Zapatista leader Ramona dies

Zapatista leader Ramona dies
-Aljazeera

Saturday 07 January 2006

A Maya Indian rebel leader and women's rights champion who became a Mexican heroine to anti-globalisation activists has died after a battle against cancer.

Comandante Ramona, a diminutive Tzotzil Maya woman and the first Zapatista rebel to appear publicly in Mexico City after a brief but bloody uprising in 1994, died on the way to hospital in the southern state of Chiapas, said Marcos, the Zapatista chief, on Friday.

"Mexico has lost one of those fighters that matter, and a piece of our hearts has been ripped out," Marcos told supporters during a speech in Chiapas.

Continued...