Salinas--Both the Dove and the Hawk

It was inevitable that Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari would shake up his government after last week’s bloody Indian uprising in the state of Chiapas. But more than political damage control is needed in the wake of a crisis that has tarnished the young Mexican president’s reputation both inside Mexico and abroad.

After all, the ouster of Interior Minister Patrocinio Gonzalez was an easy call for Salinas. No official was more responsible for the social and political mess in Chiapas that blew up in the president’s face. Gonzalez, who oversaw internal security in his Cabinet post, failed utterly to anticipate the Chiapas trouble. To make matters worse, he was governor of that state for five years before becoming interior minister last year and critics there claim his heavy-handed administration helped exacerbate the backward conditions that led to the outbreak of violence on Jan. 1.

That is why the far more interesting, and far more hopeful, changes that Salinas announced Monday are his selection of Atty. Gen. Jorge Carpizo MacGregor to replace Gonzalez as interior minister and his dispatching of former Mexico City Mayor Manuel Camacho Solis to Chiapas. Camacho will be Salinas’ personal envoy there and head a federal commission that will seek “reconciliation,” Salinas said. Both Carpizo and Camacho have outstanding credentials for their difficult new jobs.

Carpizo was a respected human rights advocate before becoming attorney general. He will now have to ask some tough questions to determine whether security forces have, as some rights groups fear, gone too far in putting down the Chiapas revolt.

With both Mexican and foreign journalists still barred from the area of conflict in the south, rumors and reports of bloody suppression persist. Sooner or later Salinas must reply to international concerns over human rights abuses in this crisis, and when he does an aide of Carpizo’s stature will be extremely helpful.

Camacho is a well-regarded negotiator with close ties to Mexican leftist groups, a key reason Salinas appointed him mayor of Mexico City, where the left is politically potent. The president surely figures that if anyone can get the Indian rebels to talk peace, Camacho can. But, as with Carpizo, Salinas must give his new appointee the leeway needed to get the job done and to calm the crisis without further bloodshed.

A good first step would be for both Carpizo and Camacho to offer the leaders of the Indian rebellion guarantees of amnesty and, perhaps more important in the short term, personal safety if they agree to stop fighting, come out into the open and negotiate publicly with the government.