Chiapas church renews peace efforts after massacre.

The savage massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians on December 22 in the village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas has focused new attention on the continuing crisis and conflict in that state and on the peace-and-justice efforts of the local Catholic Church. Paramilitary gunmen with ties to the local government opened fire on the Indians inside the village's Catholic church, where they had gathered, some to pray for peace and others to sort through used clothes they had received as a Christmas donation. The assassins pursued the fleeing villagers, hunting them down in a nearby ravine and methodically killing them. Among the victims were one baby and 14 other children as well as 21 women, four of whom were pregnant.

The massacre threw the Mexican government into crisis as the ties of the paramilitaries to local and state officials of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party were revealed. Some high-ranking party members have been implicated in helping to arm the assassins, while others, including the state governor, knew of the massacre beforehand but did nothing to prevent it. Both the governor and Mexico's interior minister were forced to resign.

Meanwhile, the local Catholic Church intensified its longstanding efforts to address the root causes of the conflict and to promote what it calls a "culture of peace." In a mid-January letter to the Mexican government, four bishops from Chiapas called for a restarting of the stalled peace talks with the Zapatista rebels, which had been mediated by Bishop Samuel Ruiz of San Cristobal de Las Casas. The letter also asked the government to extend a gesture of good will by reducing the number of troops in the area. Ruiz has become internationally known and admired for his outspoken defense of human rights and social justice, especially the rights of his state's indigenous Indian population, who have suffered some of the worst poverty and oppression in Mexico. He has been nominated for the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize. Last November, Ruiz and his coadjutor bishop, Raul Vera, were ambushed by paramilitary gunmen. Vera had originally been sent to the diocese in an attempt to pacify opponents of the diocese's justice work. But, according to observers, he was quickly transformed by what he saw in Chiapas and has joined ranks with Ruiz in denouncing human-rights violations and the persecution of both the indigenous population and the church.