Mexico's underground Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) issued a communique Oct. 3 to the leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), expressing solidarity and pledging to "avoid to the maximum" any action which could affect them or compromise their security. The document, addressed to the EZLN's general command, the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee, and to Subcommander Marcos, stated that the EPR has a presence in Chiapas and that its campaign of "harassment" against the state will continue if the government does not return alive its "disappeared" militants. It recognized that the EZLN "continues to be harassed and in many cases assassinated, in spite of everything it has done to maintain a praiseworthy resistance in the face if these injustices"—an implicit acknowledgment of the EZLN's strategy of civil struggle. (La Jornada, Oct. 3)

The communique, which is online at Chiapas Indymedia, also invoked Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-opposition presidential candidate who charged fraud in last year's election and now purports to lead a parallel government. The statement said many of the EPR's demands "coincide" with those of López Obrador's movement, "in spite of the differences" of analysis.

See our last post on Mexico and the guerilla movement, the Zapatistas, and the struggle in Chiapas.