Guerrilla band wages war in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Edmundo Reyes is a slight, unassuming man of 55 who loves baseball and children’s literature. Until recently, he sold candy and soft drinks from his family’s corner grocery store in this city’s Nezahualcoyotl district.

In May, he left to visit relatives in the state of Oaxaca and never returned. His disappearance might have gone unnoticed but for the fact that it has set off a small war that has twice shut down a sizable chunk of the Mexican economy.


Unbeknownst to family and friends, Reyes was conducting a double life: He was a leader of a group calling itself the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR in Spanish. His comrades are convinced that he has been captured by “the enemy.”

To get back Reyes and another EPR militant said to have disappeared with him, the Popular Revolutionary Army has started bombing the pipelines of Pemex, Mexico’s national oil and gas company.

The attacks are the most spectacular campaign by a guerrilla army in Mexico since the 1994 uprising of the Zapatistas in the southern state of Chiapas.

LA Times