OVENTIC, Mexico (AP) -- Zapatista rebels marked the seventh anniversary of
                  their 1994 Indian-rights rebellion with praise for President Vicente Fox's efforts
                  to restart peace talks -- and a warning that his actions don't go far enough.

                  A day after the government announced that it was closing a second military base
                  in a conflict zone of the troubled southern state, rebels said they would
                  settle for nothing less than the closure of all seven bases located near rebel
                  strongholds.

                  "Each one of the bases represents an affront to the desire for peace of the vast
                  majority of Mexicans and of tens of thousands of people from other countries,"
                  said rebel commander David, who like most Zapatista guerrillas uses only one
                  name.

                  Reading from a statement issued by the Zapatista's general command, David said
                  the rebels appreciated Fox's decision to withdraw troops from the two bases, as
                  well as the government's release of 17 guerrilla prisoners on Saturday, and Fox's
                  decision to immediately send an Indian rights bill to Congress.

                  But he said there could be no peace dialogues until the government complied with
                  the demand of top Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos to withdraw
                  more troops.

                  In particular, he said, the army should leave the village of Guadalupe Tepeyac,
                  110 miles east of San Cristobal de las Casas, which the rebels used as their
                  headquarters until 1995, when the army drove them and more than 1,000
                  residents out.

                  In a surprise announcement Sunday, officials said they would close the
                  5-year-old base in the municipality of Jolnachoj, only 875 yards from Oventic, a
                  key Zapatista rebel base.

                  On December 22, Fox ordered troops to pull out of Amador Hernandez, a jungle
                  town where soldiers faced daily confrontations with townspeople for more than
                  a year over the military's base there.

                  Fox, whose historic July 2 election ended 71 years of single-party rule, has
                  promised to bring peace to Chiapas, and appears to have made it one of his top
                  priorities with a series of recent initiatives.

                  Marcos has said he considered the pullbacks "a sign of better compromises to
                  come," but demanded Fox also remove troops from around the seven rebel
                  strongholds.

                  The rebel leader David's comments came Monday as thousands of indigenous
                  Zapatista supporters gathered in a dense fog to celebrate the seventh anniversary
                  of the January 1, 1994, uprising that caught Mexican leaders by surprise and
                  briefly captured the world's attention.

                  The Zapatista National Liberation Army, an overwhelmingly Indian rebel force,
                  emerged from the jungle on that day to capture six Chiapas towns. A cease-fire
                  took hold only 12 days later after more than 145 deaths.

                  But with peace talks stalled, low-level violence and instability have festered in
                  Chiapas, with repeated clashes between pro- and anti-rebel factions.

                  After David's Monday morning speech, Indians dressed in traditional straw hats
                  and brightly colored Mexican scarves danced alongside the ski-masked rebels to
                  celebrate the rebellion's anniversary. The festivities began Sunday with sporting
                  and cultural events.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.