Associated Press
June 23, 2001
By Alejandro Ruiz

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- Seventeen mayors and thousands of residents from Mexico's southernmost state gathered to protest changes to an Indian rights bill aimed at restoring peace to the troubled region.

The revised bill "doesn't take into account the feelings and the opinions of the societies that make up this region," Mariano Diaz, mayor of the highlands city of San Cristobal, said Friday.

The rights initiative was first drafted in 1996 during peace talks between a government peace commission and the Zapatista rebels, who led a short-lived rebellion in the name of Indian rights two years earlier. Then-President Ernesto Zedillo rejected the measure.

President Vicente Fox sent the bill to Congress as his first official act after ending 71 years of single party rule when he took office Dec. 1. After months of legislative debate, a heavily amended version passed Congress in April.

Zapatista military leader Subcomandante Marcos immediately rejected the bill, which he said was watered-down and insulting to Mexico's 10 million Indians.

The Zapatistas want regional autonomy for Indian areas on issues such as native languages, as well as traditional government and law based on councils of elders or village assemblies rather than federal standards.

Congress' version of the bill would weaken that autonomy and subject laws based on Indian customs to approval by state legislatures.

The initiative must be approved by 16 of Mexico's 31 state legislatures. Thus far, it has been approved by 11 of the 13 state legislatures that have put it to a vote. The measure must also be approved by two-thirds of Congress.

Chiapas' legislature delayed a vote, calling a number of popular referendums to allow local voters to voice their own opinions.

On Friday, mayors from Mexico's three-largest political parties as well as several smaller parties staged their protest to coincide with the first Chiapas-wide popular referendum.