Body thought to be legendary Mexican rebel exhumed Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - JosePertierra@aol.com Body thought to be legendary Mexican rebel exhumed By Elizabeth Fullerton MEXICO CITY, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Scientists have exhumed what are believed to be the remains of legendary Mexican guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas, killed by the army during the nation's dirty war against leftist groups in the 1970s. The exhumation, completed on Tuesday, comes a week after the government unveiled a long-awaited report on human rights abuses during the 1970s. The government of President Vicente Fox, whose election in July 2000 ended 71 years of one-party hegemony, has pledged to try those responsible for the torture and disappearance of hundreds of people at the hands of the security forces. Cabanas was a school teacher turned guerrilla in conflict-torn western Guerrero state. His family has long pushed for his body to be exhumed and identified but lacked the funds and official backing to do so. "They found the part of the right jawbone destroyed, possibly by a bullet, which would prove it was (the body of) Lucio Cabanas, in accordance with the forensic report of death," said Julio Mata, a spokesman for Adafem, a group that represents the disappeared in Mexico. Cabanas founded the Party of the Poor and was killed on Dec. 3, 1974, in the working class village of Atoyac de Alvarez, which has spawned numerous revolutionaries. Governments of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, waged a focused and successful war against rebel movements and sympathizers throughout the 1970s. Cabanas was interred in the thick of night without a coffin in Atoyac's main cemetery, identified only by a local doctor, Mata said. "As there was great terror on the part of the family, who were persecuted, assassinated, executed and disappeared, no one came forward (to identify the body)," he noted. The autonomous National Human Rights Commission is investigating the remains, verifying the DNA and checking for evidence of further bullet wounds. Mata said Cabanas' family had also contracted scientists from the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation in Guatemala to conduct a parallel probe. Feelings still run high in Atoyac over the brutal quashing of Cabanas's rebellion. Around 300 sympathizers and inhabitants of the village, an hour's drive from the Pacific resort of Acapulco, marched on Monday to commemorate the 27th anniversary of his death. Mexico's poor human rights record was thrust into the spotlight by the October murder of prominent human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa. 17:38 12-04-01 [In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information see: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-12.04.01-22:40:39-3712