Toll Tops 100 in Mexico Rebellion : Latin America: Fighting continues between army and Indian guerrillas, who have abandoned several towns they captured. President calls for an end to violence.

The death count exceeded 100 Monday on the third day of fighting between the army and Indian guerrillas who have captured and largely abandoned eight towns in the southern state of Chiapas.

The guerrillas also have reportedly kidnaped the former state governor.

The state’s three Roman Catholic bishops are offering to serve as mediators between the government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army, as the guerrillas call themselves. The rebels are demanding better living conditions and democracy for the inhabitants of the impoverished, largely indigenous state on the border with Guatemala.

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari called for an end to the violence and for unity among citizens to confront the nation’s problems. During a ceremony at the presidential palace, he acknowledged that his economic reform program has not yet benefited all sectors of Mexican society.

“We know that needs and inequalities persist,” Salinas told legislators. “We know that benefits and opportunities still are not tangible realities for many.”

The economic reform program, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect Jan. 1--the day the crisis began--was criticized by the guerrillas on Sunday in a lengthy declaration of war.

They said that NAFTA, an agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada to eliminate trade barriers over a 15-year period, is an example of growing foreign influence in their country and an economic policy that favors the rich.

The guerrillas also oppose U.S. training of Mexican soldiers.

Carlos Rojas, the new social development minister, said in a Mexico City news conference that Chiapas has received more money than any other state from the Solidarity poverty alleviation program.

He announced the creation of a committee of state and federal officials to devise projects to address the state’s problems.

Overall, federal spending in Chiapas has risen more than tenfold in the past five years to $250 million last year, Socorro Diaz, undersecretary of the interior, told reporters in Mexico City.

Diaz said the guerrillas are “influenced and manipulated” by similar Central American groups. The Indians have denied any foreign ties.

Diaz acknowledged that the government had received information about arms smuggling and military training camps on the Guatemalan border in the final months of last year. As recently as November, officials in her ministry were denying the existence of guerrilla groups here.

“A longstanding backwardness in the area obligated us to act with extra prudence and caution,” she explained.

A military spokesman in Guatemala said that the government had not ruled out the possibility that members of the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit were helping the Mexican guerrillas.

And one rebel leader told Mexico’s official news agency, Notimex, that the Zapatistas had trained in the jungle in Chiapas, which borders Guatemala.

Meanwhile, the government increased security forces in Guerrero, another southern state that was the base of operations for guerrilla groups wiped out two decades ago.

The Chiapas guerrillas have withdrawn from at least three of the five towns captured New Year’s Day, including this tourist center, the state’s second-largest city. But they have captured three new towns: Oxchuc, Huixtla and Guadalupe Tepeyac.

Altamirano, one of the towns originally invaded, is believed to still be under guerrilla control. But it was not clear late Monday who controlled Ocosingo. Guerrillas still had a roadblock leading to the town but told reporters that they had decided to withdraw, although the army had not claimed to have regained Ocosingo.

Mexican reporters who tried to enter Huixtla said they were captured by a group claiming to be part of the guerrilla movement and were charged a $230 “war tax” to be set free.

The niece of Absalon Castellanos, governor of the state from 1982 to 1988, claimed that he was kidnaped by guerrillas at his ranch 22 miles east of Comitan, another tourist attraction that the rebels have said they intend to invade. Castellanos is also the former Chiapas regional army commander.

He was reportedly put in his own truck and driven toward the Lacandon jungle, where the guerrillas are believed to have trained.

Casualties on Monday included journalist Ismael Romero of the Mexico City daily La Jornada, who was shot in the shoulder at a military checkpoint outside San Cristobal.

The U.S. Embassy sent five representatives to Chiapas on Monday to help Americans find safety or a way out if they chose. It was not known how many Americans were in the state, a popular tourist destination for its scenery and traditional architecture and culture.

The state’s three bishops renewed their call for an end to the violence and repeated their offer to act as mediators. Rojas, who was once a peasant organizer in the state, is said to have spoken with the bishops, but the content of their conversation was not revealed.

Relations between church and government have been rocky in Chiapas, largely because of San Cristobal de las Casas Bishop Samuel Ruiz’s staunch defense of human rights for Indians in the state.

Government critics claim the Salinas administration was behind an attempt to oust Ruiz late last year.

Behind the Bloody Rebellion

The Zapatista National Liberation Army, the group behind the violence in Mexico’s southernmost state of Chiapas, was virtually unknown when the uprising began Saturday.

The Rebels

The rebels claim their numbers run into the thousands; the government says there are only a couple hundred. However, witnesses said their attacks seemed well-executed. Rebel leaders denied rumors of help or connection with guerrilla movements in Central America or elsewhere.

Grievances

Lacandon and other Indian peoples in Chiapas state have long been feuding with state and federal authorities, often over land. They complain that lumberers, land sharks and cattle ranches increasingly are encroaching on their native habitat, the rain forest, and that the government is doing little to help.

People and Location

Most of Chiapas’ people are at least part Indian, and many areas carry on the customs of their ancestors. Potentially rich in natural resources, including oil, Chiapas nonetheless remains one of Mexico’s poorest states.