U.S. Embassy Workers’ Trip to Chiapas Angers Mexico

A trip by two American Embassy employees to violence-racked Chiapas state this week has produced a political uproar, reflecting Mexico’s persistent suspicions of its powerful neighbor.

The diplomats, from the U.S. defense attache’s staff, were in Chiapas on a routine fact-finding trip, said the U.S. Embassy.

Their low-key trip blew up into a national issue after the pair were detained Sunday by suspicious villagers of the hamlet of Los Platanos.

The two Americans were freed unharmed after four hours. But the mere fact that they were in the sensitive area provoked protests this week by Mexican politicians and demands that the diplomats be expelled.

The United States “has always sought hegemony in the region,” a spokesman for the opposition National Action Party, Javier Corral, told the Mexico City newspaper Reforma. “The U.S. government wouldn’t mind internationalizing this conflict, because in this area . . . there are interests it has always eyed with ambition.”

The protests didn’t stop with political parties.

The Foreign Ministry summoned the top U.S. diplomat here--Charge d’Affaires Charles Brayshaw--and asked for an explanation of the incident, warning that outsiders should be careful in Chiapas to “avoid risks to their security and [avoid] interfering with matters of internal order.”

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Chiapas is the site of a conflict between the government and left-wing Zapatista rebels, who revolted in 1994 seeking greater rights for Indians. While a formal cease-fire took hold after two weeks, scores of Mexicans have died since then in disputes between pro-Zapatista and pro-government gunmen.

The government in recent months has taken a hard line against foreigners traveling to Chiapas to aid the Zapatistas, expelling dozens from the country. Critics say the government campaign has fueled xenophobia.

The American diplomats were detained after they refused a demand by villagers of Los Platanos to inspect boxes in their car. The Americans cited international agreements that protect diplomats from searches.

Los Platanos is a stronghold of government supporters about 20 miles north of the regional capital of San Cristobal de las Casas. Several residents of the hamlet have died in recent months in what officials call attacks by gunmen from nearby pro-Zapatista communities.

The U.S. government emphasized that its employees were simply taking the sort of diplomatic trip allowed under international treaties.

“Any suggestion that we have military advisors doing anything other than their job is incorrect,” a State Department spokesman said this week.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry said Brayshaw agreed in the meeting this week to notify the government about the embassy staff’s activities in Chiapas.

But the U.S. Embassy said it will consult informally merely for safety considerations.

“As diplomats, we have freedom to travel anywhere in Mexico without giving prior notice,” it said in a statement.

Federico Reyes Heroles, a political scientist, said the incident reflects long-held Mexican suspicions about its neighbor’s actions.

In addition, he said, it illustrated the difficulties Mexico faces in emerging from years of being relatively closed to the outside world. The country’s adoption of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement is just one sign of how it is emerging from such isolation.

“This is part of our culture. Before, during the statist period, we were not just closed economically, but politically and culturally,” he said.