Mexican riot police backed by helicopters and armored trucks
tightened their grip over the colonial city of Oaxaca Monday, after
seizing it from leftist protesters in clashes that left one person
dead.
Thousands of federal police, some armed with assault rifles,
stormed the beautiful city popular with foreign tourists early on
Sunday and steadily gained control by using tear gas and water
cannon.
They finally occupied its central square as night fell and
demonstrators armed with metal poles and sticks pulled back.
Armored trucks with water cannon were deployed in the main
square early Monday to stave off a possible counter-attack from
activists who had held control for five months in protests aimed a
toppling Oaxaca's state governor, Ulises Ruiz, who they accuse of
corruption and repression.
One man was killed on Sunday. Protesters said he died after
being hit by a tear gas canister and they covered his body with a
white sheet and a Mexican flag.
The acrid smell of smoldering buses and barricades drifted
across Oaxaca, and some said the fight was not yet over.
"Tomorrow there will be a blood bath," said Mario Jimenez, an
18-year-old sitting on the steps of the city's cathedral on Sunday
night, watching police pull down protest camps.
"Ruiz has to resign so this problem doesn't go on any longer,"
said Jimenez, a supporter of the group spearheading the
demonstrations that began with a teachers strike in May and have
since escalated with around a dozen people killed.
President Vicente Fox had resisted pressure to send federal
forces in sooner but changed his mind after three people, including
a US journalist, were shot dead on Friday, apparently by local
police in civilian clothes.
After breaking through burning barricades and clashing with
protesters throughout Sunday, hundreds of police slept under the
arches off the main square and in streets. The government said they
would stay until order was fully restored.
Oaxaca is best known for its architecture, cuisine, indigenous
crafts and nearby archeological ruins, but the centre has been
badly scarred in the past five months. Graffiti covers almost every
wall, the garbage of barricades litters the streets and many shops
and restaurants have closed down.
Some welcomed the arrival of the federal police, cheering and
waving white flags from doorways, and hoped tourists would soon
return, helping the city get back on its feet.
"I'm sick to death of these damn barricades," said one resident,
Noemi Gutierrez.
But others were furious. "The government said it would move
people out peacefully. But it is not peaceful when there are dead,"
said Enrique Lopez, 36, who supports the protesters and says he has
donated money to their cause.
Critics accuse Ruiz of hiring thugs to silence his opponents.
Most of those killed in the last five months have been leftist
activists, often shot dead at the barricades.
(China Daily October 31, 2006)
