Landowners Attack Parishioners At Mexico Cathedral
Ranchers and business leaders attacked parishioners guarding the cathedral Sunday, accusing their bishop of fomenting the Indian rebellion in southern Mexico.
The clashes came as about 500 members of the San Cristobal Civic Front marched to support President Ernesto Zedillo’s crackdown on Zapatista rebels. When the landowners reached the cathedral, several hundred Indians had formed a human chain to protect the bishop from their wrath.
About a dozen Civic Front members beat scores of the church’s defenders. One passerby also was attacked - a young Indian wearing the traditional pink embroidered tunic of a nearby village.
Around the corner, five gunshots were fired into the air. It was not clear who had fired the shots.
Several dozen people were wounded, including 90-year-old Joaquina Pineda Gomez. Blood coursed down her neck after she had been struck in the back of the head. About 40 members of the angry crowd were hurling sticks and rocks.
Civic Front members also hurled eggs at six elderly indigenous women saying the rosary in front of the diocese door.
“Out with the bishop, out with the bishop!” the landowners shouted.
The violence ended two hours after it had begun when about 30 riot police armed with plastic shields, tear gas canisters, batons and semiautomatic rifles positioned themselves between the two groups.
“This act is part of the persecution campaign, widely known and denounced, against our church diocese, principally against our Bishop Samuel,” the diocese said in a statement late Sunday.
The statement, signed by Vicar General Gonzalo Ituarte, expressed unqualified support for the bishop and called on parishioners “not to be carried away by provocations, by those who use force and violence.”
San Cristobal’s business leaders, along with ranchers in outlying towns, despise Bishop Samuel Ruiz and want him removed. They refer to Ruiz as the “Red Bishop” and accuse him of hiding guns inside the cathedral and advising the rebels.
The Zapatista National Liberation Army rose up Jan. 1, 1994, to demand better living conditions for Indian peasants.
Ruiz, who mediated peace talks between the government and rebels last year, has denied the accusations.
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