Masked rebel leader has a new cause in Mexico Vows to oppose leftist presidential candidate
The pipe-smoking, ski-mask wearing Zapatista rebel leader Subcommander Marcos once again is firing his rhetorical cannon shots from his hideout in the jungle.
Through a flurry of tongue-in-cheek e-mails and letters, the man who spearheaded an indigenous rebellion in Chiapas in 1994 has challenged an Italian soccer team to a match with his hooded guerrillas, co-written a detective novel for a Mexico City newspaper and joked about his growing, un-guerrillalike belly.
But then Marcos aimed a broadside at a more serious target when he attacked former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, saying the country’s leading presidential candidate is betraying his leftist roots and would “screw us all” if elected next year.
In his first public appearance in four years, Marcos on Aug. 6 told a gathering of left-wing activists in Chiapas that the ex-mayor had positioned himself too far toward the political center and that the Zapatistas would “go with everything” to oppose him. Lopez Obrador, forced to respond just as he was launching a national tour Friday to drum up support, denied that he had forsaken his leftist past but refused to enter into a war of words with the iconic rebel leader.
“I respect his opinion,” Lopez Obrador, who resigned his mayoral post last month to campaign, told a television interviewer. “I am a leftist, because I am a humanist.”
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Zapatista rebel chief launches attack on Mexico's politicians
The leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebel movement emerged from hiding and for the first time in four years showed his masked face to the public, launching a broadside against the country's politicians.
He told supporters in San Rafael: ''They'll pay for everything they have done to us. They are a bunch of shameless scoundrels."
The leader, known as "Subcomandante Marcos", was speaking near the jungles of Chiapas state, where the rebels have their stronghold.
He targeted the former mayor of Mexico City and front-runner in next year's presidential elections, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. "They say: 'Maybe
Former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador contends he's a leftist at heart but called for a "non-ideological" economic policy.
Polls show Lopez Obrador to be the leading candidate in the 2006 race for Mexico's presidency. His comment comes days after he was harshly criticized by Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos. Lopez Obrador said he respects the rebel leader and won't get into any arguments with him or respond to the criticisms.Still, Lopez Obrador says he's been misinterpreted in earlier articles that suggested he had turned to the center. Lopez Obrador spoke on the day before the launch of what
Mexico presidential challenger vows protests after court rejects full recount
Mexico leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [campaign website, in Spanish] has vowed to continue with street demonstrations after the Federal Electoral Tribunal [official website, in Spanish] on Saturday rejected his request for a full ballot-by-ballot recount [JURIST report] of all votes cast in the July 2 presidential election [JURIST news archive], which Obrador lost by less than a percentage point to conservative Felipe Calderon [campaign website, in Spanish]. Obrador slammed the seven judges unanimous ruling, telling followers that were going to continue our movement of peaceful civil resistance...If
Factions fighting over Mexico presidency candidates
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left his job as Mexico City’s mayor in July to run for president, is currently favored to win the nomination of the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD). But the party, originally formed through the alliance of several small leftist parties and dissidents who split from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as well as the candidate himself, have been charged with corruption by Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).
According to Mexico Labor News, Marcos said that a vote for López Obrador would be little
Thousands pack Mexico City plaza as ex-mayor accepts leftist coalition's presidential nomination
Tens of thousands filled the Mexican capital's massive main plaza Saturday as a fiery former mayor considered the 2006 presidential race's front-runner formally accepted the nomination of a coalition of leftist parties.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who stepped down as Mexico City mayor to run for president with the Democratic Revolution Party, faced a sea of supporters chanting "Obrador! Obrador!" and wearing hats and waving flags featuring his party's yellow-and-black colors.
But perhaps the best-known face of the Mexican left -- Democratic Revolution founder and perennial presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc
Zapatistas start political tour of Mexico
The leader of the military group promises to advance its socialist, pro-Indian cause through peaceful means.
Twelve years after a short but violent New Year's uprising in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state, the Zapatistas have launched a new campaign to reshape the nation - a political campaign.
The leader of the Mayan Zapatistas, Subcomandante Marcos, launched a national tour Sunday to rally support for the group's pro-Indian, socialist policies, reports the Associated Press.
Thousands of supporters cheered as Subcommandante Marcos, the Indian rights movement's ski-masked leader, roared through La Garrucha on a black motorcycle with a Mexican flag
Mexico's leftist candidate courts private sector
The leftist candidate in Mexico's July presidential election, widely popular among the country's poor, is stepping up efforts to dispel fears among a skeptical private sector, according to a campaign official.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution, understands the importance of private investment and would manage the economy responsibly, Jesus Ortega, head of Lopez Obrador's campaign, told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.
"We're already going to businessmen specifically to reverse the lies, slanders and fear," Ortega said.
Lopez Obrador has promised to maintain fiscal discipline and ensure the central bank
In Mexico, a man and his 'Penguin' seek office
SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico This is the oddest political campaign to emerge in Mexico in many a year.
The candidate is a Marxist rebel leader who once started a civil war, wears a ski mask, smokes a pipe, keeps a crippled chicken as a mascot and is not on the ballot for any political office.
Yet the six-month national tour led by the man who calls himself Subcommander Marcos has all the earmarks of a run-of-the-mill campaign for political office: slogans, chants, partisan songs, rallies large and small, a campaign
Mexico arrests former police official in 1975 kidnap, disappearance of leftist rebel
Police on Thursday arrested Carlos Solana Macias, a former police director in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, for the 1975 kidnapping of leftist rebel Jesus Piedra Ibarra, who was never seen again.
It was the latest chapter in Mexico's uneven efforts to prosecute political crimes of the 1960s and 70s. Piedra Ibarra's mother, Rosario Ibarra, has fought a 30-year struggle for justice in her son's case.
Solana Macias was arrested while driving in a wealthy Mexico City neighborhood, and will be transferred to Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo
Lopez Vows to Make Mexico Self Sufficient in Fuels
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the frontrunner in presidential polls for more than two years, pledged to make Mexico self sufficient in natural gas and gasoline in three years by increasing spending on the energy industry.
``Within three years, it's our promise and goal stop importing natural gas and gasoline,'' Lopez Obrador said during a Mexico City business conference.
Lopez Obrador said the lack of new refineries is ``criminal'' and promised to modernize the country's energy industry. Mexico now imports gasoline and natural gas from the U.S.
The candidate from the Democratic
