Mexico mediators blast new
Chiapas peace plan

10 July 1998
Web posted at: 18:35 ART, Buenos Aires time (21:35 GMT)

                  MEXICO CITY, July 9 (Reuters) - Mexico's congressional mediators on
                  Thursday sharply criticised a new government plan to quell tensions in the
                  violence-plagued state of Chiapas, saying it offered little chance of restarting
                  stalled peace talks.

                  "The proposal is seriously limited by its lack of concrete actions," said Felipe
                  Vicencio, a spokesman for the congressional mediating commission for
                  Chiapas known as Cocopa.

                  President Ernesto Zedillo's administration late on Wednesday unveiled a new
                  plan to ease tensions in Chiapas, site of an armed uprising in 1994 by the
                  Zapatista National Liberation Army.

The proposal calls for the disarming of the Zapatista supporters in exchange
for government protection and funds for economic development.

                  But it reiterated the administration's position that it will not withdraw its
                  troops, estimated at between 50,000 to 70,000, from Indian communities
                  and from around the Lacandon jungle where the Zapatista army command is
                  located.

                  The government's five-point plan, however, makes no mention of dismantling
                  anti-Zapatista paramilitary groups, one of the key demands of the rebels and
                  their Indian supporters.

                  The proposal "did not forward any unilateral or unconditional (government
                  peace) action, which we were hoping for," Vicencio, a federal deputy with
                  the conservative National Action Party (PAN), told Reuters.

                  Another Cocopa member, Gilberto Lopez of the left-wing Party of the
                  Democratic Revolution (PRD), also criticised the plan for not addressing the
                  paramilitary issue or proposing to pull back the army from pro-Zapatista
                  communities.

"Really, conditions are not favourable for the Zapatistas to sit down at the
negotiating table," Lopez said.

                  Talks between the government and rebels broke off in September 1996 with
                  the Zapatistas claiming that the government had reneged on agreements over
                  Indian rights.

                  While the actual shooting war launched on New Year's Day 1994 only
                  lasted 10 days, and about 140 people died, hundreds are estimated to have
                  died since then in clashes between supporters of Zedillo's Institutional
                  Revolutionary Party (PRI) and rebels.

                  On Thursday 94 Zapatista sympathisers in various jails in Chiapas said they
                  would start a 29-day hunger strike on Aug. 2 to demand their release and an
                  end to army operations in the state.