By REUTERS

               SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- Mexico's Zapatista rebels said on Sunday
               they wanted to start peace talks with federal lawmakers, raising hopes of progress to end the
          rebellion after more than two years of stalemate.

          In a surprise move, the Zapatista Army for National Liberation said in four separate statements it
          wanted public contact with a multi-party peace commission known as Cocopa.

          But the mostly Mayan Indian guerrilla army appeared to rule out face-to-face talks with the
          government of President Ernesto Zedillo, accusing him of not wanting peace.

          "If the federal government does not want peace, we would like to think there are others in Mexican
          society that would, and would like to extend our hand to them...We are trying to retake the path (of
          peace) with the legislative commission right where we left off," the rebels' military leader, known as
          Subcommander Marcos, said in one statement addressed to the Mexican Congress.

          After months of silence earlier this year, the rebels' move gave them back the initiative more than
          two years after peace talks broke down. Zedillo has accused the rebels of being intransigent by not
          returning to talks.

          The Zapatistas took up arms on New Years Day 1994, taking over several towns in southern
          Chiapas before being driven back by the army into the nearby jungle and agreeing to talks. Some
          150 people died in initial fighting and hundreds more have since died in ongoing related political
          violence.

          Chiapas is Mexico's poorest and most backward state.

          The Commission for Peace and Reconciliation (Cocopa) was created to serve as a bridge between
          the government and the guerrilla army, which demands greater Indian rights, land reform and
          democracy in a nation governed by the same political party since 1929.

          Talks between the Zedillo administration and rebels broke off in late 1996 after the government
          backed off on an Indian autonomy agreement its negotiators had signed with the rebels, saying the
          accord overstepped the bounds of the constitution and threatened to tear the country apart. The
          guerrillas walked away furious.

          The Cocopa was instrumental in crafting the accord into a proposed law, and the government's
          turnaround on the deal was a serious blow to the commission's credibility.

          "Maybe the mistake was to assume Cocopa could be a bridge to the government, and that, thanks
          to that bridge, we could reach peace....But it could not, because the government did not want the
          peace Cocopa offered..." the rebels' statement said.

          The Zapatistas appeared to be sidestepping Zedillo in order to take their case directly to Congress.
          Since the peace talks broke down, opposition parties took over control of the lower house of
          Congress in 1997 mid-term elections -- the first time since the Institutional Revolutionary Party took
          power nearly eight decades ago.

          Congress, once simply a rubber-stamp body for the president, has participated more in issues like a
          multi-billion dollar bank bailout from the 1994-95 peso crash, and the rebel offer of talks could also
          give it a new role.

          In another statement, Marcos said the rebels would hold a public conference with what he termed
          members of civil society in this highland city from November 20-22. The conference is part of a
          national referendum to be held by the Zapatistas on the issue of Indian autonomy sometime in the
          near future.
 
 

                     Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company