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.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, September 22, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 38 words Type of Material: Correction
Mexican rebels: An article in Section A on Thursday about a guerrilla band attacking pipelines in Mexico identified Nezahualcoyotl as a district in Mexico City. Nezahualcoyotl is an independent municipality in the state of Mexico, bordering Mexico City.
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.
Unlike the Zapatistas, the EPR has struck at a critical element of Mexico's economic infrastructure: the pipelines that transport petroleum products from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of the country and elsewhere.
The attacks on 10 pipelines in July and this month forced the temporary closure of some of Mexico's largest factories, caused fuel shortages for millions of people and pushed up the price of oil futures in New York. The economic losses caused by the bombings total hundreds of millions of dollars, according to business groups here.
Yet the EPR is an "army" probably consisting of fewer than 100 people, including several members of five extended families with roots in Oaxaca, analysts and Mexican officials say.
Intelligence reports leaked to the Mexican media say the mild-mannered Reyes was an EPR leader.
"I'm not convinced that all the things they say about him are true," said Nadin Reyes Maldonado, Reyes' 25-year-old daughter, who is a nursery school teacher. "But when he appears again there are some things he's going to have to explain to us."
The story of the EPR harks back to another chapter of Latin American history, when leftist urban guerrillas inspired by Cuba's Fidel Castro went underground to wage war against dictatorial governments. Some alleged EPR members are said to have been operating clandestinely for many years, though their struggle went largely unnoticed until the Pemex bombings.
