No More Peace in Chiapas

gwelker@mail.lmi.org
Thu, 8 Dec 1994 16:54:29 EST

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico, Dec. 6 (AP) -- Speaking with their feet, thousands
of peasants are pouring into the state capital to prevent the inauguration of a
new governor whom they say won through fraud.
The peasants, many of whom left their remote communities on foot days ago,
planned a march Tuesday to protest Thursday's swearing-in of Eduardo Robledo
Rincon, the ruling party's candidate for Chiapas governor.
Police were deploying in force to guard public buildings and highways.
The peasants had threatened to seize the statehouse to keep Robledo from
taking office, while armed rebels who launched a short-lived uprising last New
Year's Day have threatened a "blood bath" if Robledo is sworn in.
The peasants, like the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army, charge
that Robledo beat opposition candidate Amado Avendano Figueroa only through
electoral fraud.
Mexico has a long history of fraudulent elections. The Aug. 21 elections
were the country's cleanest vote yet, but observers still noted widespread
irregularities.
President Ernesto Zedillo's government said Avendano had agreed over the
weekend that there would be no violence during the swearing-in. There was no
guarantee, however, that such an accord would be honored by all the
protesters, who hail from scores of Indian and peasant groups.
The Zapatistas have demanded sweeping changes in Chiapas' judicial system,
which they say favors the region's wealthy landowners and discriminates
against impoverished Indian peasants.
Late Monday, Zedillo proposed constitutional reforms to overhaul Mexico's
notoriously corrupt judicial system nationwide, but those reforms must be
approved by both legislative chambers.
A cease-fire has held in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state, since Jan. 12,
but the conflict remains unresolved.
"If (Robledo) wishes to avoid a blood bath in these parts, it would be
better that he resign this post, which he did not obtain by the will of the
people," rebel spokesman Subcommandante Marcos said in a statement.
On Monday, Robledo announced he quit ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party in order to work with opposition leaders to enact reforms in the
troubled southern state.
But the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party remained skeptical.
"It's all bluster," Avendano said. "It's pure rhetoric."
"We all know that, in reality, the infrastructure of the government and the
resources of the government serve and are exploited by the official party," he
told reporters.
Violence in the state has been mounting.
On Saturday, three peasant organizers were killed when people driving a
pickup sprayed them with bullets. Two other farmers were wounded in the ambush
outside the town of Venustiano Carranza.
Organizers blamed gunmen hired by cattle ranchers for the attack.
Landless peasants in Chiapas, emboldened by the uprising, have seized
thousands of acres of disputed cattle and farm lands since the beginning of
the year. Ranchers have armed private guards to defend against the squatters.

LACANDON JUNGLE, Mexico, Dec 6 (Reuter) - Mexican peasant rebels threatened
new violence in Chiapas on Tuesday, saying they were no longer bound by an
11-month ceasefire because the government had refused to give up power in the
state.
"The Zapatista National Liberation Army considers itself free of its
commitment to stick to the ceasefire," Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos
told a news conference in a jungle clearing in the heart of rebel-held
territory.
Marcos, surrounded by dozens of masked and armed guerrillas, did not
specify what military action the Zapatistas might take and admitted their
military weakness.
But he said the government had broken the ceasefire by insisting that
governor-elect Eduardo Robledo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
will take office on Thursday despite opposition claims of fraud in the Chiapas
state elections.
He said the Zapatistas "recognised Robledo's swearing-in as the formal
rupturing of the ceasefire by the federal government."
Marcos rejected President Ernesto Zedillo's offer of secret negotiations to
end the conflict which broke out January 1, saying Robledo's resignation and his
replacement by defeated gubernatorial candidate Amado Avendano were
pre-conditions for any talks.
He launched a bitter attack on Zedillo and his government, which took
office on Thursday, and called on opposition leaders to force Zedillo's
resignation with massive civil demonstrations across the country.
The PRI won August 21 presidential and legislative elections handsomely,
but opposition leaders said the whole electoral system was unfair and heavily
weighted against them.
"You are now the personification of an unjust, anti-democratic and
criminal system," Marcos told Zedillo in a letter he read to about 100
reporters.
He said the rebels had opened peace negotiations because they believed the
government and the PRI were prepared to push through major democratic changes,
but that they had been tricked.
The Zapatistas launched their rebellion for indigenous rights and democracy
by taking over several towns in the southern state, but fighting ended when both
the government and rebels agreed to a ceasefire in mid-January.
While he avoided giving details on the rebels' military plans, Marcos
implied they would push unrest into Chiapas towns and villages where they have
civilian support but which lie outside their formal zone of control in the
mountainous jungle areas bordering Guatemala.
"By closing the door to peaceful change toward democracy, you opened the
heavy door to war," Marcos told the government.
He said the army has the Zapatista zones surrounded and has moved troops
into key positions restricting the rebel army's capacity to attack.
He said the Mexican army's position was clearly superior.
"Unfortunately, we can do nothing in military or political terms," said
Marcos.

