Notes from the Zapatista Caravan on Wednesday Feb 28 and Thursday Mar 1. Threats from governor Ignacio Loyola Vera of Querétaro State turn out to be empty. Potentially catastrophic accident shortly after entering Querétaro State.

Morelia, Michoacán, March 4, 2001 An out-of-season torrential downpour with tremendous bursts of lightning and thunder flooded, but failed to drown the Zapatista Commandantes appearance in Ixmiquilpan, in the state of Hidalgo early Wednesday evening, Feb 28. Most of us got back to the bus soaked to the skin. That night we were scheduled to camp out at the Balneario, a sizeable park built around hot springs, in the community of Tephé, a few kilometers from Ixmiquilpan. It was the only night during the trip that both the caravanistas and the Commandancia were scheduled to stay at the same location. Nevertheless, in our bus we briefly considered driving instead to Morelia, in the state of Michoacán and staying in a hotel. But that would have required passing through the state of Querétaro. The governor of Querétaro, Ignacio Loyola Vera, a National Action Party (PAN) right-wing hard-liner, had called for the death penalty for the Zapatistas, guilty, he maintains, of treason. Although his call for execution was immediately rejected by the vast majority of PAN officials, including President Fox (of PAN) and the PAN leadership of the federal legislature, he threatened to arrest any caravanistas who entered his state. Had enough buses decided to make the challenge we might have gone with them. But that never happened. Instead, the caravan proceeded to the Balneario in Tephé for the night. No shortage of mud. Thursday morning under a pre-dawn sky, a roll and coffee sweetened with chocolate, a first-announced, later-cancelled press conference by the Comandancia, and finally the caravan left the Balneario about 9:30, headed for Querétaro. Traversing Loyola\'s state would show, we thought, which way the political wind was blowing. A test of sorts. As we reached the Hidalgo-Querétaro border, it seemed clear the Querétaro State Police were not about to attempt to arest anyone. Rather, all along the route, from the very border, the caravan was greated with great enthusiasm, both by multidudes of individuals gathered at various points along the roadside and conglomerated in the towns we passed through, where the fifty or more vehicles snaked through intersections and around corners at much reduced speeds. Among the greeters were numerous groups of school children with their teachers, who had clearly organized them to demonstrate support for the Zapatistas and the rest of the caravan trailing them, and were out of their schools at the roadside. There were literally multitudes shouting, waving, clapping, holding fists aloft (not the younger children, but from teenagers on up), making the V-salute with the second and third fingers, sometimes with both hands when one was inadequate to express their feelings, and, when the buses were going slowly enough, reaching up and slapping and sometimes even momentarily clasping hands with us. And of course, Mexico is not a country where people speak softly - the roar of EZLN (pronounced A-ZA-Ta-EL-A-EN-A), the acronyn for the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, and of BIENVENIDOS (welcome) ZAPATISTAS, and songs and chants accompanied the body language. What a great, heartwarming racket! I should report that even among the much-hated and legitimately-feared Federal Preventive Police (PFP), who were evidently given principal federal responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the caravan, I occasionally got the V-salute in response to my own. Perhaps they were affected by the great show of popular support for the EZLN surrounding them. But only a few individuals; the majority of PFP officers maintained their neutral exteriors. Among the civilian watchers were many who merely observed, curious but not participating, and others who either frowned or gave the caravan the thumbs-down rejection. But the overall sense, I think it\'s fair to say, was one of great welcome. THE \"ACCIDENT\" (Part 1) Not long after we entered Querétero State, elated by the welcome, a terrifying, potentially catastrophic \"accident\" brought the caravan to a halt. Whether it was truly an accident or a planned attempt to destroy the march is unclear. To settle this question will require knowing the precise sequence of events, still a grey area, because the information publicly available at this time leaves it obscure. It seems to me to have been a preventable accident rather than the result of a sinister calculated effort to sabotage the caravan. But this opinion is only tentative. I think it was the bus I was in (vehicle No.38) that killed a federal motorcycle officer, thus far the sole fatality. An unambiguous and incontrovertable understanding of what happened will only be possible if one or more of the various helicopters surveilling the caravan at that time has a video record showing the entire portion of the caravan from the apparently undisciplined press vehicles preceding the front of the \"official\" vehicles, all the way back to the buses involved in the multiple collisions. A major difficulty is that trustworthy information is not easy to get. Each party involved is motivated to place \"the blame\" elsewhere. And eyewitness reports are necessarily fragmentary when the events extend over a considerable distance, and also unreliable as to quantitative aspects - speeds, distances, times, etc. The account, in preparation, is based on my own experience during the accident, on statements from other caravanistas, and on reports in two national daily newspapers: the Friday, March 2nd edition of El Universal and the Saturday, March 3rd edition of La Jornada. Universal is conservative (\"respectable\" right-wing); Jornada is left-leaning (\"respectable\" left-wing). My newspaper of choice is Jornda. I cannot confirm whether statements made to me or that I overheard are accurate. When I have completed it, I will post it on the Chiapas Indymedia website. But I want to state here my tentative belief that responsibility for the accident is most likely shared among (1) the press, (2) the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), (3) the organizers of the caravan, (4) the drivers, and (5) possibly the owner of bus No.38. Although the accident resulted in \"only\" one death and some injuries, among the cars, trucks and buses parked waiting to resume travel, I saw not more than about 40 yards from the bus into which I transferred a large tank truck carrying liquid propane (or liquid natural gas). If that truck had been struck and the tank ruptured, at least hundreds of people would have been incinerated almost instantly. That not even one fire broke out was a miracle of sorts.

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