MEXICO CITY, (Aug. 4) IPS - Paramilitary forces burned down houses and expelled 30 families from a village in Mexico known for its support of the Zapatista guerrilla movement, just as President-elect Vicente Fox is trying to establish contact with the rebels to set up peace talks.
Some 300 members of the paramilitary group known as Peace and Justice, which human rights organizations say is linked to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), swept through the Tierra y Libertad community last night, firing their guns and throwing grenades, said local peasants.
"We are worried by this new act of violence because it increases tensions at a time when there are attempts to reactivate the peace dialogue," Fabin Snchez, of the Mexican Human Rights Defence Commission, told IPS.
The paramilitaries attacked the small village in the southern state of Chiapas without encountering any resistance, according to reports. The residents, most from the Chole indigenous group, fled into the mountains.
Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty) is a community that was founded in an isolated area of Chiapas by supporters of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), after they took up arms in January 1994 to demand recognition of indigenous rights.
Francisco Mayo, a local resident, said the paramilitaries had been threatening the village for the last several days.
If the police do not intervene to allow the Tierra y Libertad townspeople to return to their homes, the EZLN grassroots will take back the community any way they can, "without regard for the consequences," warned Mayo.
Paramilitary groups are a reality in Chiapas and act with complete impunity, though the Ernesto Zedillo government, which leaves office in December, denies it, said rights activist Snchez.
Human rights organizations accuse the Peace and Justice force of several massacres in Chiapas and of ongoing threats against Zapatista sympathizers.
In this southern state bordering Guatemala, there are 12 paramilitary groups that receive training and support from the Mexican army and police forces, according to charges by the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
This latest violent incident, which follows a series of attacks in June, when seven police officers and three civilians died -- and which remain unsolved -- may prove a difficult obstacle for Fox's advisers as they seek to establish contact with EZLN commanders.
Fox, who is to be inaugurated as president in December, is attempting to approach the rebels now in order to lay the groundwork to reinitiate the peace talks that were suspended in 1996.
The negotiations were called off after the Zedillo government withdrew its support for a bill before Congress that would provide legal recognition for indigenous rights and culture, as outlined in the San Andrs Accords signed by the government and the rebels.
Fox has said he wants to meet personally with the EZLN leader known as sub-commander Marcos in order to find a rapid way out of the conflict. But so far the president-elect's attempts to communicate with the commander have not received a response.
Marcos has maintained silence since before the July 2 presidential elections, in which the PRI lost the presidency for the first time in 71 years.
In earlier statements, the guerrilla leader had said the EZLN is ready to return to the negotiating table, as long as the current or future president complies with the terms of the San Andrs Accords, withdraws the tens of thousands of military troops from Chiapas and arrests the paramilitaries.
Human rights organizations say the Zedillo government has been conducting a low-intensity war against the Zapatistas that includes covert support for the paramilitaries and the extensive militarization of Chiapas.
The EZLN force, which observers estimate at fewer than 5,000 combatants who are poorly armed, continues its ceasefire, but is surrounded by thousands of government troops.
Zedillo accused the rebels of shunning dialogue, but maintained that despite their refusal, "there is fundamentally social peace" in Chiapas.
There is no social peace or justice in Chiapas, and to say otherwise is to lie, according to a statement by the humanitarian group Fray Bartolom de las Casas, headed by former bishop of Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz.
On Aug. 20, Chiapas will hold elections for state government. The PRI's opposition, a range of parties that have signed an agreement to put forward a single candidate, says that "war or peace" is in the balance.
Copyright (c) IPS-Inter Press Service.
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