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Gunmen massacre at least 42 in Mexican village
Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 The Associated Press
ACTEAL, Mexico (December 23, 1997 3:42 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) --
Scores of gunmen walked into this village and opened fire with AK-47s,
pursuing those who got away down a mountainside, witnesses said Tuesday.
At least 42 people were killed.
The attack Monday was the bloodiest in Chiapas state since 135 people
died in the Zapatista uprising in 1994. It occurred in an area where
pro-government and pro-rebel groups have been fighting for power for
months.
The victims included 15 children, and the Red Cross said some of those
killed had been hacked with machetes.
Witnesses said they recognized some of the attackers as members of local
factions of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, from
surrounding villages.
Juan Vazquez Luna, a 15-year-old supporter of the rebels in Acteal, said
he was praying in the clapboard church Monday when he heard the first
shots. He said he went outside to find about 70 men firing AK-47s.
Along with many of the other 900 people in this highlands village, he
fled down a steep mountainside toward the river, where shallow caves
offered some protection.
But the gunmen followed, and most of the victims were killed along the
river banks, Juan said. He said his mother, father and four sisters were
killed. Three other siblings were wounded.
Chiapas Gov. Julio Cesar Ruiz, a PRI member, ordered "an immediate and
profound investigation" and promised "to apply all the rigor of the law
to those guilty."
But top officials said Tuesday they had no details of the attack.
"These are not moments to fall into accusations, but to act firmly to
clarify this criminal, irrational and unacceptable act," Ruiz said in a
statement.
Zapatista sympathizers have long accused Ruiz' government of supporting
paramilitary groups in Chenalho, a claim his administration has denied.
Since the 1994 uprising, many of the Indian peasants in this area have
split into factions that align themselves with, and receive backing and
weapons from, either the PRI-led government or the rebels and their
leftists supporters.
The split has a religious component as well. Many of the government
supporters are Protestants; most of the rebel supporters are Roman
Catholics who follow liberation theology, a social justice movement
within the Catholic church.
Mauricio Rosas, director of the Red Cross office in San Cristobal, told
the Mexico City radio station Formato 21 that the 42 victims included 21
women, six men, 14 children and an infant.
He said the bodies -- which were taken Tuesday to San Cristobal, 12
miles to the south -- showed signs of being shot and hacked to death
with machetes.
A state police commander in Acteal, who refused to give his name, said
he counted 45 bodies on Monday.
Witnesses also said there was an attack in the nearby village of
Quextic.
The victims were members of the peasant group Las Abejas, which
sympathizes with the Zapatista rebels. In 1995, the rebels set up their
own government for Chenalho county based in the nearby town of Polho. It
is in competition with the officially recognized local government, run
by the PRI.
The party's national president, Mariano Palacios Alcocer, rushed to
distance the PRI from the attack, saying: "The PRI rejects violence in
all its forms."
Clashes between supporters of the local government and the Institutional
Revolutionary Party have raged for seven months, killing 30 Tzotzil
Indian peasants and leaving nearly 7,000 homeless.
"It's an incomprehensible situation in which we have not been able to
stop the violence," Roman Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz told XEWM radio in
San Cristobal.
At least 300 people have died in similar clashes in Chiapas state since
the 1994 uprising -- by some estimates, 600. Tens of thousands of state
police and federal troops have been unable to calm tensions. In some
cases, human rights workers have accused police of siding with the
ruling party-affiliated peasants who have attacked rebel supporters.
Peace talks between the rebels and the federal government broke down
more than a year ago, with the rebels accusing the government of
stalling on the implementation of a partial accord signed in February
1996.
Human rights and Roman Catholic church organizations have called for the
renewal of peace talks as a way of stemming the violence.
By TRINA KLEIST, The Associated Press
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