By RICARDO SANDOVAL
 Herald World Staff

 EL EDEN, Mexico -- Dr. Lydia Rangel expected the Mexican soldier to help her.
 Instead, he just watched as pro-government villagers in Chiapas beat and
 threatened to rape her.

 ``He was in the crowd. I'll never forget his face. . . . I lived it; I saw it,'' said Rangel,
 a young doctor from Mexico City. ``What angers me so much is that he did
 nothing to stop the crowd.''

 Rangel, who is fulfilling the national-service requirement of her medical training,
 got caught up in trouble near La Realidad. The Mayan village is controlled by
 Zapatista rebels, and their leader, Subcommander Marcos, is said to be hiding
 out there.

 Since the Zapatista offensive temporarily captured several Chiapas cities in
 January 1994, more than 500 people have died in the conflict, in which the
 Zapatistas are demanding land reform and greater autonomy for the Indians in the
 region.

 Recently, villagers who support the Zapatistas have blocked the path of army
 troops sent to protect road construction crews. Six people have been injured in
 clashes between Zapatista supporters and the army. Zapatistas say the road is
 meant to allow more troops into the region; Chiapas state officials say it will help
 poor farmers get coffee and bananas out of the jungle.

 Opposing rallies

 The confrontations followed a series of fiery speeches by Chiapas Gov. Roberto
 Albores. In one, before a crowd of 5,000 supporters, the governor told federal
 officials to let Chiapas solve its own problems and warned ``outside agitators'' to
 leave.

 Zapatistas responded the next day with anti-government marches by 10,000
 people in three Chiapas cities.

 ``People thought support for Zapatistas had faded. But we were startled by the
 rebels' ability to get so many people to come out of the jungle and protest with
 just one day's notice,'' said Ofelia Medina, an actress and activist who was
 ordered last week to leave Chiapas or face arrest.

 The move against Medina stirred more protests in Mexico City last week.

 Government critics say vigilantes and paramilitary forces supported by the army
 are targeting foreign observers and even Mexican visitors from outside the state,
 accusing them of fomenting trouble. Analysts decried what they described as
 dangerous xenophobia that encourages vigilantes in Chiapas to attack foreigners.

 To try to reduce the tension, Mexican officials abruptly stopped building the jungle
 road last week.

 But suspending the construction won't end the unrest.

 More roadblocks

 Zapatistas also want an end to a military expansion in the Lacandon jungle. In the
 last two weeks, five new military roadblocks have sprung up on the road between
 La Realidad and Las Margaritas, in southernmost Chiapas.

 Soldiers at each roadblock demand identification cards, passports and visas,
 telling travelers they're looking for guns and explosives. Vehicles and bags are
 thoroughly searched.

 Rangel and two Spanish human rights observers were attacked less than 100
 yards from one such roadblock on a grueling stretch of road 10 miles from La
 Realidad. Rangel said they were riding in a van when they found the road blocked
 by felled trees. The driver got out to move a tree and a dozen men -- one of them
 a Mexican soldier -- emerged and forced everyone out of the vehicle.

 The men said they blocked the road to protest ``outsiders'' and the Zapatista
 action against the new road, Rangel recalled.

 Amid shouts of ``Tie them up! Tie them up!'' the group began to tear at Rangel's
 clothes, she said. She was sure she would be raped and hanged.

 But the assailants argued over her fate, Rangel said, and after two hours a
 sympathetic man released them. Rangel was badly bruised, most of her clothes
 were stripped off and some cash and a camera were taken. The three drove to a
 nearby army checkpoint looking for help.

 Paramilitaries a threat

 ``The same soldier who was in the crowd asked us for identification. We were
 afraid of him and told him we had just been robbed,'' said Rangel, who pressed
 charges against the vigilantes and the soldier this week. ``He told us to drive
 away. He said the road was monitored and if we stopped, we'd be shot. . . . We
 drove for hours without speaking.''

 Mexican army officials would not comment on the incident.

 ``This is not the first time the military has been implicated in such incidents,'' said
 Marina Jimenez, director of the Fray Bartolome Center in Chiapas, a human rights
 group run by the Roman Catholic Church. The center is representing Rangel in
 her case against the vigilantes. ``It is important that people know the
 paramilitaries operate with training, money and guns given by the army.''

 Paramilitary assaults and Zapatista reprisals have caused most of the bloodshed
 in the protracted struggle, in which peace talks broke down in 1996. Zapatistas
 accused the government of scrapping a settlement the rebels had signed.

 Rebels withdrew deeper into the thick jungle, waging a war of words with the
 government while the army gradually surrounded the Zapatistas with an estimated
 60,000 soldiers.

 Chiapas continues to draw worldwide attention, and people describing themselves
 as human rights observers from the United States and Europe continually visit the
 region.

 ``We're tired of the harassment,'' said Maximiliano, a Mayan Indian and rebel
 representative in La Realidad. He promised a major battle if soldiers try to enter
 his village.

 Each day, at least a dozen truckloads of soldiers drive back and forth through La
 Realidad.

 ``One day they will stop,'' he said, ``and we will have to defend ourselves.''

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald