But people of the southern state, the heart of an uprising rooted in
poverty and injustice, said they are skeptical that the daunting hardships can
be solved as Zedillo promised.
Zedillo, in an inaugural address Thursday, said his most important
challenge would be to provide dignified living conditions for every Mexican.
"Economic progress only makes sense if it reaches every household," said
Zedillo. "Many millions of Mexicans lack the bare essentials."
Nowhere is that more apparent than in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state,
where poverty among Mayan Indians bereft of jobs, housing and basic health
care has led to a rebellion.
Half of the state's homes have dirt floors and no running water. Ragamuffin
children begging in tattered clothes and gaunt Indian women peddling trinkets
are a common sight.
"We must see deeds, not words," said Emilio Morales Lievano, a 21-year-old
shoeshine boy in the plaza of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
"The problems stay the same," scoffed Jose Francisco Aranda Tinajera, a
leader of farmworkers in the southern Chiapas city of Tapachula.
Zedillo promised to seek renewed peace talks with the Zapatista rebels,
whose shooting war with the army cost more than 145 lives in January. A
tenuous cease-fire has held since Jan. 12.
"I am convinced that it is possible to achieve a new negotiation in Chiapas
that will lead us to a just, honorable and definitive peace," Zedillo said.
But the rebels severed all contacts with the government in October and have
threatened to resume fighting if demands for full democracy and help for poor
Indians are not met.
"If the earlier president couldn't achieve peace, it will be even harder
for Zedillo," said Morales Lievano, referring to failed peace efforts by
former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Now a potentially explosive election dispute in Chiapas is heading for a
showdown next week.
Eduardo Robledo Rinco, candidate of Mexico's ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party, is vowing to take office as Chiapas governor on Thursday,
despite charges he won through fraud.
Amado Avendano Figueroa, a journalist-lawyer of the leftist opposition
Democratic Revolutionary Party, suggested Friday that could provoke the
rebels.
"We are committed to civil resistance," Avendano told supporters Friday.
"If this civil resistance doesn't work, and if the government tries to impose
the imposter, no option remains."
Supporters of Avendano launched a series of marches and highway blockades
Friday and vowed to storm the government palace in the state capital of Tuxtla
Gutierrez to block Robledo's swearing-in.
Rebellion, political disputes, land clashes and feuding by local bosses all
overshadow the problem of poverty in a state where about a fourth of the 3.2
million residents speak an Indian language.
"We have seen promises made many times before, but what they promise they
never fulfill," said Pedro Giron Gomez, a 38-year-old Tzeltal Indian. "These
are all pure lies of the government."
Elia Medina Urbe, a Chiapas sociologist, said Zedillo must break a
government pattern of neglect of the state. "It's as if the indigenous people
didn't exist in the political realm," she said.
But she called Zedillo's words "promising, even encouraging."
Zedillo said the Mexican army would continue to abide by the government
cease-fire that cut short a shooting war with the rebels.
He said he would also strengthen the legislative and judiciary arms of
government while waging his war on poverty and battling corruption.
Laura Clemente, 23, a schoolteacher in a community of rebel sympathizers
near the town of Ocosingo, said the government would first have to change a
decades-old style of heavy-handed rule.
"If the government changes and they give us the help we need, yes there can
be peace," Clemente concluded.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This article was copied from the CHIAPAS-L mailing list. For instructions
on subscribing to that list and getting copies of previously-posted articles,
please see the article about CHIAPAS-L posted to NATIVE-L on 22 October 1994.
You can obtain a copy of that article by sending a message to the address
"listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu" containing the text:
// job echo=no
database search dd=rules
//rules dd *
select * in native-l.8946
print all
/*
(Please be sure to use the numeral "1" in "tamvm1" and the letter "l" in
"native-l" and make sure there is at least one space after the "//" in the "//
job" line and *no* spaces after the "//" in the "//rules" line).