January 11th, 1997: The EZLN meets with the Cocopa in La Realidad, and rejects the government's counterproposal. The EZLN reiterates that it will not return to the negotiating table until the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture are implemented. Marcos further calls on the Cocopa to defend its original proposal, and announces that the EZLN will await a public pronouncement of the Cocopa regarding the situation before making any further decisions.

January 19, 1997: Intracommunity violence in El Paraiso, Sabanilla, in the Northern zone. The Public Security forces arrive on Jan. 20, and force members of the PRD to fell the police shot tear gas into their homes and dropped grenades from helicopters. PRD supporters flee into the mountains and Public Security and PRI members remain in the community.

January 12th-March 4th, 1997: Military and police presence and repression dramatically increase in Chiapas while the country waits for the Cocopa's "public pronouncement".

February 1st, 1997: 9,000 civilian Zapatistas march through San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, demanding that the government honor the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture, and that it accept the Cocopa's constitutional reform proposal.

March 4th, 1997: After more than 50 days of suspense, the Cocopa finally issues its public declaration on the situation: a confusing and contradictory document conveying its decision to withdraw its constitutional reform proposal from legislative consideration. Five days later, the EZLN responds by criticizing the decision of the Cocopa, and suggesting that their decision may actually have made matters much worse.

March 7th, 1997: Public Security forces in the state of Chiapas violently expel 65 families belonging to the indigenous organization Xi'Nich from their homes near Palenque.

March 8th, 1997: State judicial police violently detain two Jesuit priests--one of whom was an advisor to the EZLN--and two leaders of Xi'Nich, supposedly in connection with the previous day's events, although none of the four arrested were even in the region when the expulsions occurred. The four are tortured, held incommunicado for 48 hours, and eventually charged with the murder of police officers.

March 13th, 1997: The two Jesuits and two leaders of Xi'Nich are freed unconditionally by a judge in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, citing the lack of evidence presented by the prosecution.

March 14th, 1997: Members of the public security forces, the judicial police, and the Mexican army take part in an attack against civilian Zapatistas in the community of San Pedro Nixtalucum, Chiapas (municipality of San Juan de la Libertad, formerly El Bosque). Four unarmed Zapatistas are killed, and 29 are beaten, detained, or disappeared. The remaining Zapatista civilians from San Pedro--more than 80 families--are expelled from their homes.

April 13, 1997: Pilgrimage for Peace takes place in Tila. 20,000 parishioners and supporters of the Diocese march to Tila to call for an end to violence in the Northern Zone. Members of the Mexican Episcopal Council (CEM) join with Bishop's Vera and Ruiz to call for reconciliation and peace in the zone.

April 24-28: "Wejlel March" 150 representatives of the displaced people from the Northern Zone to Tuxtla Gutierrez, to demand release of political prisoners, and a solution for the crisis in the North. They begin a sit-in protest in front of the State Capitol. 12 international observers are expelled from Mexico for accompanying the marchers.

April 27th, 1997: Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, former tourism secretary, governor of Quintana Roo, and PRI secretary-general, is named as the new head of the government's negotiating team in Chiapas. Coldwell replaces Marco Antonio Bernal, who resigned in order to run for a congressional seat on behalf of the PRI in the upcoming July elections.

April-July, 1997: Militarization of indigenous communities continues throughout the Mexican republic. Dozens of indigenous people in Chiapas, mainly civilian Zapatistas, are killed by paramilitary squads or by police in the northern zone of Chiapas.

July 6th, 1997: Federal mid-term elections are held throughout Mexico. The victory of opposition parties from both the center-right and center-left manages to take away the PRI's absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in nearly 70 years. The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution declares that peace in Chiapas "will be a priority" for the PRD in the new Congress, and that it will make an attempt to approve the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture. In the indigenous communities of Mexico, meanwhile, the elections are held in an atmosphere of increased tension and militarization. In Chiapas, the Zapatistas call for a boycott and abstention rates reach levels greater than 80% in some municipalities.

