By ANTHONY DePALMA
New York Times
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- In the first response to the
government's call to renew peace negotiations in the state of Chiapas,
an Indian leader said Wednesday that the Zapatista rebels were willing
to talk on the condition the Mexican Army withdraws from more than a
dozen villages it has occupied since Friday.
In a meeting Wednesday with reporters, the Indian leader who calls
herself Major Ana Maria said the government would also have to drop
charges against the rebel leader Subcommander Marcos and other
Zapatistas.
``For us to talk the government needs to withdraw troops,'' she said.
President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon on Wednesday sent a measure to
the Mexican Congress that would grant amnesty to rebels who lay down
their arms. Tuesday, Zedillo ordered an halt to army attacks on the
rebels and urged them to reopen talks.
The army also allowed reporters into the occupied areas Tuesday,
including the village of Morelia, where residents denied reports that
the Mexican army had dropped bombs as troops advanced into rebel-held
territory last week.
The first reporters to arrive in Morelia could find no evidence that
any type of bombs or rockets had been used against the population.
``We are here all the time and we would have heard it if something had
happened, but we didn't hear anything,'' said Manuel Gomez, 33.
Together with about 30 other men in front of the Church of Jesus of
Good Hope on Tuesday night, Gomez said that three helicopters had
passed over Morelia at 9 a.m. Friday and that more than 150 of the 200
families who used to live here had left for the mountains. However, he
denied several times that a confrontation had taken place there.
``Why would I lie?'' he said. ``We wouldn't be here if there had been
a bombardment.''
The Mexican government denied that there had been any attacks, but
Amnesty International officials said they had confirmed reports of
``an aerial strafing'' in several places, including Morelia.
People who know the village said that it was sharply divided between
rebel sympathizers and government supporters and that those who did
not flee were probably government loyalists.
The initial reports of bombing in Morelia and another small village,
La Garrucha, came in a statement delivered to news agencies in San
Cristobal de las Casas on Sunday. The statement purported to have been
written by the Indian leaders of the Zapatista National Liberation
Army.
Reporters who visited La Garrucha also could not find any evidence of
bombings.
Carlos Salinas, a program officer for Amnesty International, said that
confirmed reports of strafing had been obtained from several sources.
MEXICO OFFERS TO GIVE AMNESTY TO REBEL LEADER / ZEDILLO CALLS OFF MANHUNT
Kieran Murray
San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico The Mexican government called off a
manhunt for Zapatista rebel leader Subcommander Marcos yesterday and
said it was prepared to offer him an amnesty.
``Marcos . . . has gone into the jungle, and there was a risk of
confrontation'' if security forces continued to chase him, Attorney
General Antonio Lozano said in a radio interview.
Asked whether Marcos, the spokesman and military leader of the
self-styled Zapatista National Liberation Army, could benefit from an
amnesty offered to the rebels by President Ernesto Zedillo, Lozano
said: ``Yes, he would be a free man under the terms of the amnesty
law.''
Last week, Zedillo publicly identified Marcos for the first time as
Rafael Guillen, the son of a middle-class family that owns a string of
furniture stores. Marcos has not clearly confirmed or denied that this
is his real identity.
On Tuesday, Zedillo ordered government security forces to halt their
advance on Zapatista positions and to avoid any action that could lead
to a clash with the rebels.
He said he would send an amnesty law to Congress, which is dominated
by his own ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), for
immediate consideration yesterday. By the end of the day, however, the
proposal had not been submitted.
Zedillo also called on the rebels to seek a political solution to the
conflict in Chiapas, the poor southern state where the Zapatistas rose
up in arms on New Year's Day 1994 to demand indigenous rights and
greater democracy. There has been no reply from the rebels so far.
The interior ministry said in a statement that ``important advances
have been made in the search for a basic solution'' to the state's
problems.
The ministry also said that the government had asked legislators and
the country's Human Rights Commission to verify that no rights abuses
or clashes had taken place during the advance by troops that pushed
the Zapatistas back into the depths of their Lacandon jungle
stronghold near the Guatemalan border.
The rebels have alleged that the army bombarded civilian areas and
tortured prisoners during the advance.
The government has confirmed only two deaths of military personnel
since the operation began, both as a result of an ambush near the town
of Nuevo Momon on Friday.
The rebels denied, however, that they had carried out that attack and
suggested that the shooting was ``friendly fire'' between two groups
of government troops.
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MEXICO CALLS OFF MANHUNT FOR ZAPATISTA LEADER / REBELS MAY BE READY TO TALK
Mexico City Federal agents suspended their hunt for rebel leader
Subcommander Marcos yesterday, and the Zapatista National Liberation
Army said it is ready to renew talks with the Mexican government --
under certain conditions.
