Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 16:47:03 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: M-G: NEW MEXICAN GUERRILLA GROUP


On Mon, 25 Nov 1996 detcom-AT-sprynet.com wrote:

> _________________________________________________________________
>  
>        NEW MEXICAN GUERRILLA GROUP EMERGES WITH MANIFESTO
> _________________________________________________________________
>  
>  
>      MEXICO CITY, Nov 21 (Reuter) - A new guerrilla force emerged
> on Revolution Day with a manifesto calling for an end to
> President Ernesto Zedillo's "anti-popular and repressive"
> government, excerpts in several newspapers said on Thursday.
>  
>      In the seven-page document, the Revolutionary Army of
> Popular Insurgence (ERIP) declared it was an armed force "from
> the people and for the people" and demanded Zedillo's
> administration resign and call a special assembly to draft a new
> constitution.
>  
>      The ERIP has not been heard of before but if its existence
> is confirmed it would be Mexico's third guerrilla group to arise
> in the last three years, after the Zapatista National Liberation
> Army (EZLN), which launched an armed rebellion in the southern
> state of Chiapas in January 1994, and the Popular Revolutionary
> Army (EPR), which appeared in June of this year.
>  
>      Zedillo and his key spokesmen were travelling in Asia and
> there was no immediate government reaction to the rebel
> manifesto, which was sent to media on Wednesday as Mexico
> celebrated the 86th anniversary of its 1910 Revolution.
>  
>      The ERIP manifesto said it saluted and supported the "heroic
> gesture" of the armed struggle launched by the Zapatistas and the
> EPR in defence of Mexico's poor.
>  
>      "The ERIP is the armed expression of the popular masses who
> are rising up to oppose the anti-popular, repressive and servile
> policy of the current state which has been usurping power through
> fraudulent elections based on a small minority."
>  
>      The new group said it was made up of peasants, Indians and
> workers as well as nationalist small businessmen who had been
> "oppressed and exploited by the PRI-government." The PRI is the
> Spanish acronym for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which
> has ruled Mexico for the past 67 years.
>  
>      ERIP rebel activities would be concentrated in the centre
> and north of Mexico, the manifesto said. The Zapatistas have
> operated in the southernmost state of Chiapas and the EPR has
> mostly attacked in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.
>  
>      The appearance of the ERIP manifesto comes a week after
> Zapatista leader Subcommander Marcos said new guerrilla groups
> had sprung up in Mexico. "There are three or four armed groups
> that the government does not want to recognise in (the states of)
> Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Puebla," Marcos said.
>  
>      Asked about Marcos's assertion in an interview with Reuters
> on Tuesday, Zedillo said he had no knowledge of any new guerrilla
> group apart from the Zapatistas or the EPR. "I don't know what
> the intelligence sources of Marcos are," he said. "The only thing
> I know is the EZLN ... and the EPR."
>  
>      El Universal newspaper said on Thursday that locals had
> spotted members of the new group since March in the mountains of
> the remote Papaloapan region of Oaxaca, about 145 miles (230 km)
> southeast of Mexico City near the border with Puebla state.
>  
>      Residents in the area believed the new group might be led by
> followers of "Commander Red", an army deserter named Jorge
> Alberto Vasquez Gallardo who led a small rebel group from 1989
> until he was shot to death by security forces in 1993, it said.
>  
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 

Can anybody get the manifesto published by the ERIP in Mexico?

It was partially published in "El Financiero", a prominent daily.

							Thank you,

							Jose Soto


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