Mexican Troops Deployed in Bid to Crush Rebels : Chiapas: A day after Zedillo issues warrants for key Zapatistas, two alleged leaders are arrested. Crackdown is about-face from negotiations with Indian guerrillas.

Mexican army troops thundered toward rebel territory in the southern state of Chiapas on Friday as officials arrested two alleged guerrilla leaders, increasing tensions in what threatens to be the final showdown of a smoldering, 13-month rebellion.

Hours after President Ernesto Zedillo ordered the arrest of five guerrilla leaders he accused of plotting attacks throughout Mexico, 80 to 100 troop transports were on the road toward the town of Guadalupe Tepayac at the edge of the rebel-held area, according to villagers along the route. Helicopters were also seen flying toward the town.

Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano disclosed that federal agents raided what government sources described as a guerrilla training camp and weapons range just outside the capital, near Toluca. They arrested 10 suspected rebels after a shootout that left one federal agent dead and another seriously injured.

Nearly 20 other accused supporters of the Zapatista National Liberation Army have been detained in the port city of Veracruz and in Mexico City.

Troops arrived in Guadalupe Tepayac, but rebels there appeared to have fled, according to unconfirmed reports. Soldiers set up a roadblock at Gabino Vasquez, about five hours away, and would not allow reporters to pass.

The deployments and arrests were a sharp about-face from efforts to seek a negotiated solution, which had been the government position since Jan. 12, 1994, after 12 days of fighting left 145 people dead and Mexico deeply divided over the uprising.

While most Mexicans sympathize with the guerrillas’ demands for better living conditions and indigenous rights, there has been a growing perception that the government’s inability to end the rebellion has led to lawlessness in Chiapas. Residents report increasing banditry on major highways, especially those near the rebel-held areas.

The rebellion has also contributed to the image of Zedillo, who took office Dec. 1, as weak and indecisive, especially after the mismanaged Dec. 20 devaluation of the peso sent the economy reeling.

Zedillo has taken bold action against the rebels by revealing the name of the charismatic leader known as Subcommander Marcos and ordering his arrest along with four other rebel leaders.

Mexico’s financial markets closed up only slightly after the decisive crackdown that Zedillo’s aides and the nation’s conservative forces had hoped would have a dramatic impact on the financial crisis.

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The Bolsa finished up 1.7% after a day of moderate trading, and the Mexican peso gained just 7 centavos, closing at 5.53 to the dollar. The currency has lost nearly 40% of its value since a one-day Zapatista uprising Dec. 19 helped trigger massive capital flight and a crisis of confidence in Zedillo’s leadership.

Lozano announced Friday that federal agents had tracked down and arrested one of the Zapatista leaders named in the warrants announced Thursday night.

Jorge Javier Elorreaga--whose wife identified Subcommander Marcos after she was arrested at a Zapatista safehouse in Mexico City on Wednesday, according to police--was taken into custody in Chiapas by federal agents Friday morning, the prosecutor said. Lozano gave no details.

Human rights workers in San Cristobal de las Casas reported that Jorge Santiago Santiago, director of a statewide humanitarian agency for indigenous Mexicans, was arrested by federal agents at his home in the Chiapas town of Teopisca on Friday afternoon. Zedillo alleged that Santiago was one of the five leaders of the group, but Santiago has denied any links to the Zapatistas.

Federal authorities in Mexico City could not confirm Santiago’s arrest, but the New York-based Human Rights Watch organization filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights appealing to the Mexican government to treat Santiago fairly and according to the law.

Maintaining that the government’s crackdown on the rebel movement is part of a balanced strategy aimed at punishing the Zapatista leadership while avoiding the use of military force, Lozano said the Mexican army was complementing intensified patrols with stepped-up medical and other humanitarian missions in and around the Zapatista strongholds.

Amid fears of revenge attacks, security forces reinforced power stations, telecommunications facilities, key government buildings and other strategic facilities throughout Mexico City. Riot police also were out in force for a pro-Zapatista march by leftist and peasant groups.

Mexicans near the rebel-held territory were divided over Zedillo’s actions.

“I am happy because I hope this will mean the end of the problems that we have here,” said Rosa del Carmen Ochoa, a dry-goods store owner in Gabino Vasquez.

However, Jose Luis Dominguez, 24, the teacher at the Liberacion elementary school in this village, was skeptical about how effective the army’s efforts to arrest Marcos and his confederates would be.

“The jungle is big,” he said. “If they are going to go out looking for them, they will never find them.”

Peasant farmers gathered at a grain silo nearby lamented the huge numbers of refugees that they had seen pass by since the rebellion began, but were noncommittal about the outcome of Zedillo’s actions.

“Definitely, who knows?” asked Jose Antonio Arguello, 24. “This could just make the situation worse.”

In the aftermath of its sudden policy shift, the government clearly sought to demonize the rebel movement in a series of news conferences and photo opportunities Friday.

Lozano displayed the arms caches his agents recovered during the series of raids on Zapatista safehouses, which Zedillo said persuaded him to change his policy from negotiation to prosecution. Among the surprises was Elorreaga’s wife, Maria Gloria Benavides Guevara.

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She not only identified Subcommander Marcos as Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente, but she also implicated a controversial Roman Catholic bishop who was recently named mediator in peace talks with the rebels, according to police.

In her statement, released by prosecutors Friday, Benavides said Marcos told her that Bishop Samuel Ruiz of San Cristobal de las Casas, long known as a rebel sympathizer, was told of the Zapatistas’ organizational efforts as long ago as 1985.

As early as 1990, the bishop was in regular contact with the Zapatista leadership, she said.

But Lozano made no mention of any criminal connection to Ruiz.

And at her arraignment Friday, Benavides said her statement had been falsified and that she had been forced to sign it without reading it, while blindfolded.

Darling reported from Gabino Vasquez and Fineman from Mexico City.