Villafuerte: Marcos Sets Off Alone on His Motorcycle as the Other Campaign Kicks Off
January 3, 2006
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In the second of her reports from the ground in the city of San Crisóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, Concepción
Villafuerte tells of the first day of the Zapatista's national "Other Campaign" tour. A huge, mostly indigenous crowd
gathered in the city's center to watch Subcomandante Marcos and other Zapatista leaders arrive. Marcos said farewell to
his comrades as he prepared to set off alone on his trip across Mexico.
Villafuerte writes:
"[Marcos] explained that the Other Campaign hopes to unite the struggles of others with that of the EZLN in order to
create a light so strong that the powerful give up. He also spoke out against the 'Chapultepec Pact,' a proposal for
development put forward by the country's elite last fall."
"The Sixth Declaration," said Marcos, "proposes that we go, speak, and reach agreements with all those who work the
machines, plow the earth, those that provide all the different products and services and end up with nothing.
"Of all the things we have, our lives are the least important. We are putting our moral authority, our prestege, all the
things we have achieved into this initiative.
"The Sixth Declartation's main target, Mexico's financial elite, just months after the Declaration's release, signed
what could be called the Sixth counter-declaration, known as the Chapultepec Pact, signed in the castle of the same
name."
"Those who are now asking us to forget all this, to forget out needs, our struggles, and to put ourselves at their
service so that they can decide for us, are deciding such things in this country's castles and palaces."
Keep following Marcos' historic travels as he leaves his longtime home of Chiapas ("like Gandhi in his loin cloth," as
Narco News founder Al Giordano has written) in his bid to unite Mexico's grassroots movements, here in the Narco News
Bulletin:
Shortly, we will publish Villafuerte's next report, on Marcos' last words before he leaves San Cristóbal. And the
reports will keep pouring in as the Amado Avendaño Figueroa Brigade's road team begins to file its first reports from
the villages and cities of the Mexican Southeast now awaiting "El Sup's" arrival.
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin