Special Report: Mexican Irregular Forces/Rebel Groups

Special Report: Mexican Irregular Forces/Rebel Groups

The well-known Subcommander Marcos, head of the Zapatista National Liberation Army in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico's biggest rebel force, said in November 1996 that several other guerrilla movements were active. ``There are three or four armed groups that the government does not want to recognize in the states of Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Puebla,'' he claimed.

The most active Mexican insurgencies are centered in the south but one group claims it is moving its operations to areas where the military has been weakened by the need to keep troops in the south.

Zapatista National Liberation Army

The first of the groups, and by far the most deadly and well- known, appeared suddenly in Chiapas state. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) launched an armed uprising in the southern state of Chiapas on New Year's Day 1994. The Zapatista rank and file is primarily Maya Indians. About 150 people died in the first days of fighting. The rebels and government began a series of on-and-off peace talks shortly after the rebellion flared. The guerrillas have said they want to lay down their arms and fight for Indian rights and democracy through peaceful means. For more than 2 1/2 years, Zapatista leaders and their troops have been bottled up by an army cordon in Chiapas, blocked from the capital and other parts of Mexico where they claim support.

The Mexican political structure rather than the army has done well in containing this one brushfire. Whether it could repeat the hat trick a second time is open to question. The ability of the Mexican Army to win a guerrilla war in the hinterlands without large-scale slaughter and a scorched earth policy is questionable.

Popular Revolutionary Army

The second of the rebel forces is the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The EPR initially appeared in the southern state of Guerrero on June 28, 1996. Between June and September, the group staged nearly two dozen attacks on Mexican police and military targets in which about 25 people were killed. Their most impressive operation came on August 28-29 when they attacked several states at the same time, including one military target in the state of Mexico adjoining Mexico City. The government said 15 were killed and 22 wounded in those attacks.

The EPR unveiled itself June 28 in a poor rural hamlet in southwestern Guerrero state and also appears to have strength in southern Oaxaca state. Both states have widespread poverty and remote, tree-covered mountain ranges, conditions ideal for guerrilla activity. The EPR has also appeared in Hidalgo, Puebla, Tabasco and Chiapas states, in addition to the central state of Mexico, where the latest reported attacks took place. But apart from the one spectacular operation in several states in late August in which at least 15 people were killed, it has largely limited its military operations to ambushes. Several soldiers had been killed or wounded in each of them. Some of the most recent attacks were in the in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City. In one, the EPR said it had ambushed a Humvee military vehicle with 10 soldiers aboard as it patrolled a federal highway leading west from Mexico City to the city of Toluca. The EPR claimed it wounded eight soldiers, an undetermined number of them mortally. The EPR also said it had attacked an army barracks near Mexico's famed pre- Columbian pyramids of Teotihuacan east of Mexico City, wounding or killing several soldiers. "With these actions the...EPR ratifies its disposition to continue developing its political-military action of self-defense against the war declared by the federal government on the people and their revolutionary forces," the EPR statement as saying. The statement also called on residents of Mexico City and state to "close ranks and halt the government's war against the people."

The EPR has modern arms. When it unveiled itself in the troubled state of Guerrero, the leaders showed off shiny new assault rifles at a ceremony marking the anniversary of a peasant massacre. Russian-made RPG anti-tank missile launcher and 70 mm anti-tank missiles belonging to the EPR have been seized by government security forces. Since the appearance of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), there have been occasional bomb threats in some Mexican cities. Although the EPR has denied responsibility for the threats, the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Self-described leaders say their movement is socialist. They claim the guerrilla group has 23,000 combatants in the state of Guerrero. In September Leftist Mexican guerrillas said they might target some of Mexico's leading business people for attack and called for investigations into their vast fortunes, El Financiero newspaper said.

