The Guardian
May 1, 2001

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's Zapatista rebels broke off all contacts with the government Monday and called upon supporters to protest against an Indian rights bill that he says fails to meet rebels' demands.

Subcomandante Marcos said the bill, modified by the Senate and passed by both houses of Congress last week, weakened clauses guaranteeing autonomy and self-determination contained in accords reached in 1996 by Zapatistas and members of a government peace commission.

"With this reform, federal legislators and the Fox government close the door to dialogue and peace," Marcos said in a communique issued from the rebel's jungle base in the southern state of Chiapas.

"It sabotages the incipient process of reconciliation between the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army."

Marcos also lambasted President Vicente Fox for praising the bill. "In this way Fox demonstrates that he only pretended to make the initial agreement his, while he negotiated with hardline sectors of Congress a reform that doesn't recognize the rights of the indigenous communities."

The Zapatistas want regional autonomy for Indian areas on issues like native languages and traditional government and law based on councils of elders or village assemblies.

In Congress' version of the bill, autonomy would be more locally based, and state legislatures would have to enact those customs into law.

The original version also established Indians' communal rights to land and natural resources. Congress inserted language protecting private land holdings in Indian areas and said Indians would have preference, but not sole rights, to natural resources in their territories.

The Zapatistas launched a short-lived revolution in the name of Indian rights on Dec. 1, 1994. More than 140 people died in 12 days of fighting. While the rebels have not been a major military threat since, they have mounted a successful campaign to demand that Mexico rethink its treatment of its 10 million Indians.

Passage of the bill was one of the three conditions established by the Zapatistas to reopen peace talks with the government. Submitting the bill to Congress was Fox's first official act after taking office in December.

Last Wednesday, the Senate unanimously passed a modified version. The lower house of Congress overwhelmingly approved it Saturday.

Salazar, the Chiapas governor elected by a coalition of political parties including Fox's National Action Party and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, also rejected the bill Monday, saying it represented a "triumph for conservatism" in Mexico.