Seven years after stunning the world, the leaders of the Zapatista rebels have come out of hiding in the Lacandon jungle and traveled to the concrete jungle of Mexico City to promote indigenous rights and work toward a just and peaceful resolution to the simmering conflict in Chiapas state.
Twenty-four Zapatista leaders, including the rebels' spokesperson and strategist, Subcomandante Marcos, set out on a 12-state, 15-day roadtrip -- dubbed Zapatour by the Mexican media -- to boost popular support for their movement as they prepare to lobby the Mexican Congress to pass a bill on indigenous rights.
Passage of the bill, which would grant indigenous communities across Mexico greater autonomy, would fulfill one of the conditions the Zapatistas have set for resuming peace talks with the government. Marcos will try to use nonviolent means to persuade the government to resume peace negotiations with the rebels, which broke down in 1996 after former President Ernesto Zedillo refused to submit the indigenous-rights bill to Congress for a vote.