MEXICO CITY - (AP) -- In a ruling that dashes the hopes of leftist Zapatista rebels, Mexico's Supreme Court on Friday rejected constitutional challenges
  to an Indian rights law the guerrillas said didn't meet minimum international requirements on protecting indigenous peoples.

  The 8-3 ruling is likely to spark protests by rebel sympathizers who had basically frozen all dialogue and peace contacts with the government for the last
  year, apparently in the hopes that they would be in a better bargaining position if the court threw out the law.

  `A TRAGEDY'

  Enrique Avela, a spokesman for the Zapatista Front in Mexico City, called the high court's decision ``a tragedy.''

  ''Our communities are not pleased,'' he said.

  The Law on Indian Rights and Culture, which went into effect in August 2001, was approved by both houses of Mexico's congress and a majority of the
  31 state legislatures, as required by the Constitution.

  But about 320 pro-rebel town councils and other organizations challenged it, saying the law did not meet minimum standards set out in international
  treaties on indigenous rights, and that Indian groups had not been consulted on the law before it was approved.

  In rejecting the challenges, all the justices said the law was both constitutional and properly approved. What they disagreed on was whether the court
  had jurisdiction to hear arguments from town councils against acts by the legislative and executive branches.

  NEGATIVE MESSAGE

  Hector Sanchez, head of congress' Indian Affairs Commission, said Mexico's government had ``once again abandoned the country's Indians.''

  ''This sends a negative message. It sends a message that peaceful mobilization doesn't work,'' Sanchez said. He said the ruling could lead to violence in
  Zapatista strongholds in the southern states of Chiapas and Guerrero.

  Sanchez, of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, said he voted against the Indian rights law and that the court ``should have had the courage
  to reject it.''

  ''The political will to treat Indians as valuable human beings and as a legitimate social group does not exist in this country,'' he said.

  The law, designed to expand Indian rights and grant Indians limited autonomy, had been a central demand of the Zapatistas following their brief armed
  uprising in Chiapas in 1994.