its
attention occupied in the past two years by the fallout from the
1994-95 peso crash, the government has largely ignored the
Zapatistas.
         ``The federal government's strategy is clear in the face of
those who humiliated it in January 1994 by launching a
rebellion: do not attack them directly, let their isolation in
the mountains tire and decimate them,'' historian Lorenzo Meyer
wrote in Reforma newspaper on Thursday.
         During their visit, the guerrillas warned the government
they would not go quietly. Although they set up a political
wing, it will exist separately from the Zapatista Army for
National Liberation, a force of several thousand fighters.
         ``We will not let ourselves be defeated by a government that
forced us to take up arms,'' Marcos, the rebel group's leader
who stayed behind in Chiapas, was quoted as saying in a
statement read by fellow rebels in Mexico City.
         Many of the rebels, barefoot and wearing traditional Mayan
clothing, had never left their impoverished villages before and
were amazed at the sprawling capital city of 18 million.     ``I
was happy here. There were many women here that saw our example
of struggle and heard our tales of hardship,'' said Claribel, a
young Zapatista woman who was the keynote speaker at Friday's
rally.

 
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