Subcomandante Marcos Asks for Actions “Rich in Imagination” to Promote the Other Campaign

By Concepción Villafuerte
From Chiapas

January 3, 2006

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 2: Subcomandante Marcos has asked his followers to carry out actions “rich in imagination” to make the “Other Campaign” contrast with this year’s electoral campaigns.

“We believe it is necessary that public events be realized. Not in the style of the old politics, meaning a big meeting where one speaks and the others applaud or sleep or eat the free food,” he said as he presided over the first assembly of the tour he began yesterday and hopes to continue until June.

Photo: D.R. 2005 Francisco Álvarez

Marcos arrived discreetly in a closed car at a meeting with 300 people held in the Universidad de la Tierra, a center of alternative education for those who sympathize with the Zapatista guerrillas.

Marcos explained a proposal to massively promote the Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle among those who have still not decided to participate.

“I think that you can hold public events that are very rich in imagination. Doing this is important because it is important that at this stage in the Other Campaign, it contrasts with the electoral campaigns. I have no doubt that you have initiative, ingenuity, and creativity.”

While the political campaigns for the Mexican presidency will conclude in June, the EZLN’s political initiative goes farther than that, said Marcos. When the candidates’ “circus” is finished, he said, “we will continue.”

He said that his leaving the Chiapas jungles and highlands is a first step towards “getting to know the territory” before the indigenous comandantes themselves begin the journey. This second phase is programmed for September and could last for many months. Delegate Zero didn’t exhibit either his motorcycle or his chicken-penguin, but he made those present laugh by taking pictures of them with a small camera, “so that they believe me when I say I was with all of you.”

Tomorrow morning, January 3, Marcos will leave toward Palenque, in the northern part of Chiapas near the border with the neighboring state of Tabasco. He will stay the day and night there before returning to San Christóbal January 4.

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