Monday, May 26, 2014
Muchas gracias Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico’s Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos steps down.
As many other young men in the 90s, I was fascinated by the story of indigenous uprising in southern Mexico Chiapas. On 1 January 1994, when the U.S.–Mexico–Canada free trade agreement became effective, Subcomandante Marcos led an army of Mayan farmers into eastern Chiapas state, to protest what he saw as the Mexican federal government’s mistreatment of the nation’s indigenous peoples.
While his identity is still unclear, mystery, passion, dream made him soon a post-modern Che Guevara, an hero for many.
In August 2008 I’ve spend few weeks in Chiapas. After they checked on me, I was secretly trained for few nights in San Cristobal de las Casas by people from the hidden Zapatista Army of National Liberation and finally allowed as International Observer in the occupied Indigenous Community “Francisco Gomez” - back then was one of the 5 villages occupied by the indigenous and monitored by the federal army eager to come in and take them back.
Great memories with the others “observers” (mostly Basque) and of course the indigenous :-)