As President Ernesto Zedillo's new peace offensive began to take
shape, members of a Mexican congressional committee announced that
they will leave for the embattled southern state of Chiapas today to
re-establish contact with the Zapatistas.
But rebel Major Ana Maria outlined some conditions yesterday. ``For us
to talk, the government needs to withdraw troops from the places where
they are now, stop arresting people and cancel the arrest orders''
against Zapatista leaders, she said, according to the Reuters news
agency. Although the army search for the leaders has been halted, the
arrest warrants are still in place.
But the Mexican Congress will consider a blanket amnesty bill for the
rebels at a special session beginning Monday.
Zedillo sent the 17-page bill to Congress yesterday, calling for ``a
new political order in Chiapas.''
``The path is open for all personalities, all leaders and all
organizations to participate in the construction of a new democratic
order in Chiapas,'' Zedillo said.
``To that end, I believe it will help greatly to declare an amnesty
that could give refuge to Zapatista members -- on the condition that,
in a peaceful way, they forge agreements that guarantee a peaceful
solution.''
The president gave no explanation for his decision to seek amnesty for
the same leaders he ordered to be arrested a week earlier.
But he indicated that the military crackdown had been designed to
reinstate the rule of law and the government's presence in a vast
region where the rebels have held sway.
A committee of elected senators and House deputies -- many of whom
were opposed to the crackdown -- is to arrive today in Chiapas'
capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, where they hope to use the pending offer of
amnesty to restore negotiations begun with the Zapatistas in late
December, informed sources said.
Asked whether Zedillo's draft bill would exonerate Marcos, Attorney
General Antonio Lozano said, ``Yes, he would be a free man under the
terms of the amnesty law.''
Lozano, a member of the National Action Party and the first opposition
party member to serve in a ruling party cabinet, also attempted to
justify the government's policy switch in Chiapas by saying, ``Marcos
. . . went into the jungle, and there was a risk of confrontation'' if
government forces continued to pursue him.
Other cabinet ministers joined Lozano in an attempt to refute charges
that government agents tortured Zapatista suspects in custody to
obtain confessions and that the army bombed civilians during its
jungle operations. The charges came from international human rights
groups and rebel leaders.
Lozano's office announced that judicial authorities had released six
of the 19 Zapatista suspects arrested during the past week.
Yesterday in Mexico City, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party
organized marches and a mass demonstration -- complete with brass
bands and indigenous Mexican dancers -- in an attempt to cast Zedillo
as a peacemaker. On Tuesday, the president called for peace talks with
the rebels less than a week after he had abandoned negotiations.
``Zedillo, yes! War, no!'' chanted the PRI loyalists, who carried
banners and placards declaring, ``We support the decision of our
president.''
MEXICO'S REBELS RIDING THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
Sara Silver
Mexico City Mexico's Zapatista rebels operate in the nation's most
backward state, where the nearest phone is sometimes 50 miles away.
But their supporters are on the technological edge, where worldwide
communication is just a modem away.
The rebels' statements are traveling the information highway, relayed
by church and human rights groups. Through the Internet, they're being
heard around the globe.
Barbara Pillsbury translates and posts news and analysis on Chiapas on
the Internet from her Mexico City office at Equipo Pueblo, a rural
development organization. Her group, like others distributing news of
the rebels, is sympathetic to the problems of Mexican peasants but
favors a peaceful solution to their struggle.
Some of the news goes to congressional staffers in Washington.
``It's clear that a lot of things that affect Mexico get decided in
Washington,'' said Pillsbury, a 24-year-old Yale graduate from New
York City who first saw army tanks headed into the Chiapas jungle when
she was on a family vacation a year ago.
Pillsbury's boss, Carlos Heredia, says Equipo Pueblo has been subject
to harassment -- office break-ins, arson, and accusations of rebel
links.
``The Mexican government can deal with critics who write newspaper
columns, but once you get on Internet and American TV they can't
control it,'' he said.
With soldiers blocking reporters from entering war zones, news within
Chiapas travels slowly.
But once the information reaches computers in Mexico City, it moves
across the wires within minutes.
Users of Internet, the computer network linking universities,
businesses and activists, can browse through dozens of files for
material on Mexico.
By sending a simple message, they can ``subscribe'' to four separate
bulletins on Chiapas in English or Spanish, and reach like-minded
organizations and activists across the world.
Phil McManus, an activist with the ecumenical peace group Fellowship
of Reconciliation, relies on computerized access to Chiapas news to
alert some 1,500 people ready to send faxes.
Electronic communication has also brought together human rights
monitors in Chiapas with organizations that lobby the government in
the Mexican capital.
``It has facilitated our work a lot,'' said Mariclaire Acosta,
president of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of
Human Rights.
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