Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 16:46:50 -0600 (CST)
Subject: M-NEWS: [fzln-l] Noticias en inglés (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 01:49:53 -0600
From: Hector Velarde <hvelarde-AT-spin.com.mx>
Subject: [fzln-l] Noticias en inglés

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/25/mexico.massacre.ap/

Survivors bury victims of Mexico massacre

ACTEAL, Mexico (AP) -- A mile outside this southern Mexican
town, at a curve on a mountainous two-lane road, a procession of
hundreds of weeping marchers met two oncoming trucks
Thursday: one filled with state police, the other with peasants from
a nearby village.

The mourners, lined up behind 45 plain wood coffins with the bodies of
fellow villagers gunned down this week, grew enraged.

"That's them. Those are the attackers," one man yelled.

They pulled one peasant off the truck and began to kick him
before the police leapt out and stopped them.

Monday's massacre in Acteal has stoked the anger and hostility
that have torn southern Mexico since an Indian rebellion four years
ago.

Federal authorities have taken over the investigation into this
week's killings of mostly rebel sympathizers, amid charges that
state officials at best ignored the violence and at worst plotted it.

Forty-five people were killed in Monday's bloodshed: 21 women,
nine men, 14 children and an infant. Twenty-five more were
wounded and were being treated in hospitals in San Cristobal.

Villagers in Acteal have accused pro-government paramilitary
groups of carrying out the massacre.

Peasants taken in for questioning

"They're the ones who organized the killings. They were running
away to hide," resident Cristobal Gutierrez Gomez shouted during
the confrontation Thursday.

"We're innocent," protested Antonio Perez Hernandez, one of the
19 peasants in the truck. "We didn't do anything."

But the silent crowd surrounded the peasants, and the police
decided to take them in for questioning, driving off in their flatbed
truck toward San Cristobal, the biggest town in the highlands of
Chiapas.

Religious officials in the southern state of Chiapas said the
government was warned about rising tensions and growing caches
of arms in the region, and should have done more to prevent the
slaughter.

In addition to those taken into custody Thursday, 16 people have
been detained, including the alleged leader of the gunmen who
stormed the town, mowing villagers down in a church and hunting
them down in nearby hills and in their houses.

With the overpowering smells of decomposed bodies and diesel
fuel hanging in the air, the marchers sang and chanted religious
songs Thursday. "To the sound of the trumpet, my soul will fly,"
they sang.

"Long live Jesus!" they chanted. "Long live Joseph and Mary!"

Villagers return, dig mass grave

The procession continued on to Acteal, as many marchers returned
to their homes for the first time since fleeing for their lives Monday.
When the marchers reached the village, many burst into tears.
Women hid their faces in their shawls.

Some men had already begun to hack away the underbrush and
dig a mass grave, 10 yards long and four yards wide.

The grave was just below the town chapel, in the bushes where
many of the villagers tried to hide from the gunmen -- and where
many were killed.

Bishop Samuel Ruiz of nearby San Cristobal de las Casas said
Mass over the coffins in front of a makeshift altar of palm fronds
and tree trunks.

Under a blazing sun, Tzotzil Indian elders in white tunics, leather
belts and sandals prayed in their Maya language to "God: the father
and the mother."

The elders placed a single white chrysanthemum on each of the
caskets and then called out the names of the dead. Ruiz answered
to each name: "May God forgive them."

Roman Catholic Bishop Raul Vera of San Cristobal said in
addition to previous warnings given the interior minister and the
state government, church officials called state officials just after the
massacre began to advise them of gunfire in Acteal.

The Chiapas state secretary of government, Homero Tovilla
Cristiani, admitted he received the call and that nobody was sent to
help. He said he called police in the area, who "found no evidence,
no confrontation, no burning house."

Groups call for governor to resign

The head of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, Manuel Lopez
Obrador, has called for Mexico's Senate to dissolve the Chiapas
state government. And many opposition groups called for the
resignation of Gov. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, who repeatedly has
denied the existence of paramilitary groups in the state.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army, which rose up in January
1994 to demand rights for the poor Indians of Chiapas, blamed the
federal government.

Most of those killed in the massacre were members of a group that
sympathizes with the rebels, and survivors say the attackers were
members of a pro-government paramilitary group that had been
trying to pressure them to denounce the rebels.

At the funerals Thursday, the head of the national human rights
commission said she had asked the state government December 2
to provide better security for refugees in the region.

"Unfortunately," Mireille Rocatti said, "there was little progress in
carrying out our request."

Copyright 1997   The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.