By the time I set out to interview Marcos this past March, three to five carloads of journalists were arriving every day at the Zapatista checkpoint heading into the Lacandon jungle. In San Cristobal de las Casas, I had teamed up with Susan Ferriss of the San Francisco Examiner and photographer Ricardo Sandoval. At the Zapatista checkpoint, Bill Weinberg of High Times magazine and WBAI radio in New York joined our group. After two days of waiting, a Zapatista militiaman came to tell us that we would be permitted through the checkpoint. The decision about who gets through is made by Marcos himself and those denied access are never explicitly told they will not be let in.
Mexican journalists grumble that the foreign press gets preferential treatment.
I'm not sure how Marcos decides whom to let in and whom to exclude, but he certainly has a remarkable knowledge of the U.S. press. Inside the Zapatista camps, Marcos likes to make everyone wait for an interview, and in fact he seems to show up only after a journalist throws a tantrum or starts packing up to get ready to leave. In our case that was after almost a week. Through a courier, we sent a letter to Marcos letting him know that we had a flight the next morning and couldn't wait any longer. Late that night, he pushed open the door of the shack where we were sleeping, climbed into an empty bed, and lay there smoking a pipe until we noticed him.