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo
said Wednesday he continues to seek a peaceful end to the rebel conflict in the
state of Chiapas despite rebel threats over the ruling party governor-elect
taking office.
Eduardo Robledo of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is
scheduled to take office in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the Chiapas state capital, on
Thursday.
But Zapatista guerrillas and opposition groups say Amado Avendano of the
center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, won the Aug. 21
gubernatorial vote.
Rebel leader "sub-commander Marcos" has threatened to end a cease- fire
between the guerrillas and the army that has been in place since Jan. 12.
Avendano supporters have also threatened to install a parallel government if
Robledo takes office, although they have not revealed details of the plan.
Zedillo said in Mexico City he will keep open lines of dialogue with the
rebels. He said his newly inaugurated government wants a non-violent end to the
conflict, but would not accept rebel ultimatums.
The Zapatista National Liberation Army rose up in the poor southern state of
Chiapas on Jan. 1, calling for social and political reform. Government-rebel
fighting, which left at least 145 dead, ended with the Jan. 12 cease-fire, but
talks to settle the matter have stalled.
Marcos said Tuesday in Chiapas that "the period of peaceful civil resistance
(in Chiapas) ends the moment that Robledo takes office."
Official results show Robledo to be the winner of the Aug. 21 vote by a wide
margin, but Avendano supporters say there was fraud.
Robledo has asked for a leave of absence from the PRI so he can rule as a
non-partisan.
He said Wednesday in a radio interview that "it isn't with pressure that
things are resolved, it's with dialogue," while a government source said it
would be "suicide" for rebels to take military action.
The gubernatorial inauguration was moved from the Chiapas congressional
building to a theater in Tuxtla Gutierrez, 420 miles (700 km) southeast of
Mexico City, to avoid protests in the plaza in front of the legislative
building.
Some 3,000 anti-Robledo demonstrators were gathered in the plaza Wednesday
and PRD officials said they hoped for 10,000 by Thursday to protest the taking
of office. The official protests were also planned in Mexico City.

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico, Dec 7 (Reuter) - Peasant groups held protests in
the capital of Mexico's troubled state of Chiapas on Wednesday and guerrilla
leaders warned of military action in a bid to prevent the ruling party's
governor-elect from taking office on Thursday.
About 1,500 protesters took over the main square in the state capital of
Tuxtla Gutierrez and thousands more were expected to arrive later on Wednesday,
but governor-elect Eduardo Robledo said he would only resign if Zapatista rebels
handed in their weapons.
Robledo was elected with 50 per cent of the vote in August elections.
Opposition parties and rebel chiefs claimed massive fraud and have vowed to
either block him from taking power or make the increasingly lawless state
ungovernable.
Rebel leader Sub-comandante Marcos warned late on Tuesday that Robledo's
investiture would open the door to military action for the first time since a
ceasefire was agreed in January.
"The Zapatista National Liberation Army considers itself free of its
commitment to stick to the ceasefire," Marcos told reporters in the heart of
rebel-held jungle territory.
Marcos also rejected President Ernesto Zedillo's offer of secret
negotiations to end the conflict that erupted last January 1.
He said Robledo's resignation and his replacement by defeated leftist
gubernatorial candidate Amado Avendano were pre-conditions for any talks.
In response, Robledo said he was willing to give up power -- but only if
the Zapatista army of indigenous peasants end their armed uprising.
"If the Zapatista army was to hand in its weapons tomorrow, I would be
prepared to resign," Robledo said.
Nobody expected the Zapatistas to take up the offer.
Zapatistas launched their rebellion for indigenous rights and democracy by
taking over several towns in Chiapas on New Year's Day. At least 145 people were
killed in the first week of the uprising but the army has used the long
ceasefire to surround rebel positions and boost its own strength.
Rather than directly attack the army, Marcos implied Tuesday that his
rebels would fuel unrest in areas where they have support but which lie outside
the Zapatistas' formal zone of control in the mountainous jungle areas bordering
Guatemala.
Since the rebellion began, the backward state of Chiapas has become
increasingly unstable with peasant groups taking advantage of the political
crisis to seize lands and push demands for justice and democracy.
On Wednesday peasant protesters in Tuxtla Gutierrez shouted their support
for the Zapatistas and hurled abuse at Robledo, Zedillo and the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has run the country for 65 years.
As dozens of riot police protected the state government headquarters,
peasant protesters held short meetings, chanted slogans and rested under trees
in preparation for the main protests late on Wednesday and early on Thursday.
Although organisers said the demonstrations would be peaceful, some said
they would be happy to end all protests and let the Zapatistas take over.
"If civil resistance does not work, we should let them take on the
struggle," said Noel Martinez, a leftist leader from the border city of
Tapachula.
Robledo, who insists he won the August elections cleanly, has offered to
build a non-partisan state government and reform Chiapas' deeply-flawed justice
system.
But Avendano, his main opponent, has refused offers to join the new state
government and said he will back efforts to force Robledo into resigning by
"making his life impossible."
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