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Mexican Guerrillas See "War Declaration" in State

Reuters
26-FEB-99

MEXICO CITY, Feb 26 (Reuters) - A Mexican guerrilla group would regard it as a "declaration of war" if the governor-elect of the violence-torn southern state of Guerrero takes office amid claims of vote-buying, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Reforma daily said the shadowy Marxist-inspired Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) called for Rene Juarez Cisneros of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to respect the people's will and disavow his Feb. 7 victory in state polls.

In a statement, the shadowy 2-1/2-year-old insurgent group said if Cisneros took power as governor of Guerrero as scheduled on April 1, it would amount to "a frank declaration of war against the people of Guerrero."

The traditional "oligarchy will attempt even the impossible in order to maintain its privileges to the detriment of the most elemental social and human rights," it said, according to Reforma.

Cisneros won a razor-thin victory over the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the elections in the state, where the glamour of the Pacific resort of Acapulco strikes a sharp contrast to the rugged backwardness of mountain villages.

But the polls were marred by allegations of widespread vote-buying and electoral fraud by the PRI, which has held the Mexican presidency since 1929.

Opposition parties called for the results to be annulled and have launched widespread protests to contest them.

The EPR, which operates in several other southern states in addition to Guerrero, came out of nowhere in 1996 to declare an armed defence of Mexico's impoverished peasants.

It and a splinter group called the People's Insurgent Revolutionary Army (ERPI) have since carried out numerous attacks on police and army convoys.

The group said in its statement that the official election results were a betrayal of the popular will.

"The desire for change manifested by the people of Guerrero must be defended with dignity and firmness," it said.

The PRI denies election irregularities in Guerrero but political analysts say the state polls there showed the ghosts of Mexico's corrupt political past -- rife with vote buying and rigged elections -- had come back to haunt the country.