The scent of sweet cherry tobacco is not something you detect every day in central Campeche, a colonial city built on the coast of the Mexican Gulf. But its unmistakable aroma was floating on the sea air this week when Subcomandante Marcos, the pipe-smoking leader of the Zapatista movement, staged his political comeback after years of keeping his head low in the southern state of Chiapas.

Surrounded by seven barrel-chested minders, Delegado ("delegate”, in Spanish) Zero, as the masked rebel now prefers to be called, bustled his way past balaclava-clad fans, scruffy tourists and a collection of bemused peasants bused in by local leftwing leaders to swell the modest crowd.