July 9th, 1997: President Ernesto Zedillo declares that the victory of opposition parties in the July 6thelections legitimizes the PRI and the Mexican political system, and that as a result "there is no longer room for radicalism" operating outside the electoral sphere.

July 16th, 1997: Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, chief government negotiator with the EZLN who had not made contact with the Zapatistas in his three months as chief negotiator, declares to the press that "the conditions exist for the EZLN to incorporate itself into institutional life and political competition under the new equal and transparent rules of Mexican democracy, thanks to the July 6th elections"--a statement counter to EZLN's position and goals, ignoring of the reasons for the suspension of the dialogue process between the EZLN and the government in the first place.

Early August, 1997: The COCOPA decides it will not attempt to present an initiative for constitutional reforms regarding indigenous rights and culture until after September 1st, when the new Congress is inaugurated.

September 8, 1997: 1,111 members of the EZLN begin a "motorized march" from their communities in Chiapas to Mexico City in order to be present at the Founding Congress of the FZLN and the Second National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress, as well as to demand immediate government compliance with the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture.

September 26, 1997: The new members of the COCOPA are finally chosen in the Chamber of Deputies [due to the July 6th elections, all the previously serving federal deputies on the COCOPA left their posts on September 1st when the new Congress was inaugurated; senators, meanwhile, were not affected]. The new members of the COCOPA are thus the following: Roberto Albores Guillén (PRI); Javier Guerrero García (PRI); Gilberto López y Rivas (PRD); Carlos Morales Vázquez (PRD); Felipe Vicencio Alvarez (PAN); Germán Martínez Cázares (PAN); Aurora Bazán López (PVEM); Miguel Angel Garza Velázquez (PVEM); Gerardo Acosta Zavala (PT); and José Luis López López (PT).

November 4, 1997: The PRI-backed paramilitary group Paz y Justicia opens fire with automatic weapons on a caravan of church workers from the Diocese of San Cristóbal, including Bishops Samuel Ruiz García and Raúl Vera López. Three catechists are wounded in the attack, which is roundly condemned by the Church, the Conai, the Cocopa, and the EZLN.

November 5, 1997: PRD Senator Carlos Payán Velver (the founding director of the La Jornada newspaper) is named to the COCOPA. On the same day, Senator Payán denounces members of Paz y Justicia, by name, on the Senate floor, demanding a full investigation into the previous day's assassination attempt on Bishops Ruiz and Vera.

November 10, 1997: The Mexican government sends a "confidential" document to the COCOPA, expressing its desire to re-establish peace talks "immediately" with the EZLN--but without having fulfilled the five pre-conditions laid out by the rebels (including compliance with the first set of accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture) when the dialogue was suspended in August of 1996.

November 29, 1997: The EZLN responds to the government's calls for "blank slate" negotiations, reiterating that the Zapatistas will only return to the negotiating table when the government begins to implement the San Andrés Accords and fulfills the remaining four conditions laid out when the dialogue was suspended on August 29th, 1996.

December 22, 1997: Following several months of threats and periodic violence against civilian Zapatistas in the municipality of Chenalhó, approximately 70 heavily armed members of a PRI-backed paramilitary group descend upon the town of Acteal, temporarily inhabited by hundreds of refugees from other communities in the municipality. The attackers launch a 5-hour killing spree, murdering 45 people--mostly women and children who were trying to flee--and wounding at least 25 others. Despite their proximity to the site of the attack, the public security police do not intervene. Following the brutal attack, the military is placed on "maximum alert", and additional troops are brought in from the states of Campeche and Yucatán to reinforce the army presence in the municipalities of Ocosingo and Las Margaritas. Meanwhile, both the Interior Minister (Emilio Chuayffet) and the Interim Governor of Chiapas (Julio César Ruiz Ferro) are forced to resign in the aftermath of the massacre.

Originally written by Joshua Paulson for the FZLN.