Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 12:04:53 -0600 (CST)
From: Edgar Abarca Rojano <sestrada-AT-fcfm.buap.mx>
Subject: M-I: E;TheNews,EPR Puzzles Analysts A Year Later, Aug 28 (fwd)






---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:05:59 -0500 (CDT)
From: Chiapas95 <owner-chiapas95-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
To: chiapas95-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu
Subject: E;TheNews,EPR Puzzles Analysts A Year Later, Aug 28

This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of 
Accion Zapatista de Austin.

NATIONAL

The News
Mexico City, August 28, 1997.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EPR PUZZLES ANALYSTS A YEAR AFTER ITS EMERGENCE

By MICHAEL SHERIDAN

The News Staff Reporter

One year ago today, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) unleashed a series
of coordinated attacks in five states, claiming a dozen lives and shattering
the image of the guerrilla organization as a mere "pantomime group."

But a year after its inaugural acts of violence, the mission of the EPR
remains nebulous.

"The truth is that we still don't know what the objectives and demands of
the EPR actually are," said Alejandro Moreno, a political analyst at the
Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

Moreno said the EPR's failure to seduce the international news media is
partly responsible for the persistent shapelessness of the group's public
profile.

"The EPR's image is not as poetic" as that of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation (EZLN), he explained.

The EPR has been dogged since its emergence by unflattering comparisons to
the EZLN, a media-driven revolution whose principal spokesman, the
silver-tongued poet-philosopher Subcomandante Marcos, has enlisted
journalists in the EZLN's crusade for indigenous rights.

The EPR made its first public appearance June 28, 1996 at a ceremony marking
the first anniversary of the Aguas Blancas massacre, in which 17 rural
activists on their way to a political rally were slain by Guerrero state
police.

Two months later, the EPR orchestrated guerrilla activities in Guerrero,
Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas and the State of Mexico that resulted in the deaths
of 10 Army and police officials and two civilians.

Prior to the Aug. 28 outburst, Interior Secretary Emilio Chuayffet sneered
at suggestions that the EPR represented a threat to stability in Mexico,
calling the rebel army a "pantomime group."

Since its initial strikes, the EPR has resurfaced -- either with ambushes or
political pamphlets -- on the 28th day of some months as a symbolic
commemoration of the carnage at Aguas Blancas.

The response of the federal government to the activities of Mexico's second
rebel force has provoked contrasting responses.

"The position of the government (toward the EPR) has been erratic,"
complained Cuauhtemoc Sandoval Ramirez, a federal deputy from Guerrero.

Sandoval Ramirez urged the federal government to engage the EPR rebels and
adopt a consistent policy of dialogue and negotiation. "You can't hide your
head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend the problem doesn't exist," the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) politician said.

But financial analysts disagree with Sandoval's criticism of the Zedillo
administration.

Javier Reyes, an analyst with Value brokerage in Mexico City, believes the
government has succeeded in restoring order and the confidence of
international investors, citing bulging foreign investment rates to back his
claim.

"Concerns about the EPR are now more political than economic in nature," he
said.

Felix Boni, head of equity research at ING Barings in Mexico City, said he
believes the first wave of aggression "attracted some attention because the
attacks seemed to be coordinated in several states and gave the impression
the EPR was a widespread movement.

"But (The EPR) became irrelevant to the investment community only a few
months later," he explained. "Now its appeal is perceived as being very
limited."

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[NATIONAL]


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