Over the last week the EZLN has issued several communiques describing emergency changes to its military/political structure. Today, English translations of a letter from Subcomandante Marcos have been posted online explaining the reasons for these recent changes. While the letter does not explain all the specifics, it repeatedly mentions that the Zapatista communities will be making some very serious and difficult decisions in the near future that promise to have profound repercussions:

In some of the communiques of the past few days, we let you know that we have entered into an internal consulta. We shall soon have the results, and we will inform you of them.

It will be a difficult and hard decision, just as our life and our struggle have been. For four years we have been preparing the conditions in order to present our peoples with doors and windows so that, when the moment comes, everyone had all the ingredients in place for choosing which window to peer through and which door to open. And that is our way.

What this major decision will be is not stated but it is clearly stated that it will not be military in nature:

We are now making clear - in order to end the speculations - that this "other thing" does not entail any offensive military action on our part. We are not, on our part, planning nor discussing reinitiating offensive military combat.

Meanwhile, the Mexican government has been making some threatening moves toward the Zapatistas. This is being done under the context that it is part of an anti-drug effort, as the government has stated (and been forced to retract) that they have found some marijuana plants last week in Zapatista territory. This is an obvious pretext as the Mexican government has been recently implicated in a drug scandal of its own.