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Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 13:26:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: Mauricio Banda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Mexico XXI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [NYT] Zapatista Rebels Retake a Town Hall Seized by Police
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The New York Times, April 9, 1999
Rebels in Mexico Retake a Town Hall Seized by Police
By JULIA PRESTON
MEXICO CITY -- The Zapatista rebels, in a bold challenge to the
government, sent more than 1,000 unarmed followers Thursday to
retake the town hall in an Indian village in Chiapas state only one
day after they were ousted from the building by the state police.
At noon, three columns of rebels, their faces covered with their
hallmark black ski masks, marched into the cobblestone square in
San Andres Larrainzar, in the Indian highlands of Chiapas and
confronted 150 state police officers in riot gear who were guarding
the town hall.
Witnesses said the Zapatistas were empty-handed, not even carrying
sticks or stones. But they battered several police cars with their
fists and shoved the policemen to move them away from the building.
No injuries or arrests were reported.
A state government communique said that the police had withdrawn to
the edge of the village "to avoid a confrontation with furious
demonstrators who pounded on their vehicles and shouted slogans at
them in an obvious attempt to provoke violence."
State officials said they were seeking arrest warrants for the
Zapatistas who damaged the police cars.
After 10 months of tense standoff in Chiapas, the Zapatistas moved
to reassert their claim to the village, which is a central
political symbol because it was the site, in 1995 and 1996, of
peace talks between the rebels and the government that produced the
first and only peace agreement for Chiapas.
Six months later the Zapatistas pulled out of the talks after the
government sought to renegotiate some terms.
Last year the government staged military operations to break up
several Zapatista-run townships. The last one, in June, ended in a
shooting battle with Zapatistas in which at least eight people were
killed.
Opposition forces occupied the mayor's offices in San Andres
Larrainzar in December 1995 after Zapatista supporters won an
election conducted according to Maya Indian custom that was not
recognized by state elections officials. Since then the Zapatistas
have boycotted all other elections, so candidates from the
governing party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI,
have won the mayor's post by overwhelming but not representative
majorities.
A Zapatista mayor was nominally presiding in the town hall over
what the rebels called an "autonomous township." But since the
government cut off all public funds to the rebel mayor, the
Zapatista administration had been virtually paralyzed for months.
On Wednesday, in an operation without violence or arrests, 300
state police officers recaptured the town hall, expelling the only
two Zapatistas who were there, both security guards.
The police installed an Indian mayor elected by the PRI faction,
Marcos Diaz Nunez. Thursday Diaz withdrew along with the police and
entered a police complaint against the rebels.
The state government asserted that most of the Zapatista protesters
were from other townships, not San Andres Larrainzar. But a rebel
leader who gave his name only as Benjamin said most of the
demonstrators came from a nearby village that is a Zapatista
stronghold.
In a speech before the Zapatista crowd, Benjamin accused the
Chiapas governor, Roberto Albores Guillen, of "cowardice and bad
faith" and of trying to provoke bloodshed between Indians.
Most of the rebels withdrew by midafternoon, leaving a contingent
of several hundred to guard the mayor's office.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
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