TUXTLA GUTIERREZ (Mexico), December 29: Zapatista rebels and Opposition politicians lashed out on Sunday at the government probe of a massacre of 45 Maya villagers in Chiapas, where a mayor with the ruling party has been charged in connection with the bloodbath.A total of some 40 people have been charged so far in the December 22 massacre in the town of Acteal, in the country's impoverished southernmost state.Among them was the mayor of the nearby hamlet of Chenalho, a leading local figure with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico since 1929.
The mayor, Jacinto Arias Cruz, is accused of having distributed weapons to assailants and inciting the killings which left 45 people dead. The murdered indigenous Maya numbered 21 women, 14 children, nine men and one infant. Another 31 people were wounded.
Assistant attorney general Jose Luis Ramos told reporters here that witnesses pointed to Arias Cruz as the instigator of the massacre, saying that in addition to providing arms he
supplied killers with vehicles, including one owned by the mayor's office.Ramos also said Arias Cruz lied, telling authorities he did not learn of the massacre until the day after it happened. But officials discovered notes in his home with details of the killings.
Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
