Rebels Cause Jitters Ahead of Mexico Election

As night fell over San Francisco Tlalnepantla, the guerrillas made their move.

The half-dozen men and women, clutching AK-47 rifles and wearing masks, marched into the center of the mountain hamlet just outside Mexico City. As peasants gawked, one rebel called out: “People of San Francisco, we are the Armed Revolutionary Forces of the People. We call on you to join us in armed struggle.”

Thus emerged Mexico’s newest guerrilla group.

The rebels’ April 8 public debut hardly suggested a serious military threat. In their five-minute visit, the guerrillas fired their rifles into the air and read a statement denouncing the government and free trade. But their appearance, combined with the discovery of several grenades and mortars in and around Mexico City in recent weeks, is causing unease as this nation heads toward a crucial presidential election.

Some fear the rebels will provoke violence. Others contend that the guerrillas are a sham, organized by the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and its allies to frighten voters into resisting change.

“This is nothing more than a tall tale by the regime to scare the population,” declared Carlos Medina Placencia, a prominent member of the opposition National Action Party, at a recent news conference. “This is something that has given them results in the past. You simply have to remember 1994.”

Six years ago, Mexicans were stunned by the left-wing Zapatista rebels’ uprising in Chiapas state. Those guerrillas battled troops for a few days before entering into negotiations with the government. An uneasy truce still holds.

At the time, the PRI presented itself as the party that could preserve stability in the face of the guerrilla threat, and it won the presidential race that year.

Authorities deny that they are behind the newest rebels--who are known as the FARP, their initials in Spanish--or a second mysterious band that recently surfaced, the Revolutionary Villista Army of the People.

The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of domestic security, says both groups are offshoots of the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, a radical leftist organization that first appeared in 1996. At least 60 people have died in clashes between the Mexican army and the EPR, which operates mainly in rural Guerrero and Oaxaca states.

Gabino Cue, an Interior Ministry subsecretary, said in a recent communique that the new breakaway factions “seek to give the impression that armed groups are multiplying.” In fact, he said, “they are not a threat to social peace in the country.”

Indeed, so far, the two groups’ armed actions have been minor. The FARP has claimed only one attack: the February explosion of two small bombs in the city of Puebla outside a house reportedly used by the CISEN, Mexico’s domestic intelligence service. No one was injured.

The Villista group, named for revolutionary hero Pancho Villa, has claimed responsibility for several primitive mortars discovered in and around the capital. A shell in one of the devices exploded March 15 near the federal police headquarters in southern Mexico City, wounding a girl, 7, and her brother, 10, who had stumbled upon the weapon.

Adding to the nervousness of residents here, police recently discovered hand grenades in the city. However, none of those were live, authorities say.

Alfonso Zarate, who publishes a political newsletter in Mexico City, said the fears raised by the latest appearance of guerrillas and weapons reflect enduring scars from the country’s last presidential election year. In 1994, Mexico’s long tradition of political stability was shattered not only by the Zapatista rebellion but by the assassination of the PRI’s initial candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio.

So far, no such violence has marred the campaign for the July 2 vote. It is shaping up as the most competitive presidential election in Mexican history, with PRI candidate Francisco Labastida holding only a small lead in most polls.

“In any other circumstances, this accumulation of risks wouldn’t overwhelm society, political actors and the media,” Zarate wrote in a recent newsletter. “But in the final stage of the presidential process, every signal can be read as a sign of threat or alarm.”