Under Siege, Mexico's Zapatista Rebels Keep Low Profile

          By JULIA PRESTON

               RIZO DE ORO, Mexico -- Everywhere in this village in the verdant
               canyons of Chiapas State there are subtle signs of the presence of
          the Zapatista rebel army.

          Many of the men wear untattered olive green pants and strong-soled
          combat boots, a kind of informal uniform that the Zapatista organization
          has encouraged its followers to adopt. Government signs on the
          one-room schoolhouse have been covered over with fresh paint.

          When strangers approach seeking information, villagers turn away and put
          their fingers to their lips to warn each other to keep quiet.

          Until recently the Zapatistas moved openly here. Almost four years ago,
          when they were riding a surge of popularity after staging a brief armed
          uprising, they set up their own administration in a town a few miles away
          down a rocky dirt road. This village and a dozen others in the surrounding
          rain forest chose to join the new alternative township.

          The town had gone by the name of Amparo Agua Tinta, but the
          Zapatistas rebaptized it Land and Liberty, taking the battle cry of Emiliano
          Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary of the early 20th century from whom
          the guerrillas draw their name.

          The cowed authorities from the government's political party, the
          Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, quietly stepped aside to make
          way for the new Zapatista mayor. The Zapatista authorities resolved
          disputes and issued birth, death and marriage certificates. They even set
          up a three-cell county jail.

          But on May 1, the police and the army occupied the town, drove out the
          Zapatista officials and burned down the jail. More than 40 Zapatistas
          were arrested, of whom 8 remain in prison. It was one of four government
          operations in recent months to destroy Zapatista town governments, a
          campaign that rebel leaders labeled "one of the most ferocious offensives
          we have ever faced."

          Now the Zapatistas in Rizo de Oro, and in scores of other villages across
          the Indian regions of Chiapas, have gone quiet. Once they held noisy
          rallies and blocked the highways with marches. They went about in
          bandanas or black ski masks that hid their faces but publicized their
          identities as Zapatistas.

          But since June the Zapatistas have suspended their demonstrations, taken
          down their banners and put away their masks. And from disciplined
          militants to casual followers, every Indian villager who has anything to do
          with the Zapatista National Liberation Army is under instructions from the
          movement's leaders to avoid outsiders, especially reporters.

          "We are thinking of setting up our township again somewhere else," said
          Rafael Aguilar Santiz, 22, a Tojolabal Indian corn farmer in Rizo de Oro.
          After looking over two strangers at great length, he added warily: "If we
          do, we might tell people about it. But probably we won't."

          The retreat from public view is a sharp turnabout for the Zapatistas, a
          guerrilla group that has always emphasized political over military combat.

          After only a week of amateurish fighting in January 1994, the rebels' chief
          strategist, who goes by the nom de guerre Subcommander Marcos,
          acknowledged that the show of armed force had been largely symbolic,
          intended to dramatize the Zapatistas' demands for better justice for
          Indians.

          A cease-fire soon went into effect, and the Zapatistas have observed it
          ever since.

          Instead of shooting, the Zapatistas set about creating civilian political
          organizations in Chiapas. These have included not just alternative
          townships, but also rural labor unions and associations of their Roman
          Catholic supporters in the local diocese -- which has backed the
          Zapatista cause, although not its armed tactics.

          Peace talks with the government collapsed in late 1996, with the
          Zapatistas accusing the government of reneging on signed commitments.
          But the Zapatistas' grass-roots groups continued to spread.

          The government tolerated those groups until this year, when President
          Ernesto Zedillo decided that the alternative townships were a threat to the
          legal order in the state and began a political and military offensive against
          them.

          The government has also tried to show the Indians of Chiapas that it has
          more to offer them than the Zapatistas. While Rizo de Oro remained
          relatively quiet, nearby Amparo Agua Tinta, the seat of the former
          Zapatista township, bustled with government-financed activity after the
          May 1 takeover.

          The streets were crowded with dump trucks and bulldozers sent in by the
          state government to pave soggy streets. A mobile health clinic stood in the
          central square. Public buildings shone with fresh coats of paint.

          Many villagers displayed their gratitude at being rescued from years of
          government neglect by painting the PRI insignia prominently on their
          houses. But some remained skeptical of the government's largesse.

          "We never had any difficulty with the Zapatista authorities," said Elias
          Mendez Agueda, 30, even though he admitted to being a PRI loyalist.
          "The government wanted them out. We didn't have anything to do with it."

          President Zedillo argues that his policies have laid the groundwork for the
          peace talks to resume.

          "The government wants a dialogue, right now," Zedillo said emphatically
          during a trip to Chiapas in late July. "Those who believe that the
          government wants war are completely mistaken. They who propagate that
          idea," he said of the Zapatistas, "are lost in the emptiness of their own
          fantasies."

          But in practice the government's actions have driven the Zapatistas farther
          from the negotiating table and deep into a secrecy that seems intended
          primarily to make it more difficult for government troops and intelligence
          operatives to monitor their activities.

          (The administration of Land and Liberty gave one recent signal that it is
          still operating in exile by putting out a message on the Internet calling for
          emergency aid for villagers in the region whose homes were destroyed in
          floods in September.)

          Although this small village is buried in backlands many miles from the
          nearest telephone, people here are keenly aware that they are locked in a
          sophisticated conflict.

          Recently PRI leaders in the region leaked a false report to the press that
          Rizo de Oro had been host to a formal ceremony to re-establish the
          shattered Zapatista township. The PRI followers apparently hoped the
          ruse would draw army troops into this Zapatista town.

          Aguilar, the farmer, contemplated taking advantage of the strangers' visit
          to set the record straight that no such ceremony had taken place. With a
          gesture signaling the visitors to wait, he disappeared for consultations with
          other, unseen villagers, presumably local Zapatista leaders.

          Not long ago the Zapatistas might have been eager to air their grievances
          and propagate their political views. But this time Aguilar returned to say
          that local rebels had chosen silence. His goodbye was curt: "We have
          nothing more to say."