Mexico Letter: In a scene which combined Mad Max with Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, Mexico's rebel leader Marcos left his jungle hideout last weekend in a cloud of dust on board a small motorcycle with a chicken strapped on to the back.
Subcommander Marcos, who led the Zapatista uprising in January 1994, is embarking on a nationwide road trip which will attempt to unite the country's left forces around an anti-capitalist agenda during this election year.
Mexico's progressive forces are sharply divided between those who favour centre-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, widely tipped to win the presidential election in July, and those who want to build a radical, grassroots movement to push for revolutionary change from outside parliament.
The farewell fiesta took place in La Garrucha, a small village on the edge of the Lacandon jungle, where rebels have established an autonomous government.
On a previous trip to this village, shortly after the 1994 rebellion, this reporter found a grim collection of palm thatch huts with dirt floors, where malnourished children watched listlessly as their parents described the hardships which drove them to armed rebellion. There was no electricity or running water and no health facilities.
Now the village is looking positively prosperous as Christmas lights gleam from new buildings, revealing a health clinic and water project. There is a cybercafe and organic orchard, while young rebels with video and editing skills point their cameras at journalists and visitors.
An office of women's affairs reflects a growing consciousness of gender issues, while everywhere there is a new sense of confidence. The villagers have organised makeshift restaurants and built latrines for the guests, while children look smarter and teenage girls have discovered excessive make-up.
"We have a long way to go," admitted one member of the government junta, "but at least our destiny is in our hands."
On the walls of the junta office are pasted the year's accounts, down to the last penny, along with the number of volunteer work hours put in by each village in the area. Radio Insurgente, a Zapatista initiative, broadcast a new year message yesterday, calling on "noble hearted" Mexicans to support Marcos, considered a high-risk endeavour in a country where human rights defenders are frequently imprisoned and murdered.
Before he revved up his bike, the Zapatista chief sent a communiqué calling for no violence in the event of his arrest. On the journey out of rebel territory men, women and children lined up at every hamlet and bend in the dirt track, cheering the convoy, which grew by the kilometre as dozens of vehicles fell into line behind the leader.
The first pitstop was San Cristobal de las Casas, where the lone rider was joined by 15,000 supporters who marched in from the highlands, shoulder to shoulder with the shantytown dwellers of this picturesque colonial village.
Each year the Zapatistas "occupy" the town in memory of their first public appearance on New Year's Day 1994. The rebel army shook Mexico's political system to its foundations, forcing the ruling party to make a series of concessions which helped end one-party rule in 2000.
The charismatic, pipe-smoking Marcos sent poetic communiqués to the media which outlined the injustices suffered by the indigenous, sparking a massive support campaign. Former president Ernesto Zedillo signed up to the San Andres peace accord in February 1996, ceding autonomy to the rebels. The government then reneged on the deal and began training paramilitary groups, which carried out the Acteal massacre in December 1997, killing 45 men, women and children as they prayed for peace in a local church.
The Zapatistas decided to implement the peace accord without government permission. The rebels have divided up their territory into autonomous regions, where hundreds of villages rotate delegates to "good government juntas" which co-ordinate community affairs.
There are coffee co-operatives and welding workshops, collective transport, shoemaking factories and honey production.
The rebels have their own health promoters and bilingual educators and receive occasional windfalls from sympathetic non-governmental organisations.
However, the rebel project remains precarious as Mexican troops are camped close by and right-wing politicians grumble at the notion of an armed movement effectively governing an area the size of Wales. In addition the rebel movement lost some of its political capital when Marcos picked a quarrel with Spanish judge Balthasar Garzon and tried to convince Eta to participate in public talks on political change.
Inside Mexico the rebel group has enjoyed the support of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which finally looks like taking power in this year's presidential election.
However Marcos, on behalf of the rebel movement, dismissed PRD candidate Lopez Obrador as worse than the right-wing alternative and called on supporters to boycott the electoral process.
The Zapatista movement issued its Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, calling for an anti-capitalist alliance which would challenge the traditional power brokers behind the presidential throne.
Mexico's powerful business elite responded to the Zapatista declaration with its own "Chapultepec Pact", in which it demanded that all electoral candidates pursue a neo-liberal path toward economic growth.
Lopez Obrador has received the blessing of business leaders on the understanding that their vital interests will not be affected by a left-wing administration.
The Zapatista delegation, which will rotate members as it travels throughout the country, has received hundreds of invitations from trade unions, indigenous villages and community organisations. Mexico's economy performed badly in 2005, with migration rising to record levels despite severe difficulties in crossing the US border.
"The fight has begun," commented one woman, who cheered on Marcos in the San Cristobal town square, as the Zapatista rebels prepare to surprise Mexico once more.