Note: While the main stream coverage below (all we could find in English) insufficiently explains this momentous announcement, this article in Spanish explains that Marcos’ stepping down is related to the recent assassination of Galeano, a Zapatista teacher and the desire for a new generation of Zapatista leaders to take hold.
From Marcos’ final communique:
“Pensamos que es necesario que uno de nosotros muera para que Galeano Viva. Así que hemos decidido que Marcos debe de morir hoy”
“We think it is necessary that one of us dies so Galeano may live. So we decided that Marcos should die today”
¡Galeano presente!
-The GJEP Team
By Michael O’Boyle and Tomas Sarmiento, May 26, 2014. Source: Reuters
The leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), Subcomandante Marcos (C) smokes a pipe during opening of the forum to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising in San Critobal de las Casas in Mexico’s state of Chiapas, January 2, 2009.
Photo: REUTERS/JORGE DAN LOPEZ
Subcommandante Marcos, who led an indigenous uprising in southern Mexico and became one of Latin America’s most iconic revolutionaries, on Sunday said he was stepping down as spokesman for the Zapatista rebels and would disappear.
The ski-masked, pipe-smoking guerrilla leader became an idol of the anti-globalization movement after he led the 1994 Zapatista rebellion in the southern state of Chiapas, but he had avoided public appearances in recent years.
“We have decided that today Marcos no longer exists,” he wrote in a lengthy statement published on the Zapatista website that he said was his last message as the rebel leader.
Marcos denied rumors he had become ill, saying he was making way for a new generation to take over speaking for the rebels, who still hold a handful of communities deep in Chiapas.
