Armed rebels Friday called for massive but peaceful protests against what they say are fraudulent results of last weekend's elections for president and state governor.
"Only the gringos swallow that," said Subcomandante Marcos, commander of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN, which took up arms Jan. 1, in a statement published Friday.He was alluding to Americans in a contingent of nearly 900 foreign observers who reported President-elect Ernesto Zedillo's election with 50 percent of the vote was largely fair.
"EZLN calls on all citizens of Chiapas to defend the popular will, to reject the lies . . . and undertake peaceful and civil mobilizations to repudiate this fraud," said the communique.
Protests were planned for Saturday around Chiapas, the country's southernmost state where 12 days of fighting last January left 145 dead, and in Mexico City.
Zedillo's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, also led in the election for Chiapas governor, but Marcos said that vote was fraudulent, too.