Can this happen here?>>Pro-Zapatista protesters block Mexico stock market
MEXICO CITY, Jan 5--Mexican protesters supporting Zapatista rebels in strife-torn
southern Chiapas state blocked access to the stock market and delayed the beginning of trade,
dealers said on Monday.
''Because of the Zapatistas protest very few traders could enter,'' a floor trader said, adding that
trading through a computer system was due to begin shortly after 9 a.m. local time (1500 GMT).
Unarmed pro-rebel supporters also occupied two leading Mexico City radio stations, according to
a sister radio station called Estereo Rey.
Several dozen youths claiming to belong to the Zapatista National Liberation Front, the political
wing of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, took over the Radioactivo and Pulsar radio
stations.
Pedro Ferriz, news anchor at Estereo Rey's Para Empezar program, told listeners the youths were
unarmed and had occupied the radio stations peacefully. They were demanding the radio stations
broadcast a message on behalf of Zapatistas. However, both stations were taken off the air
immediately.
The protests followed the massacre of 45 men, women and children in Chiapas on Dec. 22 by
paramilitaries, sparking rising tension in the area between the army and the Zapatista guerrillas who
first took up arms in 1994. |
