MEXICAN CLASHES LEAVE FOUR DEAD


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


    Copyright 1997 by Agence France-Presse
    Fri, 3 Oct 1997 19:40:33 PDT

   SAN CRISTOBAL, Mexico, Oct 3 (AFP) - Armed, hooded assailants
killed a six-year-old girl and three others in Chiapas state in what
sources said may have been an attack targeting sympathizers of
Zapatista rebels here.
   Prosecutors here said the attack occurred Thursday in the
indigenous community of Limas Chitam-Ucum near Pantelho in Chiapas,
where rebels staged a January 1, 1994 uprising against the
government.
   Sources familiar with the case said Limas Chitam-Ucum is the
capital of an "autonomous zone" created by sympathizers of the
Zapatista National Liberation Army, which has yet to sign a
definitive peace agreement with the government.
   One of those injured in the attack said the 25 assailants were
armed with guns and knives, and that one of them slashed off his
finger.
   Last month, a Zapatista commando was believed to have attacked a
group of sympathizers of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI) here, and in May PRI supporters attacked the indigenous
village.
   Observers say the number of clashes between Zapatista and
paramilitary groups has increased in recent months.

 
=================================================================
  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-10.08.97-23:39:29-8250