Mexican guerrillas launch attack on soft target of tourism

Tamara Cardenas, a blonde 43-year-old restaurateur from Houston, Texas, was just getting into the Mexican spirit of things. "It was just after midnight," she said. "We were listening to Bob Marley, sipping margaritas on the pavement outside the Cactus restaurant-bar on Huatulco main square.

"When we heard the fireworks, we assumed the fiesta of San Agustin, a beach party where we'd spent the whole day, had come to town. Then we saw a taxi driver reverse at full speed away from the zocalo [main square]. That was when Antonio, the owner of the Cactus, yelled, 'These are real bullets. They must be drug traffickers. Everybody inside'."

As Antonio doused the music and lights, Tamara, her Mexican husband Markus, and 30 other late-night diners and drinkers crammed into the Cactus's tiny toilets. At the same time, others who had mingled in the picturesque square of laurels, tamarinds and bougainvillaea ran into the nearby Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

"All we heard were the staccato pops of gunfire, then kerboom, kerboom, big explosions, and bullets tearing into buildings," said Tamara, who runs Willie's Bar and Icehouse in Houston. "My first thought was to admire the composure of another American woman, who it turned out had gone to my same high school in Houston. She had grabbed her drink and was still knocking it back in the toilet."

There were no drug traffickers. The Americans survived an assault by a previously little-known guerrilla group, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), on Huatulco, a fast-growing Pacific tourist resort in the southern state of Oaxaca which aims to emulate such favourites as Acapulco and Cancun. At about the same time, more than 100 other EPR guerrillas were attacking government installations in the neighbouring state of Guerrero and launching smaller raids in four other southern states.

At least 17 people died and dozens were wounded in a co-ordinated assault seen as demonstrating the guerrillas' capabilities just before Mexico's President, Ernesto Zedillo, was due to give today's annual Informe, or State of the Nation address, in which he was expected to reel off his government's political and economic successes.

Mr Zedillo was expected to try to brush off the attacks of Wednesday and Thursday, but there was no doubt his country was stunned. "These men were well-armed, well-trained, well-programmed," said Huatulco Red Cross chief, Guillermo Ansaldo, admitting that local army, navy and police units were overwhelmed by the surprise attack. "They had brand-new camouflage uniforms, brand-new boots, modern weapons, plenty of ammunition. People here fear they could come again."

As it turned out, the guerrillas did not fire on the tourist resort's bustling main square, but only into the air to encourage residents to flee. The sounds of bullets ripping into buildings had come from four government installations the EPR had just attacked, killing at least nine policemen, soldiers and marines.

Reflecting disillusionment with Mr Zedillo's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), many residents noted that the guerrillas had pointedly avoided shooting civilians. "They suddenly passed our dining tables, wearing bandannas or balaclavas, pointing their rifles and shouting: 'We have nothing against you. We are the EPR. Go home'," said Romelia Gomez, a waitress at the all-night Tropicana bar on the main square. "As residents and tourists ran for cover or for the church, the guerrillas moved on to the zocalo, taking up positions in the bandstand. They fired in the air and I think they tossed grenades to frighten people off."

For publicity purposes, the guerrillas, who surfaced only two months ago in the neighbouring state of Guerrero, not far from glitzy Acapulco, could hardly have chosen better. Mexico is busily trying to promote the Bay of Huatulco, a strip of seven main beaches dotted with major hotels and a Club Med, as the next Cancun.

Within 24 hours of their assault, the upmarket hotels were losing bookings by the score. "The phone rang all day Friday with nothing but cancellations for the winter high season," said a staffer at the Royal Maeva hotel. While the government and its US allies insisted Mexico remained stable, many investors sold their positions while awaiting further incidents.

Government and business figures continued to insist the so-called guerrillas were really "narco-trafficker hit men" or "professional kidnappers". But Mexicans were increasingly sceptical. Others blamed the US, saying some American politicians saw political gain in Mexican instability.

In a clandestine interview shortly before last week's attacks, two EPR commanders, codenamed Oscar and Vicente, said they were determined to overthrow the President. "The Zedillo government should resign for the good of the country, otherwise a military solution will be necessary," they said. Their faces covered by red scarves, they went on: "Our intellectuals must decide whether they are with the oppressors or with the people, because at this decisive hour they have the possibility of fulfiling a historic duty."

Most locals here were adamant the guerrillas were from elsewhere, probably from Guerrero, to the west, or Chiapas, to the east - scene of an armed uprising which began in late 1994. Dr Ernesto Estevez, 30, a volunteer surgeon with the local Red Cross, said the guerrillas appeared to be mainly Mayan Indians, speaking the Tzotzil Indian language and probably from Chiapas. But he said their leader, codenamed Aguila-Uno (Eagle-One), was either white or mixed race, with an accent he thought might be Peruvian. That immediately raised fears here that Peru's Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas were training Mexican Indians.

Dr Estevez was kidnapped by the guerrillas, taken to a mountain village and forced to perform surgery on three wounded rebels by the roadside. "It was an open secret that they were around here before this," he said. "But it was all hushed up for the sake of tourism. They most definitely have a certain sympathy among the population here."

As Tamara Cardenas continued her holiday yesterday, renting a bright orange VW beach buggy, she learnt that not everyone had been as lucky as her. "I'd bought a carved wooden fruit bowl from Gavino, a 75-year- old artisan who sold his wares on this corner," she told me. "He said he always slept with his wares by the door of the police station, so he would not get robbed. I just found out he was the one civilian shot dead when the guerrillas attacked the police building."