Mexico tourist city in grip of political unrest

By Catherine Bremer

OAXACA, Mexico (Reuters) – One of Mexico’s prettiest cities
has been tainted by blood and scarred with graffiti in a
political conflict raising tensions in a country already on
tenterhooks over a contested presidential vote.

Months of protests aimed at toppling Oaxaca state Gov.
Ulises Ruiz spun out of control when gunmen believed to be
off-duty police opened fire on protesters twice earlier this
week, killing one person. Five people have been killed this
month in the conflict.

Youths wielding sticks have barricaded roads and burned
buses, scaring residents and the few tourists still left.

A favorite backpacker destination, state capital Oaxaca
city was quiet but a mess on Thursday, its elegant old
buildings spray-painted with protest slogans and the air foul
from piles of garbage burned by protesters at road junctions.

Home to Spanish colonial buildings and colorful Indian
markets that draw millions of tourists a year, the city streets
now empty at nightfall, except for protesters carrying tires to
burn.

Government offices, banks and tour agencies in the main
Zocalo square have been closed all week, and shops and cafes
are empty.

Protesters, many of them from poor areas outside the city,
smashed up a hotel named after Spanish conquistadors and
painted it with slogans like: “Tourist go home.”

“It’s horrifying. It’s terrible. We’re in their hands. I’m
scared standing here talking to you,” said Ana, 49, a property
executive of Spanish descent who would not give her full name.

She said she had been jeered for being light-skinned and
well-dressed, reflecting a split along class and race lines
throughout Mexico.

The protesters took over several radio stations and
continued to control them on Thursday.

Despite healthy economic growth this year, Mexico is
blighted by a yawning gap between rich and poor. Tensions
between these groups have been aggravated by a bitter battle
over who will be the next president.

PRESIDENTIAL BATTLE

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has launched street
protests and sit-ins in Mexico City to push his demand that
conservative rival Felipe Calderon’s narrow victory in the July
2 vote be ruled fraudulent. A court will decide in the next two
weeks which of the two is president-elect.

The upheaval in Oaxaca began three months ago with a strike
of around 40,000 teachers over pay but has since escalated with
students, Indian groups and left-wing radicals joining the
protests.

An attempt by police firing tear gas to dislodge striking
teachers from the Zocalo square in June failed and just
hardened opinions against the governor, from the Institutional
Revolutionary Party.

Human rights groups, land activists and journalists say
Ruiz, whose party ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000 often
with a heavy hand, has ridden roughshod over opponents and the
media.

“We want him out for being incompetent, corrupt and an
oppressor,” said activist Feliciano Caballero, 30. “We don’t
support any political party. We want a government of the
people.”

A new militant group, the Oaxacan People’s Popular
Assembly, or APPO, has emerged to lead the protests. “They are
provoking us so that the federal government sends in the army
and everything ends in a blood bath,” said APPO spokesman
Antonio Gomez.