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At least 45 dead in southern Mexico massacre

In this story: December 23, 1997
Web posted at: 5:44 p.m. EST (2244 GMT)

ACTEAL, Mexico (CNN) -- At least 45 people died in an attack on a rebel-controlled area in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, the International Red Cross said Tuesday.

Witnesses said scores of gunmen walked into the village of Acteal and opened fire with AK-47s, chasing those who got away down a mountainside. The nearby village of Quextic also was attacked, witnesses said.

Among the dead were 15 children, 21 women and nine men, Red Cross officials said. The victims had been shot or hacked to death with machetes. A number of people were injured or missing.

Bloodiest attack since 1994 uprising

The attack, which occurred Monday, was the bloodiest in Chiapas state since 135 people died in a Zapatista uprising in 1994. It occurred in an area where pro-government and pro-rebel groups have been fighting for power for months.

Witnesses said they recognized some of the attackers as members of local factions of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, from surrounding villages.

Juan Vazquez Luna, a 15-year-old rebel supporter who said his mother, father and four sisters died in the attack, said he was praying in Acteal's clapboard church when he heard the first shots. He said he went outside and found about 70 men firing AK-47s.

With many of the other 900 people of the town, he fled down a steep mountainside toward the river, where shallow caves provided some protection. The gunmen followed, and most of the victims were killed along the river banks, Vazquez said.

President, governor condemn massacre

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo condemned the massacre on Tuesday. His spokesman told Reuters that the president expressed "complete and absolute rejection of this kind of violence."

"The federal government will proceed to order a complete and thorough investigation of the events, and those responsible will be punished," said Zedillo's chief spokesman, Fernando Lerdo de Tejada.

Lerdo also said Zedillo considers the massacre a "profoundly sad reason" to restart a dialogue between the government and Zapatista Indian rebels. Talks broke down last year.

Chiapas state governor Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro also condemned the killings but said violence will not stop unless all participants are prepared to bury hostilities.

Zapatista sympathizers have accused Ruiz's government of supporting paramilitary groups, a claim his administration has denied.

Victims were rebel sympathizers

The victims were members of the peasant group Las Abejas, which sympathizes with the Zapatista rebels. In 1995, the rebels set up their own government for Chenalho county based in the nearby town of Polho. It is in competition with the officially recognized local government run by the PRI.

Clashes between the two sides have raged for seven months, killing 30 Tzotzil Indian peasants and leaving nearly 7,000 homeless.

"It's an incomprehensible situation in which we have not been able to stop the violence," said Roman Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz.

At least 300 people -- by some estimates 600 -- have died in similar clashes in Chiapas state since the 1994 uprising. Tens of thousands of state police and federal troops have been unable to calm tensions. In some cases, human rights workers have accused police of siding with ruling party-affiliated peasants who have attacked rebel supporters.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 
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