Chinameca (Mexico) (AFP) - Protests erupted Wednesday at commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, underlining how divisive the mustachioed peasant leader remains a century later.
Zapata, one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, which erupted in 1910, was killed in an ambush by a rival revolutionary faction on April 10, 1919, leaving his struggle for the rights of indigenous Mexicans and peasants unfinished.
And it remains unfinished to this day, according to many of those who see themselves as his heirs -- including the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or Zapatistas, a former rebel group that staged a brief but bitter uprising against the Mexican government in the 1990s.
To make their point, the Zapatistas led a noisy protest on the sidelines of the official commemorations in Chinameca, in the central state of Morelos, the small town where Zapata was assassinated.
Hundreds of protesters heckled the official parade of young men and women decked out in the garb of Zapata's guerrilla army: broad-brimmed sombreros, farmers' shirts and cowboy boots, with red handkerchiefs tied around their necks and bandoliers of bullets slung over their shoulders.
The protesters then set up a stage and read out a series of diatribes against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist, sees himself as a defender of Zapata's legacy, and has declared 2019 "the year of Zapata."
But he has alienated the Zapatistas with his plans for mega-infrastructure projects they say will damage the environment and infringe on indigenous land rights, including a railroad across southern Mexico and a new gas-fired power plant in Morelos, Zapata's home state.
"We know this government, like all the country's previous bad governments, wants to hijack the image of Emiliano Zapata Salazar so his struggle for land rights will die along with him," said indigenous activist Marichuy Patricio, reading out a message from "Subcomandante Moises," the current leader of the Zapatistas.
Lopez Obrador held a separate event in the Morelos state capital, Cuernavaca, where he also faced hecklers in the crowd.
Thousands of indigenous farmers and Zapatistas meanwhile protested in the southern state of Chiapas, the ex-rebels' bastion, blocking roads and demanding the government do more to protect their land rights.
