ACTEAL, Mexico (AP) -- Many villagers have returned since paramilitaries
                 killed 45 rebel sympathizers in the tiny highland town of Acteal, Mexico, four
                 years ago, and some of the accused killers are in prison. But survivors say
                 the memory of the massacre has not faded.

                 "After four years, our pain has not subsided," said Elena Perez Jimenez, who
                 survived the massacre on December 22, 1997, when members of the a Roman
                 Catholic community group called Las Abejas were attacked at a chapel in Acteal, in
                 southern Mexico's volatile Chiapas state.

                 "On the contrary, it has increased," she said.

                 Survivors fled in fear of more violence, but many returned this year, hoping
                 dialogue could resolve lingering local conflicts between supporters and opponents
                 of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, a mostly Indian rebel group in Chiapas.

                 Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party has lost both the
                 presidency and the Chiapas governorship since the massacre. But despite the
                 change, villagers still accuse the government of supporting the paramilitaries and
                 see little hope for a resolution to the conflict.

                 After taking office a year ago, Mexican President Vicente Fox focused on making
                 peace with the Zapatistas, who staged a rebellion in 1994, but talks collapsed after
                 Congress watered down an Indian-rights bill the rebels supported.

                 In Acteal, 6-year-old Efrain Gomez is a reminder of the 1997 massacre. His
                 jawbone was shattered by a rifle bullet in the attack, and today he is unable to talk
                 or chew his food properly.

                 "My poor son isn't happy," said his father, Victorio Gomez, whose wife was killed
                 in the attack. "He is sick. He doesn't eat well."

                 A bullet left Zenaida Jimenez Luna, 9, nearly blind and killed her parents. Today, her
                 uncle Mariano Luna cares for her.

                 Some suspects have been convicted, but the Law Abejas group criticized a judge's
                 decision last month to release six convicted paramilitaries.

                 "It's four years after the massacre, and we don't see any justice," said the group's
                 spokesman, Porfirio Arias Hernandez.

                 At the same time, those convicted of carrying out the massacre say innocent people
                 were sent to prison.

                 "There were only nine people who organized and participated in Acteal, and it pains
                 me that my friends who didn't know anything about this problem have been
                 sentenced to 36 years in prison," convicted paramilitary member Roberto Mendez
                 said in an interview in prison.

                 Mendez said he and others arrived in Acteal to confront alleged Zapatistas he
                 accused of killing 18 Institutional Revolutionary Party members. "It wasn't a
                 massacre," he said. "It was a confrontation with hidden Zapatistas."

                 He claimed the victims -- 21 women, 15 children and nine men -- were simply
                 caught in the cross fire.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.