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Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 08:01:39 -0600 (CST)
From: Mauricio Banda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Mexico XXI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [AP,LAT] Zapatista Rebels, Gov't Claim Success
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Index:
* AP: Mexican Rebels, Gov't Claim Succes
* L.A. Times: Mexican Rebels Seek Backing in Nationwide Referendum
* Mexican Rebels, Gov't Claim Success
By Ken Guggenheim
Associated Press Writer
Monday, March 22, 1999; 9:16 p.m. EST
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- After a weekend in which both the Zapatista rebels
and the government bragged about their successes in the 5-year-old
conflict in Chiapas state, disputes between the two sides seemed no
closer to being resolved.
The Zapatistas declared victory in an informal nonbinding referendum
they had organized Sunday, claiming that at least 95 percent of an
estimated 2.5 million people voting supported their position on Indian
rights.
But the government mostly ignored the vote, noting that the wording of
the questions -- one asked whether Indians should be included in the
national agenda -- made it unlikely anyone would vote ``no.''
On Saturday, President Ernesto Zedillo lauded his government's efforts
to improve education in the poor southern state and urged Congress to
consider constitutional amendments he proposed last year to boost
Indian rights.
But he failed to address criticism by the Zapatistas and their
supporters that his proposals fail to meet the government's
commitments under a partial peace accord signed in 1996, in which the
government agreed to give Indians greater autonomy. The peace process
has collapsed over the dispute.
The Zapatistas, who staged a brief uprising in January 1994 in the
name of Indian rights, don't pose a serious military threat. But the
conflict has been a festering sore for the government.
Mexico has frequently received international criticism for its
handling of the Chiapas conflict. Clashes between Zapatista supporters
and backers of the government have been common, including a December
1997 massacre of 45 Indian villagers by pro-government gunmen.
With about one-third of the polling places reporting, between 2
percent and 3 percent of voters gave ``no'' answers, said the man in
charge of the tabulation, Enrique Calderon, surrounded by ski-masked
rebel representatives, academics and literati at a news conference
early Monday.
``There were people who had contrary opinions, and those will be taken
into account,'' he said.
There was no formal voter registration so it was impossible to
calculate the percentage of voter turnout.
Meanwhile, the government threatened to expel 10 foreigners -- most of
them American -- who an immigration official said were caught voting
in Chiapas state. The U.S. Embassy said it was trying to contact the
Americans.
Two of the Americans, Paul Lebins and Erica England of Washington
state, denied Monday that they had voted in the referendum and said
they had only followed a demonstration march out of curiousity.
The government has expelled dozens of foreign activists in the past
year, claiming their political activities violated their tourist
visas.
(c) Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
* Los Angeles Times, Monday, March 22, 1999 NATION &WORLD
Mexican Rebels Seek Backing in Nationwide Referendum
By JAMES F. SMITH, Times Staff Writer
NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico--Thousands of masked Zapatista rebels slipped
out of their jungle hide-outs in the southern state of Chiapas and
took up strategic positions Sunday in cities and towns across Mexico.
Their mission: to carry out an unofficial referendum at makeshift
voting tables in large cities, town squares and village markets,
asking ordinary Mexicans to declare their support for Indian
rights--and for resuming long-stalled peace negotiations on the
Chiapas conflict.
Civilian sympathizers set up about 9,000 polling booths in all 31
states and the Mexico City Federal District, and about 5,000 Maya
Indians from the Zapatista National Liberation Army were sent from
Chiapas to assist. Supporters in Mexico and abroad also were casting
votes via the Internet.
Organizers predicted that more than 1 million people would take
part in the festive, daylong initiative, and dozens of people lined up
at some downtown Mexico City voting booths, although other tables had
only a trickle of supporters. Preliminary turnout figures were
expected Sunday night from an independent polling agency assisting
with the count.
While the outcome of the referendum was a foregone conclusion,
the Zapatistas could use the expected public endorsement of their
cause to pressure the government to break a 30-month deadlock in peace
negotiations.
Although the government dismissed the exercise as "absurd" and a
transparent propaganda maneuver, officials assured the rebels safe
conduct, and they moved about freely in most towns--in contrast to the
army siege at their encampments every day in Chiapas. The rebels
staged a bloody 10-day uprising for Indian rights in January 1994 that
sputtered into a sullen cease-fire interrupted by occasional bloody
clashes.
On the edge of Mexico City's immense, garbage-strewn bedroom
suburb of Nezahualcoyotl, some passersby watched with curiosity as
masked insurgents mingled at a street-corner voting table with a few
neighbors who were waiting to cast ballots. The suburb, named for an
Aztec poet-king of the 1400s, is itself home to many indigenous people
who have migrated to the metropolis from rural villages.
"They don't even know how to read, yet they have shaken our
consciences," Angel Contreras, a schoolteacher, said of the
Zapatistas. "A strong Zapatista movement has developed here in these
few days."
A total of 147 booths were set up around Neza, as it is called
here, and 24 Zapatistas were deployed here during the days leading up
to the ballot, taking part in rallies and talks.
For its part, the government has repeatedly appealed to the
rebels to return to direct talks and abandon preconditions. The rebels
insist, for instance, that an accord on indigenous rights, agreed to
in early 1996 but stalled because of differing interpretations, be
implemented before further talks proceed.
Meanwhile, President Ernesto Zedillo and other officials have
been mounting their own publicity campaign, touting major spending and
job-creation programs in Chiapas, one of Mexico's poorest states. At
the same time, the state government is restructuring towns in Chiapas
in ways that could undermine pro-Zapatista "autonomous
municipalities."
Facing such pressures, the wry, pipe-smoking Zapatista leader
"Subcommander Marcos" has sought to revive public and international
support through measures such as the referendum. Some analysts suspect
that Marcos is waiting for the 2000 election, in the hope that an
opposition party more sympathetic to his cause will defeat the
long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Even in the days before Sunday's vote, the hooded rebels managed
some publicity coups, playing a soccer match with an over-35 team and
having coffee at the same Mexico City cafe where revolutionary hero
Emiliano Zapata once dined.
The referendum questions were worded to elicit declarations of
support not just for the Zapatistas in Chiapas but "for the
recognition of the rights of the Indian peoples and for an end to the
war of extermination." About 10 million of Mexico's 95 million people
are full-blooded indigenous people like the Mayas of Chiapas, and
virtually all the rest are of mixed Indian and Spanish blood.
In the central square in Mexico City known as the Zocalo, the
rebels set up voting tables. Volunteers applied indelible ink to
voters' thumbs to keep them from casting ballots more than once, and
ID cards had to be produced, but few of the rigors of a real election
were observed--and anybody 12 years or older could participate.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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