Ranchers Attack Parishioners

Riot police ringed the 16th-century cathedral here Sunday after ranchers and businessmen, accusing the bishop of supporting rebels, hurled eggs, rocks and sticks at parishioners.

Shattered glass from the windows of the bishop’s offices littered the sidewalk, smashed by angry members of the San Cristobal Civic Front who rallied Sunday in support of President Ernesto Zedillo’s crackdown on Zapatista rebels. About 500 protesters confronted several hundred Indians who formed a human chain around the gold-colored cathedral and Bishop Samuel Ruiz’s adjacent offices.

“Out with the bishop, out with the bishop!” the protesters shouted.

Ruiz supports the rebel demand to improve the peasants’ lot, but does not support the armed insurgency. He apparently was not inside at the time of the attack.

Some of the protesters hurled eggs at six Indian peasant women saying the rosary in front of the diocese door. About 40 members of the crowd threw sticks and rocks at the cathedral and the adjoining bishop’s offices.

Parishoners locked their arms and clutched white carnations and lilies.

Joaquina Pineda Gomez, 90, was among several dozen people wounded. Blood coursed down her neck after she was struck in the back of the head.

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