MAY 5, 2006 Zapatista Leader Reaches Out to Neglected Minorities
MEXICO CITY, May 3 (IPS) – “They torture and kill us because we are different. But we are going to put an end to that from below, where the best people are found,” Zapatista guerrilla leader ÔSubcomandante’ Marcos said in the Mexican capital Wednesday, addressing a crowd made up of transvestites, homosexuals, prostitutes and indigenous people, who cheered him on.
Sporting his trademark black ski mask and military-style outfit, Marcos said his six-month tour of Mexico, which began in January, is the seed of “a great movement that will rise up to put an end to the hypocrisy” of the political parties, the government and “the powerful.”
The spokesman for the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), an indigenous group that rose up in arms in January 1994 in the impoverished southern Mexican state of Chiapas, is leading what the rebel group calls “the other campaign,” by contrast to the ongoing campaign for the Jul. 2 presidential elections.
The aim of Marcos’ tour is to bring together “the true left” and marginalised sectors of society in a front seeking to bring about “change from below” through peaceful social struggle.
The barely-armed insurgent group scorns traditional electoral politics and all of the country’s parties, including the leftwing Party for the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
“We have learned to respect the struggle of sex workers,” Marcos said Wednesday, the last day of a six-day visit to the capital, where he also met with organisations of students, campesinos (peasants) and slumdwellers.
He said prostitutes and others who are exploited and “looked down upon” form part of “the other campaign” and are the seed of structural changes that he believes must be brought about on the political, economic and cultural fronts in Mexico.
Marcos urged his listeners not to put up with mistreatment “from above,” and to fight for their rights.
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