The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, arrives in Mexico City today, beginning a five-day visit in which she will meet President Ernesto Zedillo, the Foreign Minister, Ms Rosario Green, and representatives of human rights organisations.
Mrs Robinson was formally invited to Mexico by the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico for 70 years. The PRI government faces accusations of serious human rights abuses of opposition activists, peasant farmers, indigenous women and migrants travelling north from Central America.
The High Commissioner held dozens of meetings in Geneva with human rights organisations before receiving the Mexican government invitation to visit. Last week she met the US human rights organisation, Americas Watch, which described torture as "a routine method of police interrogation" in Mexico's justice system.
Mrs Robinson will meet Ms Green tomorrow to discuss details of a proposed programme for technical co-operation on human rights, details of which have yet to be made public. In addition she has requested permission to address Mexico's parliament and an interministerial commission set up by Mr Zedillo to promote human rights issues within each cabinet office.
Mrs Robinson will then travel north to Tijuana to consider UN action on abuses committed against migrants crossing the border into the US. On Thursday she will travel to Chiapas, south-east Mexico, where she will hear direct testimony of continuing abuses against Mexico's indigenous population.
The High Commissioner has requested a meeting with indigenous women from Acteal village, against the wishes of the government. Acteal was the site of a massacre in December 1997, in which 45 unarmed Zapatista supporters were killed as they prayed inside a local church.
The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), named after the independence hero, Emiliano Zapata, led an armed uprising against the Mexican government in January 1994, demanding land reform and democracy.
The Zedillo administration acknowledged the justice of the Zapatista demands and began talks which led to a partial peace accord in January 1996, but later reneged on that accord, demanding changes unacceptable to Zapatista supporters.
Ms Robinson is anxious to meet Bishop Samuel Ruiz, founder of the Fray Bartolome Human Rights group and a central figure in the conflict. The group's investigation into the causes of the Acteal massacre revealed collusion between the killers and local government officials, aided by state police and Mexican army troops.
The government's own investigation led to the arrest and imprisonment of 60 indigenous men, but the alleged state collusion with the assassins has been consistently denied. Mrs Robinson said her visit was "timely and significant" in the context of widespread allegations of rights abuses against broad sectors of the Mexican population.
The Zedillo administration is preparing a propaganda counteroffensive, including a series of televised ads outlining advances in the protection of human rights.
Mrs Robinson will spend two days in Chiapas, meeting representatives of indigenous women's co-operatives and farming collectives. She had expressed interest in meeting representatives of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), but no such arrangement has been confirmed.