Thousands March For More Rights Mexico’s Indians, Supporters Protest On Columbus Anniversary

On the 504th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in America, thousands marched through the capital Saturday demanding more rights, respect and democracy for Mexico’s Indians.

Scores of helmeted police barricaded a statue of Columbus, the Italian explorer who is seen here as a symbol of the repression that began with the Spanish Conquest and lasted for centuries.

There were no reports of clashes or violence.

“If you want work, if you want land, if you want peace, you have to fight for it,” the demonstrators chanted. Many were Indians in brightly embroidered robes and blouses. Others were students and middle-class sympathizers in imported jeans and sneakers.

Some 10,000 marchers spilled into the capital’s vast Zocalo, also known as Constitution Plaza. There, they heard a masked Indian rebel leader known as Comandante Ramona, from the southern state of Chiapas, plea for Indians and other Mexicans to unite in a crusade for liberty and justice.

“We want to participate in a national dialogue with all people,” said Ramona, a representative of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. “A dialogue where our word is only one among many. … We are going to take many steps, but we need you to walk with the Zapatistas. Don’t leave us alone.”

Ramona, a terminally ill Mayan Indian woman, came to the capital as an emissary of the Zapatista National Liberation Army at a weeklong conference of Mexico’s indigenous peoples. Saturday’s demonstration was the last event of the conference.

Ramona’s trip marks the guerrilla movement’s first open visit to Mexico City.

The holiday marked as Columbus Day in the United States is celebrated here as Dia de la Raza, or Day of the Race. It commemorates the birth of the “mestizo” race - people of mixed European and indigenous ancestry.

The Zapatistas rose up in Chiapas on Jan. 1, 1994, to protest the repression of Indians across Mexico. Though their army has been cornered in a jungle for nearly three years by government forces, they have gained folk hero status among many of the poor.