MEXICO NEGOTIATOR CALLS FOR REBEL TALKS ON DRUGS

MEXICO CITY, The Mexican government's negotiator
in a five-year-old guerrilla conflict said recent troop movements in
troubled Chiapas state were part of the war on drugs and did not aim
to upset a fragile peace, local media reported on Saturday.

Negotiator Emilio Rabasa called on Zapatista guerrillas to reopen
talks with a congressional panel on the issue of marijuana plantations
which he said existed in rebel strongholds.

"The federal government has evidence of other marijuana crops within
the so-called conflict zone and cannot renounce its obligation to
destroy them," negotiator Emilio Rabasa told Reforma daily.

The Mexican army on Wednesday destroyed 58 marijuana plantations and
fired tear gas at residents who opposed the operation.

Zapatista guerrillas rose in arms against the government on New Year's
Day 1994 to demand improved rights for the country's nine million Indians.

They reached an uneasy truce with the army after a bloody 10-day fight
that killed about 140 people. But hundreds more have died since in
related violence which reached a head on Dec. 22, 1997, when
pro-government paramilitaries gunned down 45 Indian refugees at the
village of Acteal.

Human rights groups have alleged that the army either trains or turns
a blind eye to paramilitary groups, and is in any case violating the
constitution by engaging in policing and leaving barracks in peacetime.

But Rabasa said the army was keeping the peace.

"The dialogue coordinating body reiterates yet again that the Mexican
army is not in Chiapas to attack civilians or even the Zapatistas
themselves," he said.

Zapatista leaders walked out of talks with official negotiators in
September 1996, charging that the government had reneged on writing
signed agreements on Indian rights into law.