By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service

ACTEAL, Mexico, Dec. 4 –– The killers came in broad daylight, three days before Christmas 1997, first spraying bullets into a makeshift church, then chasing
villagers onto a steep hillside thick with broad banana leaves. They opened fire into the brush, aiming by the sound of crying children.

In the end, 45 unarmed Acteal villagers, Roman Catholic Indians committed to nonviolent struggle for indigenous rights, lay dead. Diego Perez Jimenez lost seven
members of his family in the massacre, committed by a paramilitary group backed by members of the ruling party trying to maintain control over the impoverished
Indians.

But today, in this mountain village whose name is an emblem for the seven-year struggle here in the southern state of Chiapas, Perez said he sees new hope for peace
since last Friday's inauguration of President Vicente Fox. He said that if Fox can restore hope to this heartbroken place, maybe he can bring it to all of Chiapas.

"The last government brought us the massacre and pain, but with Vicente Fox we are hoping for a new world," Perez said, standing before a wall where the victims'
photos are hung around a large wooden cross, illuminated by two candles. "I am a victim of this war, and I think we are going to see a change in our lives."

Fox has given the people of Acteal what they have not had since the massacre: hope. But turning hope into peace will be far harder here in this violent stew of rebels
and soldiers, poverty and neglect, and the bloody rampages of shadowy paramilitary groups. The conflict in Chiapas remains the most intractable obstacle in
Mexico's march toward equality and democracy promised by Fox, Mexico's first opposition party president in 71 years.

Chiapas, perhaps more than any issue, points out the stark economic and ethnic divisions of Mexico. The economic advances of northern Mexico, where the
population is largely of European descent, have not been shared in the poor south, where the largely indigenous population lives with poverty and illiteracy. While Fox
is trying to bring new Internet technology to the north, poor and angry Indians in the south still live in shacks with dirt floors and no running water.

The Chiapas conflict is often described as a simple struggle for a better life for Indians; during the campaign, Fox boasted that he could end it in 15 minutes. But
Chiapas is actually a complex web of tensions, some recent and some ancient. It is a struggle between Indian and non-Indian, rich and poor, large landowners and
poor landowners, the army and clandestine paramilitary groups, traditional Catholics and evangelical Protestants.

Fox has moved quickly to put Chiapas at the top of his agenda. The tens of thousands of Mexican army troops here have already pulled back from roadside
checkpoints that have existed for years. Fox has promised to send legislation to Congress calling for enactment of a never-ratified 1996 peace accord with the
Zapatista rebels who have led the armed uprising. He has promised to end the chronic poverty and discrimination against Mexico's indigenous communities that led to
the rebellion.

In response, the rebel leader known as Subcommander Marcos called reporters to his jungle hideout on Saturday to make his first conciliatory statements toward the
Mexican government in years. He said Fox's statements and actions as president were a positive sign, and added that his Zapatista National Liberation Army was
willing to negotiate for peace.

But Fox's challenge is not simply Marcos. He faces opposition in a deeply divided Congress, which would have to ratify any peace deal. Members of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which Fox ousted from power, are in no mood to help him.

Marcos has said enactment of the San Andres Accords, which were signed but never passed into law, is his first condition for reopening talks with the government.
The deal contains guarantees of local autonomy for many indigenous communities, according to their customs. While many see that as a common-sense approach to
improving Indian life, some members of Congress and other critics fear it could establish a dangerous precedent and lead to similar demands from Indian groups
elsewhere. Mexico's population of 100 million is about 10 percent indigenous.

Another obstacle will be reining in the region's many outlaw paramilitary groups. Even if Fox and Marcos can agree to terms, there is no guarantee that paramilitary
violence, which neither of them can fully control, would not continue to make the region bloody and unstable.

A look at Acteal underscores the complexities. Set on a steep mountainside about 35 miles northeast of San Cristobal de las Casas, Acteal is actually a cluster of
three small villages. On the east end is the village where PRI followers live. On the west end is the Zapatista village with murals of Marcos painted on the walls. And
in the center is Perez's Acteal, which is home of 640 members of Las Abejas, the Bees, a Catholic organization that sympathizes with the Zapatistas' goals but rejects
their use of violence.

Many say the village's pacifism was the reason it was targeted; the paramilitary forces knew they could send a warning to the Zapatistas without facing armed
resistance.

Perez's village did not exist until 1997. As the Chiapas violence continued, members of the pacifist Abejas from villages throughout the region decided they would be
safer from paramilitary attacks if they lived together. So they began carving out a place to live on a swath of steep, rugged and unused land in Acteal.

The massacre occurred a week after Perez moved to Acteal, and its memories are still fresh: There are bullet holes in the wooden walls and corrugated metal roof of
the village chapel. When Perez looks out across the valley, he can see the village that he left to come here, where he and his family hope to return someday, when
Chiapas is peaceful enough for them to live safely.

"I want to be able to go home," he said.