14 JULY 2002: WHAT POOR
FARMERS HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO.

(LEFT)   
An armed boy walks away from a fire in San Salvador Atenco. About 900 policemen
have surrounded the site of the standoff.

(Agence France-Presse)
(RIGHT)  Residents of San Salvador Atenco capture and disarm a policeman,
center. Farmers in the Mexican town are holding hostages to protest the
expropriation of their land for an airport. (Associated Press)

FROM THE
L.A. TIMES:

Mexican Farmers Take 3
More Hostages

Standoff: Now holding 15
captives, they demand formal talks in land dispute.

By RICHARD BOUDREAUX, Times
Staff Writer

MEXICO CITY — Farmers armed
with machetes and homemade firebombs took three more hostages Saturday
and demanded formal negotiations to end their violent standoff with the
government over plans to build an airport on their land 18 miles northeast
of Mexico City.

The showdown was in its third
day with no sign of a breakthrough. Hundreds of protesters are now holding
15 captives in the tense, barricaded town of San Salvador Atenco, which
is surrounded by about 900 riot policemen. Police have jailed two protest
leaders and 10 followers.

Federal authorities last
October ordered 13,300 acres in the rural municipality expropriated for
the $2.3-billion airport, setting off months of sporadic protests that
exploded in violence late Thursday. The farmers seized government offices
in the town, abducted local officials, hijacked and burned vehicles, and
attacked policemen with machetes. About 30 people were injured.

Protest organizers and officials
of the state of Mexico have been on the phone at least five times since
then, trying to work out an exchange of captives.

Those talks hit a snag Friday,
despite jailed protest leader Ignacio del Valle’s telephone appeal to followers
to accept the state’s offer. Under that proposal, Del Valle and Adan Espinoza,
who face charges of inciting violence and stabbing a policeman, would stay
in jail but the 10 other protesters and all the hostages would go free.

A rowdy assembly of farmers
in the town’s auditorium shouted down the proposal. Participants said Del
Valle must have endorsed it under duress. “They’re torturing him!” one
farmer shouted.

At a news conference late
Friday, other protesters again insisted on the release of all 12 prisoners.
They demanded that the federal government, not the state, take charge of
the conflict and agree to formal negotiations through a mediator. They
proposed three human rights champions to play that role.

President Vicente Fox’s administration
has tried to stay out of the conflict, saying the airport construction
would continue as planned. However, Interior Minister Santiago Creel said
federal officials were ready to negotiate with any group disposed to a
peaceful settlement–but would “act with a firm hand to avoid an increase
of violence.”

About 34,000 people live
in villages and farmland destined for the new six-runway facility that
would replace Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport. Many object
that the federal government’s offer to buy their land for 70 cents per
square meter is too low, while others refuse to leave at any price.

The dispute has put Fox’s
government at odds with its erstwhile leftist ally, the Democratic Revolution
Party. Rosario Robles, the party’s leader, called Saturday for a “human
fence” around San Salvador Atenco, saying its residents must be protected.

The protesters took three
more hostages Saturday, identifying them as undercover state police officers
posing as journalists.

For the second day in a row,
leaders of the uprising brought hostages before TV cameras to show that
they had not been harmed. They include several policemen and state officials.
Some took the opportunity to talk to reporters.

“I call on my superiors,
on state officials and on President Fox not to abandon us,” said Jose Andres
Mediola, a deputy state prosecutor and the most prominent hostage. “I want
to go home. I want to feel like authorities and the government are doing
all they can to get me there.”