The Mexican government says that the EPR is not a new guerrilla organization, but rather a merging of various leftist groups, some of which have existed since the 1970s. There may well be come justification for that. The EPR, reportedly received advice and support from the Shining Path, the Peruvian guerrilla organization that nearly overran Peru in the 1980s. According to reports the EPR, which first appeared in southern Mexico in June, received advice from former Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman. A document seized in a March, 1991 raid described contacts between the Shining Path's Political Bureau and a group identified as the Communist Union of Mexico, a possible precursor of the EPR. In the document the Mexican group agreed to establish a "Mexican Support Committee for the Popular War in Peru.''

In December the EPR said it would temporarily suspend offensive military operations to concentrate on a propaganda campaign. "We have decided not to attack, in the course of this campaign, either police or military positions, reserving the right to repel with arms any governmental aggression,'' the EPR said. That EPR statement was signed by the "General Command'' of the guerrilla group. It criticized government corruption and the unequal distribution of wealth in Mexico, calling for "a country where big capital serves the workers with an aim toward resolving their needs.'' Backtracking from its previous stated goal of seeking a direct road to power through arms, the EPR said it would concentrate on a propaganda campaign. "In the framework of this campaign, we have decided to transmit our proposals and our political ideas through armed revolutionary propaganda,'' the statement said. Since then armed rebels have shown themselves in southern towns, passing out propaganda. In some cases they have seized town halls and held them briefly. By the time that troops arrive on the scene the rebels have disappeared.

"Revolutionary Guanajuato Army''

In the central state of Guanajuato a "Revolutionary Guanajuato Army'' has engaged in propaganda actions. They are reportedly linked to Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) and appear to be more oriented toward statements than bullets. There is serious question about their warfighting abilities, if indeed they exist as a paramilitary force at all.

Revolutionary Army of Popular Insurgence

In November a shadowy new group proclaimed itself to be Mexico's third major guerrilla force. Unlike the EZLN and the EPR, which operate primarily in southern areas, the new group claimed it would mount an offensive in the north and center of the country. (The Zapatistas have operated in the southernmost state of Chiapas and the EPR has mostly attacked in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.)

In the seven-page manifesto sent to newspapers on Revolution Day, the new group called for an end to what they said was President Ernesto Zedillo's repressive'' government. The self-styled Revolutionary Army of Popular Insurgence (ERIP) declared it was "an army of the people and for the people'' as it proclaimed itself on the 86th anniversary of Mexico's 1910 Revolution. The ERIP manifesto said it saluted and supported the ''heroic gesture'' of the armed struggle launched by the Zapatistas and the EPR in defense of Mexico's exploited poor. After demanding the government's resignation, the group made 15 specific demands, including the suspension of foreign debt payments, land reform, universal health care and better wages, jobs and homes for all. ``The ERIP is the armed expression of the popular masses who are rising up to oppose the anti-popular, repressive and servile policy of the current State which has been usurping power through fraudulent elections,'' the manifesto said. The new group said it was made up of peasants, Indians and workers as well as nationalist small businessmen who had been ''oppressed and exploited by the PRI-government and monopolistic groups in the service of transnational capital.''

Some armed formations have been reported in the mountains of the remote Papaloapan region of Oaxaca, about 145 miles southeast of Mexico City and close to the border with Puebla state. Some assume this is the ERIP, which local residents have dubbed the "army of the mountains of the Sierra Negra.''

Armed Front for the Liberation of the Marginalized People of Guerrero

In December, a matter of hours after the EPR claimed it was reverting to propaganda actions, another self-proclaimed guerrilla army emerged from nowhere. The Armed Front for the Liberation of the Marginalized People of Guerrero (FALPMG) sent a manifesto to the media claiming it was ready to act. "As of this moment we begin pressure tactics so that we are heard... and most importantly we initiate a project that carries with it the proposal... to seek a solution to the inconformities brought forth by the peasants and marginalized Indians of the state of Guerrero,'' the statement said. The statement had a hand-drawn letterhead showing assault rifles and a pair of hands breaking free of chains, underscored by the FALPMG letters. It said the FALPMG was concerned because other guerrilla forces have been taking casualties from the army.