After 22 years living clandestinely in Mexico’s southernmost and poorest state of Chiapas, Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos is coming out to the rest of the country: Unarmed and alone, he will visit all 31 Mexican states and the Federal District of Mexico City. His six-month investigative mission – “to listen to the simple and humble people who struggle” – begins on January 1, 2006.

According to Marcos’ recent statements, there will not be speeches from stages or grand demonstration podiums, as there were in 2001 or in the 1997 caravan by 1,111 of his comrades. He is not coming out to speak. He is, rather, coming out to chart the terrain for other rebel organizers to follow, to discover who and what awaits them throughout the Mexican Republic, in a painstakingly careful and slow process of collecting information, of scouting the terrain for a long-term radical transformation of a nation.

The tour goes from January 1 to June 25, culminating a week before the July 2 Presidential election.

News reports on the progress of the tour will appear here, thanks to the volunteer efforts of journalists of the Amado Avendaño Figueroa Brigade

[ 12 January 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

TONALÁ AND SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, MÉXICO: After a decade-long bout with cancer of the kidney, Zapatista leader Comandanta Ramona died early yesterday morning. Choking back tears and with a wavering voice, Subcomandante Marcos made the public announcement of Ramona’s death in the midst of the Chiapas segment of the nationwide six month Zapatista led “Other Campaign.”

I want everybody to listen to what I am about to say without any interruptions. Comandanta Ramona died yesterday… The world has lost one of those women it requires. Mexico has lost one of the combative women it needs and we, we have lost a piece of our heart,” said Marcos. The self-nicknamed “Delegate Zero” went on to say that the activities planned for the next few days would be cancelled and that the Other Campaign delegation would be immediately travel to Oventic for funeral activities that were closed to the public. The emotional announcement came around 4pm central time yesterday, after an abrupt hour-long pause to a nearly six-hour long town-hall like meeting in the small coastal town of Tonalá.

An advocate for women’s rights and artisanship, Ramona woke up yesterday feeling weak, but still traveled from Oventic to San Cristóbal de las Casas. During the course of the trip, she passed away.

The last public appearance by Comandanta Ramona came this past September, when she spoke in front of the plenary sessions that were held to plan the Other Campaign deep in the Lacandon Jungle, in the heart of Zapatista territory.

Ramona was the first member of the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee (CGRI), the leadership body of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), to have died since the end of their uprising twelve years ago. Her struggle with cancer was a long one, in which she received a kidney transplant in 1996 after extensive grassroots fundraising. Most sympathizers consider the transplant as having brought her an extra decade of life. As a result of her illness, Ramona made few public appearances since the Zapatistas came into the public eye following their uprising, but she nonetheless made her mark in a number of ways within the influential indigenous rebel group and far beyond, with its supporters.

In 1993, Comandanta Ramona, together with Major Ana María, extensively consulted indigenous Zapatista communities (back then, still underground and not public) about the exploitation of women and subsequently penned the Revolutionary Laws of Women. On March 8 of that year, the Revolutionary Laws were passed (in English and in Spanish).

Ramona was a petite, soft-spoken woman charged with significant responsibilities, such as having been entrusted with the military leadership in San Cristóbal during the uprising in 1994. In February of that year and after the Zapatistas called a cease-fire to the twelve-day long uprising in response to mass peace marches, Ramona was the first Zapatista representative to speak during peace talks with the government. Two years later, when the Mexican authorities forbade the Zapatistas from participating in the National Indigenous Congress in Mexico City, the frail and ill-struck Ramona was asked to represent the Zapatistas. The plan worked as the government conceded to Ramona and she went on to represent the Zapatistas, speaking in front of 100,000 supporters in Mexico City’s Zocalo during the important nation-wide indigenous gathering.

[ 12 January 2006: Message edited by: obscurantist ]