Subcomandante Marcos in La Hormiga

January 6, 2006
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague,

Don't miss the three articles published yesterday in The Narco News
Bulletin covering Subcomandante Marcos' visit to the sprawling
indigenous slum of La Hormiga, on the outskirts of the city of San
Cristóbal de las Casas in the Chiapas highlands. As Concepción
Villafuerte reported the day before, many of La Hormiga's residents
came to the city after being expelled from their own communities for
religious reasons.

Julie Webb-Pullman describes the atmosphere of the event with her
words and photographs. She writes:

"In contrast to the frenzied crowds of New Year's Day, this
afternoon's event was more like a friendly visit. It seemed the whole
neighborhood was coming to the welcome, and despite the sky clouding
over and rain threatening, the crowd continued to grow."

http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo/

Concepción Villafuerte relates Marcos' words on how residents of La
Hormiga provided crucial support to the Zapatista rebels in the first
days of their uprising, saving many lives:

In Marcos' words:

"In the first hours of the uprising, on January 1, 1994, and then on
the 2nd and 3rd, our forces began to be attacked by planes and
helicopters from the federal army, and several of our troops were
trapped here in the mountains around San Cristóbal; those who
remember those times remember the images of the planes dropping
bombs. It was the brothers from La Hormiga, the taxi and bus drivers,
who, without asking anything in return, began to move our troops
toward safer places."

http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo/

Villafuerte also reports on Marcos' call in La Hormiga for the poor
to abandon the dominant PRI party in Chiapas, calling the party a
group of "murderers and liars." She then gives a glimpse of the rest
of Marcos' tour through Chiapas before heading north to the Yucatan
peninsula:

"...Later he will move on to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the Chiapas state
capital. There, teachers from the seventh section of the National
Education Workers' Union will receive him. Not all the teachers, just
a small sector, or, rather, sect of teachers, because although the
union is 'democratic,' some of its members are 'more democratic than
others,' and the EZLN usually visits them in secret. But this time,
if they resolve to participate, it will have to be out in the open."

All these stories and more can be found at the home page for "the
Other Journalism about the Other Campaign":

http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo/

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
webmaster [at] narconews.com