The unimaginable happened. The Zapatistas, led by their masked commandantes and their enigmatic leader, Subcommandante Marcos, finally entered the heart of the capital of the nation with which they have been at war for seven years. Their entrance was remarkable in that these rebels not only came unarmed but also with a welcome from the president of the country that made them outlaws. "We came here only to say we are here," Subcommandante Marcos told an enraptured crowd of 150,000 in the Zocalo, the main square of the capital. "We are a reflection and a cry and we will always be there. We can be with or without a face, armed or without fire. But we are Zapatistas as we will always be." He had arrived with the 23 Zapatista commandantes on the back of an open lorry bearing the slogan "Never again a Mexico without us". Helicopters circled over as the caravan finally reached the end of its historic journey. In an appeal to all of Mexico for a fairer society, he called on "indigenous brothers and sisters, workers, peasants, teachers, students, farmworkers, housewives, drivers, fishermen, taxi-drivers, office workers, street vendors, gangs, the unemployed, journalists, professionals, nuns and monks, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, artists, intellectuals, sailors,soldiers, athletes and legislators, men, women, children, young people and old, brothers and sisters", all to join with them. But despite the enormous turnout and the success of the long march, the mood was not triumphalist in recognition, perhaps, of the uncertainty that lies ahead. Before Marcos spoke, other commandantes made brief appeals for greater respect for indigenous people. Commandante Tacho told the crowd: "We are Mexicans, too, so we say the homeland is ours as well," signing off as he spoke in the name of the "Zapatista high command". Each read their speeches, as they have done throughout the march, from spiral notebooks and then took their places back in the line as Marcos directed proceedings.

The Mexican press was in no doubt as to the significance of the day. "Marcos takes the capital!" said one paper. "They're taking the plaza!" said another. La Prensa summed up the mood with the word unimaginable". At dawn, the caravan of the Zapatistas and their supporters was already breakfasting on tamales in a sports complex on the outskirts of Mexico City where they had been billeted for the last night of their 16-day pilgrimage from Chiapas. They had come in pursuit of constitutional rights for the country's 10m indigenous people, around 10% of the population, and yesterday was the culmination of the journey that had taken them through 12 states. As the 2,100-mile, 16-day trek from Chiapas ended, they were joined by public figures from around the world: human rights ambassador Danielle Mitterand, Portuguese Nobel prizewinning author Jose Saramago, and the French anti-multinational activist Jose Bove. The Zocalo, the largest city square in the world after Red Square, greeted them, but the only sights trained from the rooftops and behind the belfries were those of the photographers and camera crews from around the world and the only explosions were of firecrackers and rockets. It was in 1914 that Emiliano Zapata, the man who gave his name to the current movement, rode in revolutionary triumph into the same Zocalo. There had been rumours that the new Zapatistas would also gallop into the square on horseback but this, like many of the rumours that have shrouded the march and the Zapatistas, proved unfounded. But yesterday Marcos and the Zapatistas did indeed stand below the balcony of the palace where Zapata and Pancho Villa had greeted their own adoring crowds nearly 90 years earlier. Throughout the morning the street vendors there were busily selling their Zapatista masks, T-shirts, mugs, jugs and recorded music, their Marcos scarves and action dolls complete with pipe and balaclava, mixed in with images of Che Guevara. Watching the Zapatistas on their final push, Santos Orozco, 67, a canal boatman said: "They are the defenders of the poor, not just the indigenous." His views were reflected by many in the square.

The Zapatistas finally marched on the capital, disdaining an invitation issued over the weekend by President Vicente Fox to meet in the presidential palace. Marcos accused Mr Fox of trivialising the indigenous cause. "He wants to turn a serious movement into a prime time event," said Marcos. "It would be a hollow media event." The transformation of the Zapatistas from a tiny, ill-armed, barely trained guerrilla fighting force to what is effectively an international cultural movement was emphasised by the remarkable mixture of supporters flocking the streets, from the capital's smartly turned-out bourgeoisie to body-pierced and pink-haired punks carrying placards proclaiming the Zapatistas as their inspiration, and dungareed Italian anti-globalisers. Even hours before the march was due to arrive, as bands played and Aztec dancers performed, the Zocalo was crowded and alive with excitement. President Fox was not in the Zocalo. However he was generous in his welcome, which he hopes will bring him a major political gain with a peace accord. "Welcome subcommandante Marcos, welcome Zapatistas, welcome to the political arena," was his message. Not that Marcos is yet ready to take off his mask and his guerrilla uniform. In a 20-minute address to the crowd and the nation beyond, Marcos referred to the way that the "first people" of Mexico had become the last in terms of how they had been treated. "We are the people of the colour of the earth. We ask you not to let another dawn break before that flag has a place for us, we who are the colour of the earth," he said in reference to the gigantic Mexican flag that was billowing from its pole in the centre of the Zocalo. His speech referred by name to many of the dozens of Mexican indigenous peoples in a list more poetic than polemical. But he made it clear that the Zapatistas' presence was seeking a political response and they wanted "the democracy, freedom and justice" which they felt they had been denied for too long. While opinion polls do show overwhelming support for the march, a peace accord and Mexico's need to act over trampled indigenous rights, not everyone is sympathetic to the Zapatistas. With the rebels already on the fringes of the capital the head of the country's biggest employers' organisation, Jorge Espina Reyes, called them "irresponsible utopian demagogues". But in the square yesterday the banners and the T-shirts proclaimed "We are all Marcos" and "You are not alone". For a moment at least, the Zapatistas who have made such an astonishing physical and metaphorical journey from Chiapas into the consciousness of the world must have felt it was true.