MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's Zapatista rebels say they will
                  stay in the capital to fight for peace, accepting a proposal to promote an
                  Indian rights bill before Congress.

                  Rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos said Zapatista representatives would
                  meet with lawmakers Friday to determine a date and format for the
                  rebels' appearance.

                  "It appears that the doors to peace are starting to open," Marcos said in a
                  late-night news conference Thursday outside the university where the rebels are
                  staying.

                  "If there are no tricks, the Zapatista National Liberation Army will be in the
                  Congress promoting the constitutional recognition of the rights and culture of the
                  indigenous people."

                  In a last-minute effort to salvage peace in the southern state of Chiapas,
                  legislators narrowly passed a measure Thursday requiring at least 100 members
                  of the 682-seat Congress to be present when the rebels make their pitch.

                  Following a two-week journey from Chiapas, the 24 Zapatista leaders had
                  pledged to stay in Mexico City until the Indian rights bill was approved. But early
                  this week, angry that Congress refused to let them speak from the podium of its
                  chambers, they announced they would leave on Friday.

                 Although the rebels accepted the offer to speak before lawmakers, they again rejected
                 President Vicente Fox's invitation to meet with Marcos, saying he had not yet met their
                 conditions to reopen talks with the government.

                 "We have the desire for true dialogue and to reach a rapid peace," masked rebel
                 Comandante Zebedeo said at a news conference, stressing the Zapatistas want to
                 start talks once their conditions are met.

                 In addition to the rights bill, the rebels want all military bases in Chiapas closed and all
                 Zapatista sympathizers imprisoned on federal charges released.

                  Fox has closed four of seven bases and announced Wednesday he would turn three
                  others into Indian community centers. Most of the jailed rebels have been released,
                  and Fox proposed the bill to Congress after he took office in December.

                  Zebedeo complained that the last three bases were still open and that some
                  sympathizers remained in jail.

                  "You know that for many years we have been tricked with false promises," he
                  said. "So we do not trust in words, but in deeds."

                  Fox, who was in Los Angeles on Thursday, said he had met all the Zapatistas'
                  demands and called again for a meeting with Marcos.

                  "Marcos, neither you nor I want the indigenous people of our country to remain
                  in the margins of society, in extreme poverty, in exclusion and obscurity," Fox
                  wrote in his invitation, which was circulated publicly Thursday. "Let's not allow
                  ... inflexibility to eclipse the desire for peace that all Mexicans have."

                  The rebels seized six towns in Chiapas on January 1, 1994. Twelve days of
                  fighting left more than 145 dead before a cease-fire took hold. Peace talks
                  stalled in 1996 after the government of former President Ernesto Zedillo
                  rejected an Indian rights bill.

                  Meanwhile, in Chiapas on Thursday, cattlemen and landowners demonstrated
                  in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, demanding that the Zapatista leaders be
                  prevented from returning to the state and be ordered to give back land and
                  cattle seized during spates of violence in 1994 and 1995.

                  "We're going to block the return of the Zapatistas, and to fight to the end," said
                  Constantino Kanter, an organizer of demonstrations that drew about 2,000
                  people.

                  On Thursday evening, hundreds of Chiapas Indians briefly took over two radio
                  stations in the city and broadcast messages of support for the Zapatistas.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.