SAN CRISTOBAL, Mexico (AP) -- Gov. Pablo Salazar announced Thursday
                  that he would free all Zapatista supporters from jails in Chiapas, partially
                  meeting one of three remaining demands made by rebels in the southern state.

                  The move came as the Zapatista rebels began to wrap up a 15-day march
                  through Mexico to build support for an Indian rights and autonomy bill before
                  Congress.

                  President Vicente Fox has made peace with the rebels one of his main goals
                  since taking office December 1 and ending 71 years of power by the Institutional
                  Revolutionary Party.

                  In an effort to lure the Zapatistas back to long-stalled talks, he has closed four
                  army bases in Chiapas, helped gain the release of dozens of jailed Zapatista
                  supporters and sent Congress the Indian rights bill that would give indigenous
                  communities some autonomy.

                  Besides passage of the bill, however, the Zapatistas have demanded that three
                  more bases be closed and that all prisoners be released.

                  Salazar appeared willing to try to meet one of those demands Thursday, saying
                  19 Zapatista sympathizers would be released from jail in the next few hours. He
                  added that the arrest warrants against seven others who remained free would be
                  dropped.

                  "According to our information, starting today, no Zapatistas remain in jail in
                  Chiapas," he said.

                  The rebels did not immediately respond to Salazar's announcement. But they
                  have said that more sympathizers remain jailed in Tabasco, Veracruz and
                  Queretaro states.

                  Earlier Thursday in Anenecuilco, the hometown of Mexico's most beloved
                  revolutionary leader, Emiliano Zapata, few people turned out to see the rebels
                  who adopted Zapata's name and came seeking to wrap themselves in his legacy.

                  The hundreds of foreigners and journalists traveling with the two-week bus tour
                  though Mexico by the Zapatista rebels far outnumbered local people in the town
                  square at Anenecuilco, 40 miles south of Mexico City.

                  Residents of Anenecuilco -- where children and grandchildren of Zapata still live
                  -- had expressed concerns that the Zapatistas were dishonoring the memory of
                  the peasant leader.

                  Rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos assured residents that despite the name his
                  Chiapas-based group had adopted, they didn't seek to compare themselves to the
                  revolutionary killed by government troops in 1919.

                  "We didn't come to usurp history, which belongs to everyone," Marcos said,
                  under the shadow of a massive Zapata monument.

                  Marcos and hundreds of supporters are scheduled to arrive Sunday in the center
                  of Mexico City, where they will lobby Congress for passage of the bill.

                  The rebels staged a 1994 uprising in the name of democracy and Indian rights,
                  leading to sporadic violence between Zapatista supporters and paramilitary
                  groups in Chiapas.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.