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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| War looming in Chiapas: Mexico rebel leader |
| 2007-12-18 |
| Zapatista rebel leader Marcos warned of possible coming war in Mexico's impoverished southern state of Chiapas, and announced his departure from public life. "War like fear also has a smell, and now its fetid odor is starting to permeate our land," Marcos told a meeting of social groups here, 14 years after he launched a violent peasant uprising. Marcos said the "supposedly leftist" local and state administrations in Chiapas were to blame for rising tensions, and that the Democratic Revolution Party-dominated Chiapas government was intent on destroying the autonomous communities the Zapatistas have helped set up. He said his Zapatista Army of National Liberation for two years has been trying to set itself up as a political movement in all Mexico, but that it was ready once again to stand alone and defend itself from attack. Wearing his traditional black ski mask, Marcos announced he would disappear from public "for some time." The Zapatista movement rose up in arms in the Chiapas on January 1, 1994, launching an insurrection that left 150 people dead before a ceasefire was declared 12 days later. Years of talks between the Zapatistas and the government have resulted in increased benefits for indigenous Maya people in the region, though poverty remains endemic. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 TOPIX > MEXICAN BORDER WAR ESCALATING. Mexi troops meeting armed/militant local Mexi resistance at US-Mexi border; + STRATEGYPAGE > SHAPING THE BATTLEFIED. US-Mexi effort versus [Gulf]Cartels in anti-Cartel/Drug War. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-12-18 21:18 |
| #3 Mexico needs an Enema. Marcos is a Marxis tool but he has some real legit issues and a bit of social unrest might be what the Mexican Oligarchs need to start making the necessary changes. Perhaps the US should arm Marcos & company and provide air support if Mexico doesn't seal the border and start acting like an ally again rather than trying to have it both ways. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-12-18 13:06 |
| #2 Chiapas is a tragedy, and I fear there is no way around it. It has some of the most fertile farmland in Mexico, farmland that Mexico needs to feed its people, but it is being farmed with Mayan-era technology. The Indians who lived there suffer the rare and terrible fate of being obsolete in the modern world. Machines are alien to their way of thinking and just do not compute to them. Trying to teach them about machines does not work. Literally, to survive as a people, small children would have to be taken away from their parents to be educated. What their parents could teach them is no enough to survive in the world today, and the culture of their parents is damned to destruction. But this has not happened. So inevitably, one way or another, the land will be taken away from them, and they will either be dispersed or die. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-12-18 08:53 |
| #1 Zapatista rebel leader Marcos warned of possible coming war in Mexico's impoverished southern state of Chiapas What the 'leader' was saying is that Mexico City has failed to move enough of us fast enough to Phoenix, Chicago, LA, Denver, etc [you get the picture]. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-12-18 08:23 |