"With your resignation...you save this land from a blood bath that your
ranchers and merchants are preparing," rebel leader "Subcommander Marcos"
said without elaboration in a statement published in Mexico City
newspapers Wednesday. The letter said the "ranchers and merchants" had
been giving displaced people military training. Robledo of the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, beat out Amado Avendano of the
center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, by a wide margin
in Aug. 21 voting for Chiapas governor. But the rebels, who rose up in
arms on Jan. 1 calling for social and political reform, have charged fraud
in the vote and said Avendano was leading by a 2-1 margin on election day.
They had previously called for a vote against the PRI and called for
peaceful protests after the elections. Rural farm workers supporting
Avendano occupied two municipal headquarters in Chiapas on Tuesday to
denounce alleged fraud. PRD officials in Mexico City on Wednesday also
denounced alleged aggression and repression against PRD supporters before
and after voting in the southern state of Guerrero. Two PRD supporters
said they were kidnapped by unknown assailants on Aug. 19, two days before
the general elections.
MEXICO CITY, Aug 31 (Reuter) - Guerrilla leaders in Mexico's southern
state of Chiapas have demanded that Mexico's ruling party give up its
official victory in gubernatorial elections in Chiapas, saying the win was
fraudulent. They did not threaten fresh attacks but told the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party's candidate Eduardo Robledo that he was
guilty of fraud and would face trial before the Zapatista National
Liberation Army's own revolutionary court. The rebels, who launched a
bloody New Year's Day uprising by seizing several Chiapas towns, warned
before the August 21 general elections of possible violence across the
country if the PRI used fraud to stretch its 65-year-old grip on power.
In a letter published Wednesday in Mexican newspapers, guerrilla chief
Subcommander Marcos noted with heavy irony that Robledo had said he backs
the Zapatistas' demands of "democracy, justice and freedom." "I want to
congratulate you for your integrity and honesty in rejecting in this way
the fraudulent victory that the electoral authorities are trying to award
you," Marcos said sarcastically. "With your refusal to illegitimately
flaunt a post that Chiapas' people did not give you, you are saving this
soil from a bloodbath," he said. He added that powerful landowners were
training illegal paramilitary groups in the region. Official results from
the elections show Robledo with 50 percent of the vote while leftist
opponent Amado Avendano, who has links with the Zapatistas, took 34
percent. Avendano, who was injured in a car accident last month that his
supporters said was suspicious, has been backed by some observer groups in
claiming that the state election was marred by vote-rigging. The
Zapatista leaders declared Avendano the legitimate winner but Robledo says
his win was clean and shows no sign of giving it up. The Zapatistas had
called for mass protests against any fraud in the polls but have yet to
announce their verdict on the results outside of Chiapas. A ceasefire has
held in Chiapas since mid-January and army units have surrounded the
jungle and mountain territories under Zapatista control. The leftist
Democratic Revolution Party claimed massive fraud in the national
elections but most observer groups say any irregularities were not serious
enough to affect the results, which brought another sweeping win for the
PRI, in power since 1929. REUTER
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (AP) -- Indian rebels charging
election fraud are threatening a bloodbath unless the new governor resigns
in the southern state of Chiapas, scene of a New Year's Day uprising. The
warning came in a letter to Gov.-elect Eduardo Robledo Rincon of the
ruling Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI. It was signed by
Subcommandante Marcos, spokesman for the rebel Zapatista National
Liberation Army. While most of Mexico was relieved by peaceful national
elections Aug. 21, Chiapas remains a flashpoint with kidnappings,
demonstrations and takeovers of land and public buildings. The rebels'
letter, dated Sunday and made public Tuesday, coincided with a series of
protests sweeping Chiapas. Demonstrators contend the governor's race was
won by Amado Avendano Figueroa of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary
Party. The PRI-dominated legislature in the state capital, Tuxtla
Gutierrez, declared Robledo the winner with 51 percent of the vote to
Avendano's 34 percent. "With your resignation from the illegitimate
pretensions to an office the people of Chiapas have not entrusted to you,
you will save this state from a bloodbath," the letter stated. The letter
accused Robledo and the state government of training ranchers to form
death squads and preparing to revive the war, which killed at least 145
people before a Jan. 12 cease-fire. The rebels demanded clean elections,
an end to government corruption and better services for poverty-ridden
Chiapas. The PRI, in power for 65 years, also has claimed victory for its
presidential candidate Ernesto Zedillo and won a clear majority in
congressional races. Zedillo's two main rivals -- Diego Fernandez de
Cevallos of the conservative National Action Party and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas
of the Democratic Revolutionary Party -- refuse to concede defeat. Both
main opposition parties claim the electoral process was fraudulent.
Mexican and foreign observers admitted there were irregularities, but many
said they were insufficient to affect the outcome. On Tuesday, about 200
men armed with rocks, sticks and machetes blocked the highway through
Ixtapa, a town of 13,000 people. They stopped motorists and demanded money
to feed 1,500 protesters who seized city hall to protest corruption in
Chiapas. Hipolito Perez Coutino, 37, a protest leader, said PRI officials
had offered impoverished residents 50 pesos ($17) each for their votes.
"What we want is that the (PRI mayor) be thrown out of office, and a
municipal council set up to run things," he said.
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