And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 18:17:23 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
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From: Commandante Null <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Government Proposes Resumption of Talks with Zapatistas
Government Proposes Resumption of Talks with Zapatistas
MEXICO CITY, Jan 7 (IPS) - The Mexican government proposed a resumption of
peace talks with the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which have
been suspended for two years, but with a shift in focus to include a
''professional and non-protagonistic'' national mediation process.
The government coordinator of the peace negotiations in the southern state
of Chiapas, Emilio Rabasa, reiterated that President Ernesto Zedillo was
willing to return to the negotiating table with the Zapatista rebels.
''We continue to maintain our open attitude to conversing with the other
side whenever it would like,'' Rabasa said this week. He denied that the
government's proposal for a national mediation process (without
intervention or support from abroad) implied failure of its proposal for
direct dialogue with the insurgents.
Rabasa said the government would propose ''new political initiatives of
rapprochement for resuming the dialogue and negotiations with a new, faster
and more agile format'' that would ''get the answers flowing.''
Peace-brokering efforts by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, the head of the National
Intermediation Commission (CONAI), ended in 1998, after he was accused by
the government of bias toward the EZLN.
The EZLN rose up in arms in the southern state of Chiapas, on the border
with Guatemala, against the government and in demand of respect for the
rights of indigenous people on Jan. 1, 1994.
Armed clashes only took place until a truce was declared on Jan. 12, but at
least 300 people have been killed in the region in assassinations and
massacres related to the armed conflict.
With a population of around four million, 44 percent of whom live in rural
areas, Chiapas has the highest poverty rate in the country. Government
studies indicate that 47.5 percent of housing in the state has earth
floors, 41.6 percent has no clean water and 52 percent lacks drainage.
Furthermore, 30 percent of the state's population is illiterate - nearly
three times the national average - 32 percent of local indigenous
inhabitants do not speak Spanish, and life expectancy is 66 years, three
years below the average for the rest of the country.
The peace talks broke off two years ago. The rebels refuse to return to the
negotiating table, arguing that the government has failed to live up to
agreements signed in the past, and has been steadily stepping up the army's
presence in the state.
According to Rabasa, the conflict has been ''distorted and overblown'' in
some countries, and there is no kind of war, not even a low-intensity one,
in Chiapas.
The government is keen on resolving the Chiapas issue by the year 2000,
when the next presidential elections are scheduled to take place. ''That is
its aim,'' said Rabasa, who repeated that the Zedillo administration had
the capacity to resolve the conflict by its own means, and that it had no
need for international intervention or mediation.
The EZLN, meanwhile, proposes to hold a nationwide consultation to allow
the public to express itself in favour of enshrining indigenous rights in
the constitution.
Rabasa argued that the consultation would not be such, because ''I don't
believe anyone doubts that the rights of indigenous peoples and communities
should be incorporated into the constitution. What is being analysed is in
what terms they will be incorporated - and that is what the EZLN does not
want to discuss.''
The Zapatistas said they would post some 5,000 activists throughout the
country to promote the consultation, while Rabasa warned that they would
not be allowed to circulate with weapons.
The government representative denied that former Salvadoran rebel commander
Joaquin Villalobos was advising the Mexican government in its negotiations
with the EZLN.
The rumour arose after Villalobos, a former commander of El Salvador's
now-legalised Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), said a
solution to the Mexican conflict ''does not merit a war.'' He said his
views on armed struggle had changed, and that he had made contacts with
several governments of countries involved in armed conflicts in order to
help them avoid bloodshed. (END/IPS/tra-so/fv/mj/sw/99)
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