Zapatista Army Of National Liberation

MEXICO CITY - Here they were again, marching through the dark and the rain - the preppies from private universities, the hipsters in fat-lace skater sneakers, the young intellectuals with faces framed in wispy Che Guevara beards, the regular kids with backpacks and smartphones. They pooled by the thousands on Avenida Chapultepec in front of the headquarters ofMexico'smost powerful broadcaster, brandishing signs and banners, trailed by an opportunistic band of hot dog and taco vendors.

In the last four years, one calamity after another has befallen the Maya elder Chan K'in in his Lacandon forest home. In December 1994, a close friend, the Swiss explorer and photographer Gertrude Duby Blom, died. A week later, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation declared war on the Mexican government, and its followers threatened to seize the Lacandon community's lands. The 500 surviving Lacandon Mayas are the last unbroken link to a 3,500-year-old Olmec-Maya tradition.

Jan. 1, shots were fired in Chiapas, in southern Mexico. The grandchildren of Emiliano Zapata--Indians, peasants, the dispossessed--had taken up arms, demanding land, liberty and justice. Surprised by this military action, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari responded in kind. Yet, the Zapatistas held the moral high ground, and public opinion turned in their favor.