SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico -- Rebels in southern Mexico set off for their villages Thursday with government promises of a brighter future for Indians not only in Mexico's poorest state, but across the nation.


Government negotiators hope Indians in the state of Chiapas will agree to a draft peace settlement and end a revolt that has shaken the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party but cost Indians the most lives.


No answer was expected for at least a month from the peasants who support the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army.


Rebel negotiators, wearing ski masks as they have in all public appearances, left San Cristobal de las Casas at sunrise in six four-wheel-drive vehicles.


Also in the convoy was government envoy Manuel Camacho Solis and Roman Catholic Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who mediated the talks.


The tentative agreement announced Wednesday after 10 days of talks promises sweeping social and political change in Chiapas, where nearly one-third of the 3.2 million people are Indian.


Its effects also are expected to be felt nationwide because it includes a promise for reforms to make this year's presidential election more democratic. It includes a pledge to consider aid and legal reforms for Indians nationwide.


President Carlos Salinas de Gortari hailed the agreement Wednesday, and said rebel conditions "have been answered with a real desire to listen to and meet demands for justice, welfare and dignity for the indigenous peoples."


A statement from the Zapatistas praised Camacho and Ruiz and said the dialogue had traveled a "good path." Ruiz gave no date for the Zapatistas to return to sign a formal peace treaty. The rebels said they would sign a peace treaty if their local councils approved it.


It was unknown how the Indians, many of whom backed the rebellion, would react.


The uprising exploded Jan. 1, the same day the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, damaging Mexico's image as a nation where democracy was making progress.


The previously unknown, poorly armed Zapatistas seized this city and several other towns. Estimates of rebel army strength range from several hundred to 2,000. At least 145 people, mostly rebels and civilians, died before a Jan. 12 cease-fire, but the actual number may never be known.


The proposals, read at a news conference in the cathedral where the talks took place, address almost all of the 34 rebel demands.


They include more self-government for Indian communities, a new criminal code and judges that respect Indian rights, mandatory education for all Mexican children about Indian cultures, and anti-discrimination laws.


New, Indian-dominated local districts are to be created. Districts in the Chiapas state legislature will be redrawn to increase Indian representation.


The uprising, while confined to Chiapas, has drawn sympathy from Indians in other regions of Mexico.


Other promises Wednesday range from new corn-grinding mills in rural villages to pledges of new roads, power lines, schools and clinics.


In Chiapas, near the Guatemala border, people often must walk for hours to reach even a dirt road, schools commonly stop before the sixth grade and doctors and nurses are rare. Altogether, it was a dramatic achievement for the rebels. Officials at first dismissed the group as a tiny band of lawbreakers.


"We do not ask charity or gifts," said a blue-masked rebel who read out Zapatista demands. "We ask the right to live with the dignity of human beings, with equality and justice."