http://www.chicago.tribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,2669,SAV-001101015 2,FF.html
ZAPATISTA REBELLION IN CHIAPAS AN URGENT POLITICAL TEST FOR MEXICO'S FOX SOME FEAR ESCALATION IF NEW GOVERNMENT CAN'T MAKE PEACE WITH SOUTHERN STATE
By Alfredo S. Lanier Tribune Staff Writer November 1, 2000 SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- The Zapatista guerrilla uprising in the southern state of Chiapas, festering for nearly six years, will be the first acid test of President-elect Vicente Fox's ability to bring new solutions to this country's centuries-old political and economic dilemmas.
Despite the historic defeat of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in July's presidential elections, Chiapas' political future remains in limbo. Unless Fox breaks the impasse with the Zapatistas soon, some fear that fighting could intensify in Chiapas and other poor southeastern Mexico states.
A billboard welcomes visitors to the "New and Autonomous Municipality in Rebellion of San Pedro Polho," a small settlement outside of San Cristobal populated mostly by Indian families who fled the conflict elsewhere in Chiapas. But the barbed wire surrounding Polho, and the guards standing by the gate, tell a different story.
"What happens in Chiapas is very important for the whole country," said Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, who defeated the PRI candidate to become Chiapas' governor in August. "It has become a referendum on Mexico's policies regarding the military, social and economic development, and human rights."
Salazar warned that failure to resolve the Chiapas impasse could mean a return to armed conflict, here and in other southern states such as Guerrero and Oaxaca.
While convoys of Mexican army trucks and Humvees rumble past Polho, two soft-spoken young guards by the main gate are screening all visitors. After consulting with someone in the village, the guards return and apologize profusely. No visitors are allowed today--especially journalists.
The normally media-hungry Zapatista leadership has been strangely mum for months. Even the defeat of the PRI--the Zapatistas' archenemy--which has lost control not only of the presidency, but the Mexican congress and even the governorship of Chiapas, has not prompted any communiques from the guerrillas.
When the Zapatistas rose up and briefly seized San Cristobal in 1994, they were readily ousted by the army. But the uprising was a blow to Mexico's self-confidence and long-held illusion of political stability. The repercussions contributed a year later to Mexico's economic crisis by spooking domestic and foreign investors who had grown confident of the country's stability and economic progress.
Chiapas Gov.-elect Salazar, a former Priista who led a coalition of eight opposition parties to win the governorship, said he has spoken with Fox at length about his plans for Chiapas. During their campaigns, both candidates said that negotiating a peace in Chiapas was a priority, though neither articulated a definite plan.
At one point, candidate Fox vowed to resolve the Chiapas crisis "in 15 minutes," a cryptic remark that some took as a threat of military action. At other times, he has talked about pulling back the army, or reducing its strength, to lure the Zapatistas to the negotiating table.
Salazar said Fox's "15-minute solution" was meant to dramatize the urgency of the problem. Instead, Fox is likely to begin a gradual pullback of the estimated 50,000 government troops in Chiapas, Salazar said, and forward to Congress the San Andres accords that were supposed to end the hostilities.
The Zapatistas have not won any military battles, but the insidious, low-level conflict that persists in Chiapas continues to sap the political energies of all parties, and may do the same to Fox.
Dozens of "autonomous communities" like Polho have sprung up mostly in the deep Lacandon jungle near the border with Guatemala. These hamlets run their own schools and farms, elect their leaders, and lead lives of precarious self-subsistence. Yet, Zapatistas insist that they seek self-determination, not secession from Mexico.
Meanwhile, the killing continues. In ones, twos and threes, dead bodies show up almost weekly somewhere in Chiapas, many of them victims of paramilitary groups supposedly organized by ranchers and other property owners impatient with the government's inability, or unwillingness, to "resolve" the conflict.
The bloodiest incident occurred in 1997 in Acteal, about 15 miles from San Cristobal de las Casas, when a paramilitary group shot and hacked to death 45 Tzotzil men, women and children gathered for a prayer service.
Political analyst Gustavo Herales, who wrote a book about the massacre, said the conflict is often among indigenous groups, some of whom have sided with paramilitary units and do not agree with the Zapatistas' politics. Others say they join the paramilitaries mostly for the steady paycheck.
President Ernesto Zedillo attempted a military solution to the Chiapas crisis, but it failed, largely at the hands of hostile public opinion throughout Mexico.
Zedillo's deputies and the Zapatistas signed the San Andres peace accords in 1996, granting some political and economic self-determination to indigenous groups. But the accords were never submitted to Congress for ratification.
Despite Mexico's ritual homage to its Indian heritage, the fact is that its distinct indigenous communities, numbering about 60 and often speaking their own languages, have been treated miserably.
A recent study by Julio Boltvinik with the Colegio de Mexico, published in the newspaper Milenio, estimated that nearly 80 percent of people in Chiapas and Oaxaca are "indigent." Nationally, the rate was 45 percent, and in the northern border states it was 30 percent.
Zedillo has tried to win the Indians' sympathies by pouring billions of dollars into Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero states--to little avail. In the August statewide elections, turnout was an all-time low of 50 percent, and many of the indigenous communities did not vote or even let politicians campaign.
"Economic development has to be a bilateral enterprise, involving the government and the indigenous communities," said Cesar Chavez of the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party in Chiapas.
"You can't impose it from the top down."
As interpreted by their civilian supporters, the Zapatistas' economic vision emphasizes collective work and common land ownership. It is a policy stew that to outsiders alternatively smells leftist, Utopian or just far-fetched.
President-elect Fox, of the pro-business National Action Party, is talking about foreign investment and greater exports as economic tonics for Chiapas.
Political analyst Herales said the inaugurations of Salazar and Fox in December may be the most propitious moment to restart the peace negotiations since the Zapatista rebellion started.
"Both Salazar and Fox have supported the San Andres accords, and there is a strong will on their part to negotiate a solution," he said.
"The ones we haven't heard from are the Zapatistas. I'd say right now the ball is in their court."