By Anita Snow
Associated Press
(reproduced without permission from page 1 of the _Oakland Tribune_,
Oakland, California, Monday, 3 January 1994)
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico
Armed Indian peasants battled army soldiers Sunday on the second day of an
uprising in one of Mexico's poorest states. The Indians took over three
towns near the Guatemalan border, and dozens were reported dead.
The worst fighting occurred in Ocosingo, after government troops were
attacked by rebels. The Chiapas state governor's office in a statement
late Sunday said 57 people -- 30 soldiers and police, 24 rebels and three
civilians -- were killed in Sunday's fighting. At least eight died in
fighting Saturday.
The rebels claimed they were from the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation, a previously unknown group named for the Mexican hero Emiliano
Zapata. They said they were protesting abuses by the authorities against
Lacandon Indians in the region and unspecified foreign economic domination.
Also Sunday, about 40 rebels kidnapped former Chiapas state Gov. Absalon
Castellanos Dominguez and two family members from Castellanos' ranch near
Comitan, the government news agency Notimex reported.
Rebels shortly before noon stole a truck, two cows and headed for the
jungle with their captives, Notimex said.
Castellanos, a retired Mexican army major general, was governor from 1982
to 1988. Also kidnapped were his brother and his brother's wife, the news
agency said.
Witnesses spoke of peasants in red bandannas looting stores, wrecking
government offices and burning official papers in rampages Sunday through
at least four towns in southern Mexico.
Earlier, a presidential spokesman indicated force would not be used to
quell the insurrection, the first sign of organized guerilla activity in
Mexico since the 1970s.
A statement from the Secretary of Defense said soldiers in the area were
ordered to stay in their barracks.
The Roman Catholic bishops of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital, and
Tapachula asked for a truce.
In Ocosingo, the army repelled an attack by an estimated 800 armed rebels,
said Juan Carlos Sanchez, a reporter for the newspaper El Tiempo in a
telephone interview. He said reporters counted 25 bodies.
The fighting tapered off after sunset, and the army was in control, he
said, adding that the town hall had been gutted. Residents said at least
six people, including four police, died early Sunday.
The army also clashed with the Indians outside this popular tourist town as
the Indians withdrew, leaving charred debris and ruined office equipment
strewn about town.
Reporters counted 14 bodies after the battle, which erupted when an army
patrol ran into a minivan carrying rebels near Rancho Nuevo, three miles
south of San Cristobal. All the dead were rebels or suspected rebels.
A Defense Ministry statement confirmed the 14 dead, and said another 10
rebels and five soldiers were killed in the Rancho Nuevo area Sunday.
Scattered fighting was reported in the area in the late afternoon.
In other deaths, Servin Martinez of the San Cristobal Red Cross said one
person was killed there. Notimex said five police were killed in Las
Margaritas.
"This whole thing has been terrifying for us," said Hernan Pedrero, manager
of the Santo Tomas Hotel on San Cristobal's main plaza.
Pedrero said the 95 tourists staying at his hotel were taken to Tuxtla
Gutierrez on Sunday under army escort.
The unrest began Saturday when the rebels attacked the towns of San
Cristobal de las Casas, 50 miles east of Tuxtla Gutierrez; Ocosingo; Las
Margaritas; and Altamirano. They moved into Chanal, a nearby village, on
Sunday.
The group is named after Zapata, a popular hero of the 1910-17 Mexican
Revolution who defended poor peasants' rights to free land seized from
wealthy landowners.
Lacandon and other Indian peoples in Chiapas state have long feuded with
state and federal authorities, often over land. Only a few hundred
Lacandon Indians remain in the area, living in a remote rain forest.
The unrest was the latest of many peasant uprisings over the years in
Chiapas, one of Mexico's most impoverished and isolated states. It is also
the country's most southern state.
"This region suffers from historic problems which could not be eliminated
totally despite efforts by five years of this administration," Deputy
Interior Secretary Ricardo Garcia Villalobos said.
[ A good book for background on the Lacandon people is a book written
about ten years ago called _The Last Lords of Palenque_. --Gary ]
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst