The New York Times
January 6, 2000
By Sam Dillon

Mexico City, Jan. 5 -- Mexico has ordered Kerry Appel, 48, a coffee importer from Colorado who attended a New Years' celebration in a rebel-controlled village in southern Chiapas state, to leave the country immediately. The order, issued on Tuesday, bars Mr. Appel from visiting here for three years. Another American who spent New Years' in Chiapas was interrogated and given a week to leave. The authorities identified him as Greg Ruggeiro, 25, an editor from Brooklyn.

Mr. Appel and Mr. Ruggeiro were among 40 American, Argentine, French, Italian and Portuguese tourists, sympathizers of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, who attended the same celebration in Chiapas. Immigration authorities have called in most for questioning. Mr. Appel and Mr. Ruggeiro's were the first expulsion orders. But human rights lawyers who are following the situation said they expected that other foreigners might be ordered out.

Today, the immigration office in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas was filled with foreigners, some accompanied by lawyers, waiting to be interrogated. At least 79 foreign tourists were ordered out of Mexico last year after trips to Chiapas.

After a visit to Chiapas in January 1996, Mr. Appel was ordered to leave, but was not barred from returning.

Immigration Commissioner Alejandro Carrillo Castro told reporters here on Tuesday night that Mr. Appel had broken the law by traveling to Mexico last month with a tourist visa, ignoring the terms of the previous order, which required him to request a special visa from the Mexican consulate in Denver.. Mr. Appel asserted in an interview today, however, that the authorities had never shown him the order and had repeatedly assured him after the deportation that he faced no special restrictions. He said his Mexican lawyer was appealing the new order.

Mr. Appel said he established his coffee importing business in Denver, the Human Bean Company, in 1996. He purchases coffee from Chiapas cooperatives run by indigenous farmers and markets the beans, as well as native weavings and video documentaries that he has produced about Chiapas through a Web site, www.thehumanbean.com.

In 1997, Mr. Appel videotaped an interview with the rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos. In an introduction to that interview, which is on the Web site, Mr. Appel described his deportation, saying:

"I was told that I had no business discussing economic, social or political subjects with the indigenous peoples of Mexico. I was told by the Mexican government that if I wanted to see Indians, I could see them in the markets or the museums. Then they kicked me out of Mexico."

At the celebration, in Oventic, for the new year and the sixth anniversary of the onset of the insurgency, Mr. Appel talked, played basketball and danced with the Indians, but did not offer political advice, he said.