Accusations of Bad Faith as Mexico and Rebels Open Talks

          By JULIA PRESTON

               SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- There is no sign of peace between the
               government and the Zapatista rebels in the southern state of Chiapas, and little reason to hope
          for a settlement anytime soon.

          Last weekend some of the highest Zapatista commanders donned their black masks and traditional
          Indian regalia to come out of hiding and travel here for meetings with their sympathizers and with
          mediators in peace talks. It was the first time they had left their clandestine strongholds in two years
          and their first attempt to move things forward with the mediators since talks collapsed in late 1996.

          But as soon as the meetings began the Zapatistas fought with the mediators, and the rebels and the
          government began accusing each other of bad faith.

          An Indian commander in military fatigues who goes by the name of Tacho complained that the
          29-member Zapatista delegation had been given only "miserable little cots" with no mattresses to
          sleep on by the mediators, who were in charge of organizing logistics for the event.

          The Zapatistas said that the mediators, federal lawmakers drawn from a range of political parties,
          had also failed to arrange adequate security. The International Committee of the Red Cross was in
          charge of setting up a security cordon around the meeting site.

          "We will not allow our Indian peoples to be humiliated ever again," Tacho said, calling the mediators
          racist.

          The offended mediators rejected the Zapatistas' charge but rushed to find better accommodations
          for them. Top government officials seized on the incident as a sign that the Zapatistas were interested
          only in publicity, not peace.

          There were, in short, many new indications of the depth of the impasse between the government and
          the peculiar, quasi-guerrilla Indian organization in Chiapas.

          The government says it wants peace but continues to harass Zapatista villages, belittle their demands,
          underestimate the sympathy they attract among Mexicans and turn a blind eye to attacks on
          Zapatista sympathizers by government followers.

          As soon as the Zapatista leaders announced their intention to return to public view, the armed forces
          dispatched a platoon to march through a key Zapatista village, making a show of contempt for the
          rebel initiative.

          A hint of the ambiguity of the Zapatistas lies in their appearance. Their leaders, mysterious and
          appealing figures to many Mexicans, wear wide-brimmed straw hats topped with cheerfully colored
          satin ribbons but conceal their faces behind forbidding black ski masks.

          The Zapatistas retain the trappings of a military rebel force. Last week Subcommander Marcos, a
          non-Indian who is regarded as the de facto leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, posed
          for a photographer once again in full military garb with an AK-47 automatic rifle strapped across his
          chest.

          By law, as long as some form of peace process is under way, the rebels are allowed to keep their
          weapons. But since they staged a weeklong armed uprising in January 1994, the Zapatistas have
          repeatedly declared their commitment to political, not military, means.

          This year, as the rest of Mexico was deciding how to share political power in a dozen relatively
          orderly state elections, the Zapatistas staged a tactical withdrawal from the stage of public opinion,
          where they have always been very effective. After a massacre of their sympathizers in December
          1997 and a series of government attacks on Zapatista-run villages this year, Zapatista leaders went
          silent, cutting off communications even with close supporters.

          The meetings here are partly a recognition by the Zapatistas that they took their silence too far. In a
          pensive interview last week with the newspaper La Jornada, Marcos acknowledged that his forces
          had been too quick to cut themselves off from potential allies in political parties and other unarmed
          groups.

          "When making political declarations one tends not to make subtle distinctions," he admitted.

          The Zapatistas gathered 2,500 of their most enthusiastic followers from all over Mexico to chart a
          strategy to build national support for their proposals for greater political independence for Indian
          peoples. "You are not alone!" was the favorite cheer from the floor at the inauguration of the talks
          Friday.

          But it was not clear that the Zapatistas had come up with any new approach during past months.

          The main sticking points are differences between the two sides over accords on autonomy for Indian
          villages that government negotiators signed in 1996 and later sought to revise. One irony is that the
          positions are not that far apart and could probably be resolved in serious talks.

          What exists in Chiapas cannot be called war because there is no military combat. But there is no sign
          of what might be called peace.