Renewed peace talks between Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government looked remote today after the rebels rejected a proposal by lawmakers for negotiations over Indian rights legislation.
Rebel leader Subcommander Marcos, who rode into Mexico City on Sunday with a caravan of 23 Zapatista commanders to a thunderous reception, rejected a plan by Congress last night to discuss a proposed Indian rights bill considered crucial to the peace process.
President Vicente Fox said today that initial contacts with leaders of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) following their 15-day march to the capital had been fruitless, though he remained optimistic about ending the seven-year Zapatista rebellion in southern Chiapas state.
"We are at a dead-end, but it is not without a way out," Mr Fox told local radio. "There is a way out to peace." He said he expected Mr Marcos, like the government, to seek ways to revive peace talks that stalled in 1996.
The Zapatistas have demanded passage of Indian rights legislation, withdrawal of troops from seven bases around the Chiapas conflict zone and freedom of imprisoned rebels as conditions for reviving peace talks.
Mr Fox has partially met those conditions, including sending the Indian rights bill to the Senate during his first week in office.
The indigenous rights bill would reform seven articles of the Constitution to guarantee the rights of Indian communities to run their affairs with autonomy and according to tradition.
The so-called Zapatour across 15 states rallied grass-roots and international support for the bill. The rebels' dramatic arrival in the heart of the city on Sunday was likened to peasant revolutionary Emiliano Zapata's march on the capital in 1914.