At a recreation centre on the outskirts of Mexico City, the crowd is getting restless. The Zapatistas were supposed to be on the road at 9 a.m. An open flatbed truck, filled with bales of hay and decorated with banners, backs up to the entrance of the centre.
Nobody comes out.
It would be understandable. It is Sunday, and today, for the first time since their uprising began in the mountains of Chiapas seven years ago, the 24-person Zapatista command will hold a rally in Mexico City, dressed in their rebel masks but without their weapons. It also signals the beginning of the long and much less glamorous political struggle to push the bill through Congress, and the even longer slog of resuming peace negotiations with Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox. But the rally is more than symbolic. If the bill is going to become law, Subcomandante Marcos needs to prove that he has the support of the average, urban Mexican voter.