mexnews: Fox Announces Chiapas Campaign

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 Fox Announces Chiapas Campaign
 By Amparo Trejo
 Associated Press Writer

 Friday, Feb. 9, 2001; 2:07 p.m. EST

MEXICO CITY -- Already seeking to make peace with Zapatista rebels in
Chiapas, President Vicente Fox headed to the southern state Friday to
announce a campaign aimed at reducing poverty and boosting economic
development in Mexico's poorest region.

 Fox was scheduled to announce a $50 million investment in improving the
state's railroad infrastructure, as well as a credit program designed to
encourage the development of the maquiladora, or assembly-for-export,
industry there.

Chiapas, a largely rural, mountainous state along Mexico's southern border
with Guatemala, is Mexico's largest producer of coffee. It also has
significant oil reserves, large hydroelectric dams and sprawling banana
plantations.

Yet further development has bypassed the state, where a quarter of the 3.6
million people are Indians who have long been fighting the government for
land rights.

On Jan. 1, 1994 - the day the North American Free Trade Agreement took
effect - Indian rebels staged an armed uprising, sparking more than six
years of skirmishes between rebel sympathizers and paramilitary armies.

 Fox has made peace with the rebels a priority since taking office Dec. 1.
In an effort to restart long-stalled peace talks, he has closed military
bases, released rebel sympathizers from jail and sent an Indian rights bill
to Congress.

The former Coca-Cola executive also has pledged to reduce poverty across
Mexico - especially in Chiapas. Since taking office, he has made two
official trips to the state to lobby for his peace plan.

On Friday, he made his third, with plans to announce a program to renovate
200 miles of rail line between Chiapas and the Yucatan. The program is being
funded by Mexican business owners and international banks.

"The railroad will bring a better life and commercial movement - products
from producers from there, mangos, other agricultural products" said Jorge
Perez, a spokesman for Chiapas Gov. Pablo Salazar.

The railroad has largely fallen out of use, transporting only the occasional
shipment of cement or petroleum even though it crosses several areas that
produce coffee, sugar, and bananas.

Agricultural producers stopped using the trains to transport their goods,
complaining that they weren't reliable.

Government officials believe they can change that.

"It could become the cheapest and most secure transportation to the center
of the country," Perez said.

(c) 2001 The Associated Press
 
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