Aircraft Strafe, Bomb Fleeing Mexican Rebels

As Indian guerrillas continued to withdraw from this town and nearby villages Tuesday, they came under bomb attacks by government aircraft in hilly southeastern Chiapas state.

In the late afternoon, at least one warplane backed by helicopters targeted rebel positions on the southern outskirts of the regional tourist center, San Cristobal de las Casas, Reuters news agency reported.

As the military appeared to gain the upper hand in the five-day uprising, government planes continued to circle the area Tuesday night and strafe the zone with machine-gun fire.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The first group of reporters to enter Ocosingo since the fighting began New Year’s Day in Chiapas found evidence of the fiercest confrontation to date between the army and the rebels.

A total of 25 bodies, mainly of guerrillas but also including that of a baby, were strewn in the streets and buildings, particularly in the village market, where five bodies showed signs of execution, lying face down in a row with their hands behind their backs.

Besides 11 bodies, the market contained numerous guerrilla weapons: sticks carved in the shape of guns, some with knives or corrugated metal strapped to the barrel like bayonets.

Townspeople, emerging after three days of confinement in their homes, said they believe that there are more corpses in the undergrowth surrounding the village, where vultures gathered.

A soldier, who would identify himself only as Juan, said four soldiers and four police officers were killed in the fighting. Soldiers appeared nervous as they watched the streets from doorways and the town’s few second-story windows.

Neighbors carried two women, found injured in their homes, to the heavily guarded town medical clinic. They debated what to do about a shirtless young man in fatigue pants and combat boots whom they found, wounded and unable to speak, near the edge of town where the Zapatistas pulled out Monday night.

Villagers in Huixtla, Oxchuc and Altamirano said the rebels left their towns at dawn Tuesday. The rebels had captured a total of eight communities, including San Cristobal, but have seemingly disappeared back into the jungle.

Soldiers still patrolled the main square of San Cristobal on Tuesday but began allowing pedestrians to walk on the sidewalks bordering the plaza, although not through the square itself.

Samuel Ruiz, the controversial bishop of San Cristobal and the state’s leading human rights activist, condemned the bombing at a news conference at that town’s Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center. He cited reports that captured Indian guerrillas were executed in Ocosingo, calling executions and the bombings “excessive measures” and violations of international rules of war.

Ruiz called for an investigation by international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Americas Watch, which he said have been contacted and urged to provide observers during the fighting and its aftermath.

The new government spokesman for the Chiapas conflict, Eloy Cantu, made a brief statement late Tuesday in which he addressed none of those issues.

As the fighting died down, the exchanges of blame for the conflict rose.

The most immediate cause for the invasion of Ocosingo, people here said, was that the guerrillas believed some of their comrades were being held in the local jail.

Juan, the soldier, said residents had told him that the local priest has been inciting them to arms.

The priest, who identified himself as Father Pablo, denied that accusation. “I have encouraged respect for human rights, but always following the legal path,” he said. “I have never promoted armed struggle.”

One villager, a middle-age woman who like many of those interviewed asked not to be identified, said the roots of the fighting go far deeper.

“You have to remember that the rich ranchers here are unjust,” she said. When Indians organized a demonstration three months ago in the town square over a land dispute with local ranchers, they were attacked and jailed, she said.

Even though the guerrillas looted a rental house she owns near the square, she said, “I understand them. All they want are schools, medical clinics and a decent way to live.”

She said that much of the money the federal government sends for programs never gets to the people it was intended to help. Federal spending in Chiapas totaled $750 million last year, according to government officials.

The guerrillas, for their part, left little more information about themselves in retreat than was known when they declared war on the Mexican army last weekend.

Mexican Interior Ministry officials said the guerrillas’ apparent training and skill indicated they had help from foreign leftist groups, probably from Guatemalan rebels who for decades have been locked in a war against neighboring Guatemala’s government.

Residents in the Chiapas towns said some of the guerrillas’ accents were Central American and reported that the group included at least one white man.

The guerrillas denied foreign influence, insisting theirs was a purely home-grown movement.

The border region formed by Mexico’s Chiapas state with Guatemala has long been home to Guatemalan rebels, tens of thousands of refugees fleeing violence and Mexico’s Mayan poor. It is a fluid region, where people traditionally have crossed back and forth with little regard for strict boundaries.

Guatemalan Defense Minister Mario Enriquez, in San Salvador to discuss regional security issues--including recent reports that former Salvadoran guerrillas may have helped arm the Guatemalan rebels--said the Guatemalan army was investigating whether the guerrillas participated in the Mexican uprising but that he could not yet draw a conclusion.

The Guatemalan guerrillas denied any involvement in the week’s bloodshed.

Some analysts in Mexico City said the government may be trying to blame foreign influence as a way to deflect attention from the root causes of the uprising--centuries of impoverishment and discrimination that have debilitated an entire culture.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson, in Mexico City, contributed to this report.