By Pip Hinman
Private armies of wealthy landowners in Chiapas state are attempting to block a settlement between the Mexican government and peasant rebels. Round one of negotiations between the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army had hardly finished before paramilitary death squads assassinated the leader of the Emiliano Zapata Farmers Union (OCEZ) on March 9.
Mariano Perez Diaz, who was also a leader of the newly formed State Council of Indigenous and Campesino Organisations of Chiapas (CEOIC), was leaving his community of El Carmelito with his son when they were ambushed by eight heavily armed men. Perez Diaz died immediately; his son was taken to hospital in a critical condition.
Death threats have been issued against several indigenous peasant leaders, as well as the Zapatista rebels' chief negotiator, Bishop Samuel Ruiz. Urged on by the latifundistas, local authorities have closed down at least five churches in Chiapas and demanded that Bishop Ruiz leaves San Cristobal de las Casas, the second largest city in the rebel stronghold.
The latifundistas stand to lose if the negotiations lead to reforms. Reports suggest that the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 65-year-long autocratic rule is coming under some pressure to democratise. According to the Washington Post, several Western governments have told President Salinas he cannot afford to backtrack on reforms.
Round one of the negotiations, which began on February 21, ended with the signing of two documents containing political and electoral reforms. The accord allows the EZLN to remain armed until the August presidential elections. Rebel leaders have said they will resume armed struggle if the reform process stalls.
Former Mexico City mayor Manuel Comacho Solis, the government's representative, agreed to economic reforms in Chiapas as well as a national law to outlaw discrimination against indigenous people.
The government has called a special session of Congress this month to consider opposition demands for electoral reform, including television time for opposing candidates, better auditing of voter registration and greater independence of the Electoral Commission from the PRI. The government has also backed down on its previous refusal to allow international election observers.
However, the PRI refused to roll back recent changes to Article 27 of the Constitution, which formalised the privatisation of the communal lands known as ejidos. This has forced millions of peasant farmers to abandon their plots to look for work on one of the coffee and banana plantations monopolised by 25 families.
Also not negotiable was another of the rebels' demands: that President Salinas resign immediately and allow a transitional government to conduct the August 21 national elections. Electoral fraud has overshadowed Mexican politics since the 1988 elections when the PRI used its electoral machine to install its candidates, and this demand has huge popular support.
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the presidential candidate of the main opposition force, the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), has supported the EZLN's demand that Salinas resign. Cardenas told 30,000 supporters at a campaign rally in Michoacan, "It's up to [Salinas] to decide: an electoral law that would allow an open process, or else he leaves his post to someone who can carry out honest elections".
The Zapatista rebels, whose base is the poverty-stricken indigenous communities of Chiapas, have promised extensive consultations on the government's response to the negotiations. According to EZLN spokesperson Commander Marcos, the rebel war begun on January 1 happened only after a similar consultative process had taken place.