MEXICO CITY, June 17 (Reuters) - Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes

on Wednesday slammed the government for its policy of ridding

troubled Chiapas state of independent witnesses, drawing parallels with

Hitler's Auschwitz and Stalin's gulags.

In a hard-hitting newspaper column, Fuentes said government

policy to expel foreign human rights observers, as well as federal and

local mediators, was encouraging impunity in the violence-torn

southern state, while shielding the army and security forces from

criticism.

"The state government does not want witnesses. Nor apparently

does the federal government," he said.

"Hitler did not tolerate witnesses in Auschwitz, nor did Stalin

in the gulags, nor Pinochet in Chile. Chiapas without witnesses

means...extermination with impunity."

The government has staged a relentless crackdown on foreign

observers in Chiapas since paramilitary gunmen with ruling party

affiliations massacred 45 Indian peasants in December last year.

Since January, Mexico has expelled at least 50 foreigners

including 40 Italian human rights observers and a 67-year-old French priest

who had worked in the Chiapas highlands for 32 years.

The situation has been particularly tense since the massacre,

after which thousands of troops were brought in allegedly to keep the

peace. Last week the tension was cranked up another notch when eight

Indian supporters of Chiapas' Zapatista rebels were shot to death in an

army-backed police operation.

Zapatista National Revolutionary Army (EZLN) guerrillas staged

an armed uprising against the state in the name of Indian rights in

January 1994, and the government has been sensitive to what it sees as

foreign meddling in domestic affairs ever since.

Last week, a key mediation body headed by Roman Catholic Bishop

Samuel Ruiz dissolved itself, due to what Ruiz said was constant

official harassment that made his job impossible.

Fuentes said the government's policy of shunning foreign

observers was damaging Mexico's international prestige.

"The nefarious official policy of expelling foreign

observers...resuscitating the lowest xenophobic and chauvinistic

vocabulary, ought to be reversed," he said.

"Mexico should welcome foreign observers with open arms,

converting them into witnesses of the government's effort to negotiate

peace in Chiapas."

He added that the number of displaced people in the poor

southern state, which nevertheless produces vast quantities of the

nation's

hydroelectricity and coffee, made a legitimate case for calling

in the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.