Mexico Offers Proposal to Revive Chiapas Talks : Latin America: Plan asks the Senate to help resolve disputes that unraveled pact with rebels in 1996.

The Mexican government, apparently alarmed by rising tensions in Chiapas, unveiled a new initiative Tuesday to revive long-stalled peace negotiations with Zapatista rebels in the southern state.

Diodoro Carrasco, who took over as interior minister in May, released an open letter containing a six-point program to entice the Zapatistas back to the bargaining table, which the rebels abandoned three years ago because of perceived government intransigence.

With the initiative, President Ernesto Zedillo sought to break an impasse on an issue that has embarrassed him throughout his term. The proposal may be Zedillo’s last chance to kick-start talks in time to resolve the Chiapas conflict before he leaves office in December 2000.

The new government proposal asks the Senate to help resolve disputes that unraveled a partial peace accord signed in February 1996. The Zapatistas broke off talks that August, and have insisted that no deal is possible until the government implements the San Andres accords, which remain in limbo.

Carrasco also proposed creation of a new mediation body, made up of prominent nonpartisan civilians, to help foster talks. That is a shift from the government’s previous insistence that it hold talks directly with the Zapatistas, who staged a brief but bloody uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, to demand greater rights for Chiapas’ Mayas.

Carrasco acknowledged bluntly: “Today there is no communication whatsoever with the [Zapatistas]. An atmosphere prevails of outright suspicion.”

Carrasco, who as governor of neighboring Oaxaca state worked out a compromise accord on indigenous rights there, said he met with intellectuals, Indian leaders and church figures in developing the new plan.

The initiative follows two flare-ups of violence last month that left more than a dozen people wounded in jungle towns where the rebels are strong. Human rights groups have said tensions are high in the conflict zone, echoing the skirmishes of late 1997 that culminated in the pre-Christmas massacre of 45 pro-Zapatista peasants by pro-government paramilitary forces in the village of Acteal.

On Aug. 26, Carrasco ordered a halt to a road project that the Zapatistas claimed would facilitate army incursions into La Realidad, their stronghold in the Lacandon jungle. That action has helped defuse some of the tensions.

Carrasco’s approach is more conciliatory than the stance of former Interior Minister Francisco Labastida, who is a front-runner for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s presidential nomination. Labastida had seemed content to let the Chiapas situation remain on low boil.

Zapatista leader Subcommander Marcos, for his part, also hasn’t rushed into negotiations, apparently content to wait until next July’s election. When a bipartisan legislative panel tried to help restart talks last November, the Zapatista leaders berated its members publicly and ignored their pleas for dialogue.

There was no immediate reaction from the Zapatistas to the letter.

Carrasco also committed the government to other steps to defuse the conflict and “restore trust between the parties.”

For one, he said, the government will analyze seriously complaints by human rights groups that pro-Zapatista villages are being harassed by the military and government supporters.

But the major issue remains the revival of the San Andres accords. A bipartisan legislative commission submitted a draft bill in November 1996 that would have converted the first accord into law, but the government rejected it and proposed an alternative version unacceptable to the rebels.