Narconews: Delegate Zero Nears Quintana Roo

The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign continues its journey, reporting the words of the "simple and humble people who fight" as they prepare to receive Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos in his six-month tour across the Mexican republic. This time, the team reports from the state of Quintana Roo, the youngest of the Mexican states, where for thirty years poor migrants from around the country have come to earn more money for their families in the tourist industries of Cancún and the "Riviera Maya."

Watch the latest newsreel from the video team:

Delegate Zero Nears Quintana Roo (13:25 minutes):

http://salonchingon.com/cinema/otra_quintana.php?city=ny

And read the latest report from correspondent Al Giordano:

- Marcos' New Politics Nears Mexico's Newest State: Quintana Roo

- "Where exploitation exists, where humiliation exists, where discrimination exists, here you will also find a Zapatista"

- By Al Giordano

http://www.narconews.com/Issue40/article1551.html

Giordano reports:

"When Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos rolls toward the coastal Caribbean state of Quintana Roo on Saturday, January 14, he'll be making a pilgrimage that most of the more than 800,000 citizens of this young state - or their parents - made over the past three decades. The majority of the people in this state are migrants. Previously a sparsely populated territory of the Mexican Republic - home to Maya indigenous, farmers and fishermen - a population explosion began the 1970s when the national government decided to turn a sleepy coconut plantation into the international tourist Mecca of Cancún, and converted Quintana Roo into the 31st state. Back then, Cancún counted with 173 citizens. Today the city's population is half a million plus 27,000 hotel rooms. Those resorts, the shopping malls, restaurants and nightclubs, were constructed and staffed by immigrants from throughout southern Mexico. Many of these workers came from the same land from where Marcos steps out this week: he is only the latest pilgrim to travel the hot, dusty road from Chiapas to Quintana Roo."

...

"During the four-day visit here by the Zapatista 'Delegate Zero' - next Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, beginning in Chetumal - the Maya indigenous farmers of Nicolas Bravo and other towns will present him with the cane of leadership and join forces with the Zapatista "Other Campaign." Working-class colonists of the Maya Riviera's Colonia Colosio will ask him for help in their struggle to protect contested land titles from a state government bent on displacing them to make room for wealthy developers. Young people from Cancún will explain their problems - from economic hardship to police repression - to the Subcomandante and will offer their hand in constructing a new way to take political action in what the Zapatistas propose will be a national anti-capitalist campaign, 'from below and to the left.' Perhaps even an international tourist or two will come to snap a postcard of the masked Subcomandante and the crowds he is likely to draw: 'Vivir Delay-gay-to Zee-roh!'"

"There will certainly be sideshows along the route," writes Giordano, "but this tour ain't no Spring Break."

Read all the latest from the Other Journalism road team, at this link:

http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

© Scoop Media