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Zapatistas welcomed
Effort to raise awareness

More than 100,000 people ended a two-week-long march on Mexico City on Sunday, March 11, with a gathering in the city’s central Zocalo Square, as part of a protest to demand greater rights for and recognition of the culture of native Indians.

The march was organized by the separatist Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), and led by the rebel leader, “Subcommandante Marcos,” and 23 native leaders. In two weeks, the demonstration touched eleven regions of Mexico after starting out from the Chiapas region on February 24. It represented 60 groups of Mexican Indians—altogether 10 million people out of Mexico’s population of 68 million. The crowds which turned out to encourage the march along the way nearly matched the record-breaking numbers who cheered Pope John Paul II on his visits to Mexico.

During the rally, Marcos called on the government to “recognize the Indians’ place in Mexican society” with specific laws. Over the next few days, there were meetings between Indian representatives, Mexico’s legislators, and government leaders. A highlight of the march to Mexico City was the Third National Indian Meeting, held in Nurio, where the 60 delegations agreed on their demands. Those demands heavily emphasized traditional Indian social institutions, which could clash with more modern conceptions of private property and individual freedom. 

In a message delivered at the end of Sunday Mass, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City repeated the hopes expressed by the Mexican bishops when, in an appeal ten days earlier, they had called for “peace as soon as possible” in the Chiapas region and a “peace based on justice, progress, and brotherhood.” The cardinal said resentment and insults must be avoided, so as to advance the cause of reconciliation of the Mexican people. He added, “It is necessary to reawaken in the conscience of Mexicans the importance of evangelical criteria and principles for building the worthy, just, and modern Mexico that we all desire.”

“The cry of the Indians: ‘Never again a Mexico without us,’” the cardinal concluded, “must be accompanied by our cry ‘Never again a Mexico without Christ, his Gospel, and the serious and responsible contribution of believers.’”

For his part, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez of Guadalajara warned Mexicans that the real problems of the Indians “seem to have been lost in the spectacle organized by the rebel army and its widely publicized march on the capital.” The main concern, the cardinal wrote in his archdiocesan weekly newspaper, “must be for the requests of the Indians; the Zapatista army must step back. We want to see this march as a sign of peace because Mexicans reject anything that breaks up the country.”