Mexico Steps Up Bid for Truce With Zapatista Rebels : Revolt: Official offers to listen to their demands, going so far as to suggest recognition for the group.

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s government, struggling to put down a deadly Indian rebellion in southern Mexico, stepped up peace efforts Tuesday with a call for a truce and an offer to listen to the guerrillas’ demands.

Salinas’ newly appointed peace negotiator, former Mexico City Mayor Manuel Camacho Solis, sounded a conciliatory note in his first public remarks, even suggesting that the Zapatista National Liberation Army, as the guerrillas call themselves, could be recognized as a legitimate force.

“They are a reality,” Camacho said in a news conference. “If we are going to reach an end to the conflict, we have to talk to them.”

Recognition as a legitimate “belligerent” force is one of several demands the Zapatista rebels set forth in a five-page statement delivered late Monday to a newspaper in Chiapas, the impoverished southern state where the rebellion broke out New Year’s Day.

The Zapatista rebels also said they were willing to begin talks with the government if a cease-fire is declared and the Mexican army stops its “indiscriminate bombings” and withdraws from Chiapas. If the conditions are not met, they said, they would “continue their advance to the capital.”

Camacho, who has a reputation as an able negotiator whose skills were honed in the political fights that go with running this ungovernable capital, declined to comment on the specific demands presented in the rebel statement until he could verify its authenticity. But he was careful not to rule out any condition. “We have to find a dignified, political solution for everyone,” he said, adding he was calling for a truce to allow peace talks to take place.

His tone came in marked contrast to the hard-line approach adopted, thus far, by other officials, including Patrocinio Gonzalez Blanco Garrido, the interior minister and former Chiapas governor who lost his job Monday in the wake of the rebellion. The dismissal of Gonzalez, his replacement with a respected veteran of human rights, and the appointment of Camacho appeared to signal a shift in Salinas’ strategy in handling the Chiapas crisis.

Analysts said Salinas’ moves were aimed at containing the political damage his government has suffered as the uprising spawned a growing sense of insecurity at home and a deteriorating image abroad. By naming a negotiator like Camacho, who enjoys credibility with both the left and the right, the government buys time and creates the impression of taking the initiative in working for peace.

“Going the military route without the alternative of political negotiation could represent a major setback and an eventual dismantling of (Salinas’) economic program because of the element of social-political violence, which in any country with a fragile system scares investors,” said El Financiero columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio.

Camacho said he had met with army officers late Monday and on Tuesday made a point of meeting with Roman Catholic Church bishops, despite earlier attempts by the government to blame some priests for inciting the rebellion.

Camacho said he has not yet contacted the rebels, but he did not indicate when he might do so. He said, however, that he planned to travel to Chiapas today.

Even as the talk in Mexico City was of peace, the army was reported to be preparing an offensive against about 400 guerrillas dug in around the northern Chiapas town of El Bosque.