Chiapas’ Rebel ‘Governor’ Issues Warning

Amado Avendano--self-styled “governor in rebellion” of the Mexican state of Chiapas--arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday and promptly warned of dire consequences for all of Mexico if peace is not achieved in his strife-torn home.

“We have a fundamental fear that the conflict will spread to the whole country, which would be terrible for Mexico,” Avendano declared in a news conference at a Koreatown restaurant.

Avendano, a public sympathizer with the Zapatista National Liberation Army rebels who rose up against the government on Jan. 1, 1994, even expressed concerns that Mexico’s weakened government could fall victim to a military coup--a once-remote prospect that is now openly discussed in Mexican intellectual circles.

“The leadership is very weak, and the military may seek to assume the powers of government,” Avendano said.

Mexican authorities have dismissed such fears as alarmist.

“I think there is absolutely no condition, except in the head of Mr. Avendano, that would bring about a military coup in Mexico,” Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles, said Tuesday. “Mr. Avendano is very far from the political reality of the country.”

Avendano, 56, a longtime muckraking newspaper publisher in San Cristobal de las Casas, came to Los Angeles as part of a six-day, three-city tour of the United States. Donations from private supporters and from Mexico’s left-oriented Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, covered his expenses.

During his visit, Avendano has sought to spur international pressure on Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to withdraw troops from former rebel strongholds in Chiapas and to renew negotiations with the insurgents.

The Zedillo government has publicly signaled its desire to resume negotiations. But Avendano asserted that the latest peace overtures were designed to “trick” the Zapatista rebels, who have fled to the rain forests.

Covering Avendano’s left eye was a patch--the legacy of a highway crash last year that he insists was an assassination attempt but that government investigators say was an accident.

The crash, which killed three campaign aides, occurred as Avendano was running for governor of Chiapas under the PRD banner. Alleging massive fraud, he refused to acknowledge defeat to the ruling-party candidate and helped establish a “government in rebellion” that has no official standing but has given him and other Zapatista sympathizers a political platform.