Mexican bishop plans to keep mediating in Chiapas Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Mexican bishop plans to keep mediating in Chiapas 01:43 a.m. May 26, 1999 By Luis Manuel Lopez VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico, May 25 (Reuters) - A controversial Catholic bishop from Mexico's southern Chiapas state said on Tuesday he would continue mediating the conflict between the government and Zapatista rebels seeking improved Indian rights. Samuel Ruiz, the openly pro-Indian bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas in the Chiapas highlands, was active in mediating the conflict between Zapatista guerrillas and the government but has made few public appearances over the past year. ``I will work at the on-going tasks of mediation between the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN),'' Ruiz told a news conference after a meeting of church leaders from Chiapas and nearby Tabasco states in the Tabasco capital Villahermosa. ``That is the work we have looking ahead.'' Among issues he said were waiting for resolution was the disappearance of Conai, a mediating team led by Ruiz that shut down operations last year under what it said was continued official harassment. Zapatista guerrillas staged a 10-day armed uprising against the Mexican government on January 1, 1994 to win improved rights for the country's nine million Indians. Tortuous peace talks stalled amid acrimony in 1996 and have not been resumed despite efforts by Conai and Congressional mediators to revive them. A ceasefire has largely held since the fighting stopped but violence has continued between government allies and Zapatista supporters, culminating in the massacre of 45 Indians in the highland village of Acteal in December 1997. Ruiz is seen as a pillar of ``liberation theology'' promoting social justice in Mexico. He caused a stir during Pope John Paul's visit to Mexico in 1993, just before the Zapatista revolt, when he sent the pontiff a missive titled ``A Pastoral Letter'' outlining the ills of Chiapas' poor Indian communities. Though some expected him to stage a repeat performance, Ruiz kept a low profile during the pope's last visit in January. Ruiz has dropped out of the spotlight in recent months, but on Tuesday he denied a newspaper report that he had quit as bishop of San Cristobal, and joked with reporters over the chances of his taking to the jungle to join the guerrillas. ``I could stay there (in Chiapas), head for the jungle and make myself into a guerrilla; but that will never happen,'' he said. ``We will continue to work within the universal church (and) I will not stop being bishop,'' he said. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. ================================================================= 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-05.26.99-13:39:01-26743