• by IPS Correspondents (mexico city)
• Monday, December 19, 1994
• Inter Press Service

MEXICO CITY, Dic 19 (IPS) - The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) took 34 towns and cut off seven main roads in the southern state of Chiapas, ending the cease fire in force since Jan. 12, an EZLN report said on Monday.

The guerrillas crossed the neutral zone and broke through army lines with support from indigenous rural workers groups, taking over 34 of the 110 towns in the state.

No casualties were reported.

The Zapatistas had been occupying four Chiapan towns since January - when armed encounters between the guerilla and the army first erupted, and the EZLN communique stated that the area is now under the jurisdiction of "the rebel government" of Amado Avendano.

Avendano is the centre left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate who came second in the allegedly fraudulent Aug. 21 elections for Governor of Chiapas, losing to Eduardo Robledo, of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Peace talks which began on Jan. 12 were suspended on Oct. 8, and when Robeldo took power as Governor on Dec. 8, the rebels declared that the authorities had broken the cease fire.

News of the new Zapatista offensive coincided with Subcommander Marcos' statement that the peace measures proposed by Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo were "insufficient."

Zedillo had proposed a negotiation committee which would include the PRI, the National Action Party, the Worker's Party (PT) and the PRD.

The PRD of "rebel governor" Amado Avendano agreed to join the body, but Zapatista leader Marcos said that he would not accept a mediating body made up of government ministers.

He proposed proposed that negotiations go through the National Intermediation Committee (Conai), led by Monsignor Samuel Ruiz, Bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, who has announced that he will begin a hunger strike protesting the government's lack of apparent political will to bring a just end to the conflict.

The EZLN also suggested a series of preconditions for a stable peace, including a satisfactory end to conflicts in the states of Veracruz, Chiapas and Tabasco - following the fraudulent elections - and official recognition of the transition government of Amado Avendano and the Conai.

Marcos stated that the guerrilla forces have been instructed to avoid contact with the 50,000 government troops in the area "to whatever extent possible," and promised that his forces would not attack in the immediate future.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

Advertisement