Subcommandante Marcos goes political

After little news from Chiapas (in Mexico) in major Western newspapers for some time, I run across this piece in The Guardian:

The pipe-smoking, balaclava-wearing, but no longer gun-toting leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebel group, subcomandante Marcos, emerged from his jungle hideout yesterday for a six-month nationwide tour to promote a new, non-violent political movement...

The aim of the tour is, according to a recent communique, to "build a national programme of anti-capitalist and leftwing struggle". By dubbing his caravan "The Other Campaign", Marcos made it clear that much of the strategy hinges on rubbishing the July presidential election.

An interesting history of the modern Zapatista movement in Chiapas is available here. It'll be interesting to see the impact of Marcos's re-emergence.