Troops Swarm Over Massacre Site (fwd)

[Sid Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

> Subject: Troops Swarm Over Massacre Site
> To: ncdm-ally@xxxxxxx
>
> By Caroline Brothers
>
> SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Troops and police
> swarmed over the bloodstained camp in southern Mexico on Wednesday where 45
> defenseless refugees were massacred by paramilitaries in a five-hour orgy of
> killing.
>
> The refugees, all Tzotzil Indians, were gunned down on Monday at their camp
> near the village of Acteal, about 450 miles (750 km) southeast of Mexico City.
> Twenty-one of the victims were women and 14 were children.
>
> Sickened by the slaughter of innocents just before Christmas, a local church
> leader accused the Mexican government of ignoring warnings that paramilitaries
> linked to President Ernesto Zedillo's party were preparing attacks in the
> troubled state of Chiapas -- scene of an Indian uprising in 1994 against the
> government.
>
> ``We are on the verge of a civil war and we don't understand why neither the
> Federal nor the state governments are really doing anything to stop this,''
> Raul Vera, assistant bishop of the town of San Cristobal de las Casas, told
> reporters late on Tuesday.
>
> The bodies of the 45 victims were still stacked up in a morgue in the Chiapas
> state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez on Wednesday morning under heavy police guard.
> Relatives and reporters were not allowed access.
>
> The handful of Indians who managed to escape from the slaughter were
> recovering in local hospitals in San Cristobal -- the nearest major town to
> Acteal.
>
> Orphaned by the murder of her parents, 4-year-old Lucia Vazquez Luna lay in a
> hospital bed unable to walk after a bullet shattered her leg.
>
> Next to her stood her aunt Maria Vazquez Gomez, whose mother and brother died
> in the slaughter. Trembling uncontrollably and sobbing, she cried: ``I'm all
> alone, I'm all alone.''
>
> Zedillo condemned the massacre and ordered federal investigators to Chiapas to
> hunt down the killers and calm tension between Indians, Zapatistas and
> paramilitaries backed by local landowners and politicians.
>
> The moves did little to calm local people, whose grief for the dead was mixed
> with anger at the government for failing to guarantee their safety despite a
> huge military presence in the state left over from the January 1994 uprising
> by the Indian Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).
>
> Mexico's main left-wing opposition, the Party of the Democratic Revolution
> (PRD), called for the resignation of Interior Minister Emilio Chuayffet, a
> hard-liner widely blamed for blocking attempts to get stalled peace
> negotiations between the Zapatistas and the government back on track.
>
> Chuayffet denied any responsibility but Bishop Vera released a copy of a
> letter he wrote to the minister on October 18 saying:
>
> ``We have information that paramilitary groups are multiplying ... former
> soldiers and police are training civilians to fight their brothers, ruling
> party congressmen are sponsoring the sale and the trafficking of weapons,
> acting as protectors and coordinators of the various paramilitary groups.''
>
> Vera said the government never responded to the letter.
>
> Federal Attorney-General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, whose office has taken over
> the investigation of the massacre, said Tuesday night that his detectives were
> questioning four people in connection with the crime but was not yet sure of
> their role.
>
> About 25 men traveling in light trucks carried out the killings and
> investigators were seeking to identify them, he added.
>
> But survivors of the massacre and local people said they knew who the killers
> were -- paramilitaries backed by local branches of Zedillo's Institutional
> Revolutionary Party (PRI).
>
> There was no immediate reaction to the mass murder from the jungle hideout of
> Zapatista leader Subcommander Marcos. But Javier Elorriaga, a leader of the
> Zapatista's civilian wing, accused the Chiapas state government of giving the
> paramilitaries money for weapons, uniforms and communications equipment.
>
> ``You can't explain how these people can walk around Chiapas with impunity
> with their arms and uniforms and the huge number of police and soldiers don't
> touch them,'' he said in a radio interview. ``The Chiapas government protects
> them.''
>
> Both Chiapas state governor Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro and national PRI leader
> Mariano Palacios Alcocer have denied any involvement with the paramilitaries.
> ^REUTERS@
>
>