Rancor Rules Out Progress at Peace Talks in Mexico

               By JULIA PRESTON

               SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- After exchanging angry invective for two
               days, mediators from the Mexican Congress and top leaders of the Zapatista rebels managed
          Sunday to salvage some semblance of peace talks, but only barely.

          What was perhaps most striking about the disastrous meeting -- the first such face-to-face encounter
          in nearly two years -- was that the Zapatistas seemed to have lost their touch for media
          showmanship and public diplomacy on behalf of their Indian cause.

          Zapatista commanders had said that they had finally reached out to the mediating legislators, federal
          senators and deputies who are members of the Concord and Pacification Commission, to
          demonstrate a renewed commitment to a peace dialogue.

          But the 29 Zapatista delegates, led by a fierce commander who goes by the nom de guerre of
          Tacho, surprised the legislators with a flurry of last-minute logistical demands. The Zapatistas refused
          to discuss the problems with the lawmakers privately and then called them racist in front of 2,500
          cheering supporters gathered here for a parallel Zapatista meeting.

          One legislator said that Tacho had told them he did not want to listen to their comments because
          they were "pure saliva."

          The Zapatistas, rough-hewn Indian guerrillas who have lived hidden in harsh jungles since they
          staged a weeklong armed uprising in January 1994, gave the impression that they were dissatisfied
          mainly because their fax machine was not working and they were not given mattresses for their cots.

          The legislators responded late Saturday night with a five-page communique in which they rejected
          the Zapatistas' complaints in blunt terms.

          "We are not your enemies -- you did not declare war on us," said the legislators, who are serving
          only as neutral go-betweens for the rebels and the government.

          The lawmakers accused the Zapatistas of showing no interest in peace. In an ultimatum, they said if
          they did not get more respectful treatment from the rebels, "We are at your disposal to take you
          back to the places where you came from."

          In the end mediators and rebels agreed to get together again late Sunday evening.

          The Zapatistas released a communique Saturday morning in which they said, as they have before,
          that they would not return to direct peace talks until the government meets five broad conditions,
          including army withdrawal from Zapatista areas and freeing of political prisoners. The government
          has not accepted the conditions in the two years since the negotiations fell apart.

          Even some of the Zapatistas' most loyal supporters said they were dismayed.

          "You can't insult someone and then say it was all right because that is the Indian way," commented
          Carlos Monsivais, a prominent writer and social critic, who is attending the meetings here.

          Subcommander Marcos, a non-Indian who is the Zapatistas' de facto leader, did not come to the
          sessions here, but instead sent an audio recording in which he railed against the globalization of the
          world economy but offered no concrete peace proposals.

          The diplomatic debacle overshadowed substantial progress the Zapatistas made in the strategy
          sessions with their followers here.

          In a sign that they are continuing to shape themselves into a civilian political group in preparation for
          one day laying down arms, they organized their sympathizers to mount a nationwide mobilization
          sometime next year to publicize their platform for greater Indian independence.