MEXICAN ARMY SHOOTS REBELS EPR, 11 DEAD

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Rebels opened fire Sunday on an army patrol in western
Mexico. Eleven people were killed in a subsequent shootout, the military said.

Five people were wounded, and 21 others were arrested, the military said. No
soldiers were injured.

The soldiers were on an anti-drug patrol early Sunday in El Charco, 160
miles south of Mexico City, where they spotted three men with large weapons,
the army said in a statement from the nearby resort of Acapulco.

When the soldiers ordered the men to surrender, they opened fire and ran
into the schoolhouse, where more rebels shot at the soldiers, the military said.

The military said the men's clothing, weapons and way of operating indicated
they were members of the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, a guerrilla
group that sprung up near El Charco two years ago. The military seized 14
AK-47s and a 9 mm pistol.

Local authorities said the military sealed off the entire area.

Santiago Abad Margarita, an aide to the mayor in the municipal seat of
Ayutla, said he traveled to El Charco with the mayor Sunday morning, but the
soldiers wouldn't let them enter the town.

``We talked with a general from the Acapulco military zone, but he told us
it was in their hands, and we as municipal authorities didn't have anything
to do with it,'' he said. ``We have no idea how the people of the town are
doing.''

It was not immediately clear how many people live in El Charco.

The EPR appeared in June 1996, on the first anniversary of a massacre of 17
peasants by police in the nearby town of Aguas Blancas, which like El
Charco, is in Guerrero state.

The rebel group says it is fighting for political, economic and social
justice for Mexico's poor. The government has said it considers the EPR
rebels common criminals and claims they lack support among civilians.

EPR attacks in the southern Pacific coast states of Guerrero and Oaxaca in
1996 killed four civilians and seven guerrillas.

For a time, the rebels held a series of clandestine news conferences,
several featuring a masked rebel leader who called himself Comandante
Francisco. But the group had launched no attacks in about a year.

Army reports published in November by the weekly news magazine Proceso said
members of the EPR operated in 17 of Mexico's 31 states and killed 26
soldiers and police in 1996.

A number of other scattered confrontations between the EPR and army patrols
in those states killed at least six soldiers and five rebels in early 1997.

Though it has ruled out talks with the EPR, the government is trying to
restart peace negotiations with a separate rebel group, the Zapatista
National Liberation Army. The Zapatistas staged a brief armed uprising in
the southern state of Chiapas in early 1994.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett