Department of State comments re Chiapas, Jul 28
The following excerpts are from the Department of State's press briefing transcript and comprise the comments made today regarding Chiapas.
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
Tuesday, July 28, 1998
Briefer: James P. Rubin
QUESTION: On Mexico, the military - US attache - in Mexico from the US Embassy has been detained seven hours by Indians in Chiapas, related to the ruling party. My question is, do you have any comment on that? And what was he doing in Chiapas?
MR. RUBIN: You asked the question with a skeptical raise of your eyebrow. I think it's common practice for American diplomats and those assigned to the US Embassy to travel around whatever country they're in. What happened here is that on Sunday, two members of the embassy staff were prevented from leaving the village of Los Platanos in Chiapas when they refused to allow inspections of their vehicles. They were an army attache and a sergeant first class. They weren't detained for seven hours; it's my understanding they were detained for four and a half hours.
As part of their regular and normal duties, American diplomats visit all parts of the country. Any suggestion that we have military advisers doing anything other than their job is incorrect.
QUESTION: They were carrying boxes and the Indians were trying to inspect the boxes. Apparently, according to the report they refused to give the boxes to these Indians. The Mexican Government has been telling the US Government don't intervene in Chiapas. So I suppose they were visiting Chiapas, but what kind of work was this - to see the situation or --
MR. RUBIN: Let me answer the question very simply. We are interested in what goes on in Mexico. We've expressed our concern about the situation in Chiapas. It's normal and appropriate for embassy officials to travel around a country, especially parts of the country where there are problems, because that's their job.
The idea of inspecting boxes, I hope all of you have heard me talk about the embassy in Belarus or the packages that were not allowed to go through in the Belgrade airport. Understand that we regard it as a violation of diplomatic immunity to not allow embassy officials to do their job. And to allow them to inspect their packages, as you call them, or their boxes, would be in that category.
[...]
QUESTION: Back to Chiapas - does the US Government agree on how the Mexican Government is trying to resolve the conflict?
MR. RUBIN: Chiapas is a very complex issue, as you know. It has been our view for some time, as Secretary Albright made clear on several occasions and as I have made clear on several occasions, we support a peaceful negotiated settlement that is acceptable to all parties to the dispute and we are opposed to any use of violence. We follow developments in Chiapas very closely as one of many issues that have an important implication for our bilateral relations.
We believe, however, that the complex set of conflicts in Chiapas is fundamentally an internal Mexican affair, the solution for which will have to be arrived at by the Mexicans themselves.
QUESTION: So in this very close follow-on to the arguments of the Chiapas, is the strategy sending these diplomats to the area?
MR. RUBIN: You keep wanting to impute to the presence of American diplomats in Chiapas a strategy or a strange or some other kind of act. What I recommend you do is take a look at how we pursue our information gathering around the world. It is perfectly normal for embassy officials or military liaison officials, as part of the embassy, to travel around the country that they're reporting on to their superiors in Washington. There's nothing strategic about it; it's simply the run- of-the-mill work of military liaison officers.
(The briefing concluded at 1:30 P.M.)