"WE ARE ready to die," whispered Mr Venancio Jimenez Martinez, agonising on a stretcher beside an eight lane highway in Mexico City, after 94 days on hunger strike.
Mr Martinez is one of 336 street sweepers from Tabasco, southern Mexico, sacked in July 1995 after refusing to bathe dogs and clean the homes of state officials as a gift to their employer, Governor Roberto Madrazo.
This week supporters of the hunger strikers twice stormed the national parliament, stripping naked before deputies one day then scuffling with security guards the next, leaving a dozen injured.
Mr Martinez and a co worker, Mr Jorge Luis Magana, have spent 96 days each on hunger strike, while five more sacked workers have reached the 50 day mark. The hunger strikers refused medical attention last Thursday, prompting the Interior Ministry to begin negotiations before death outpaced attempts to strike a deal.
"The government has agreed to 99 per cent of the demands," said an opposition deputy, Mr Felix Salgado, after a meeting with government officials early yesterday morning, but a formal accord has yet to be signed.
The workers demand the reinstatement of fired workers, backpay for strikers, the suspension of 46 arrest warrants issued against them, payment of redundancy owed and an end to freebie poodle baths for their bosses' pets.
In September 1995 the sacked workers marched 1,100 km in 48 days from Tabasco to pressure the federal government in Mexico City, setting up camp outside the Interior Ministry offices.
In October 1995 the itinerant street sweepers were removed, then forcibly returned home on buses. By November 1995, 25 former street sweepers had sought political asylum in the Swedish embassy, citing "labour persecution" - but were refused.
The protesters moved their camp to the gate of the National Human Rights Commission, (CNDH), where relatives drew blood then threw it against the walls in protest at CNDH inactivity on the issue.
Death struck earlier than expected last Saturday when one of the former street sweepers was run over and killed on the highway beside the camp, prompting sympathisers to destroy the car, while the driver had a lucky escape.
. Mexico said this week that it would pay off a $3.5 billion emergency loan from the US Treasury and $1.5 billion owed to the IMF early, a step President Clinton welcomed as vindication of his decision to assemble a $50 billion package to help Mexico out of its 1995 peso crisis, which followed President Carlos Salinas's term.
On the same day, Mr Maximiano Barboza Llamas, the founder of a grass roots debtors' activist group was arrested on charges including robbery and conspiracy. Mr Barboza, founder of the popular El Barzon debtors' movement, posted bail but decided to remain in jail in support of fellow group members who were also arrested and did not get bail, state police said.