Following five months of silence, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, in the voice of Subcomandante Marcos, issued a statement on November 30. Its gist was aimed at outgoing president Zedillo: "Hi. We're still here. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out."

The Zapatistas called for incoming Mexican president Vincente Fox to back up his campaign promises of peace in Chiapas with deeds, not words. Marcos announced a press conference for December 2, the day after the right-leaning Fox's inauguration. Immediately upon taking office, President Fox ordered the army in Chiapas to remove 53 checkpoints and assemble in their barracks.

The Fox administration indicated that the Army would be withdrawn to positions where "social peace would be guaranteed, but they would not act as an additional element in disturbing it."

At the press conference, Marcos' first public appearance in two years, he expressed the willingness of the EZLN to give Fox the benefit of the doubt. "You are starting from scratch, and you will have the opportunity to choose whether to follow the path of war or to choose that of dialogue for peace."

He said that once the government implemented the four-year-old San Andres accords, peace negotiations would resume.

Marcos said he would be traveling to Mexico City, in February, along with his General Staff, in order to promote the Congress' approval of a legislative proposal on Indigenous Rights and Culture.

During his inaugural speech, President Fox promised that his first legislative act would be sending to the Congress, next week, "as a legislative proposal, the document drawn up by the Cocopa which summarizes the San Andres Accords."

Stay tuned. Keep believing.