Fox orders federal forces to Mexico's Oaxaca crisis

OAXACA, Mexico - Mexico sent a federal riot force to the tourist city of Oaxaca on Saturday after gunmen thought to be local police killed three people in violence sparked by a long-running protest to oust a governor.

The government also ordered leftist activists in Oaxaca to immediately evacuate numerous streets, squares and buildings they have occupied along with striking teachers for some five months, raising fears of an imminent police raid.

Hundreds of federal officers arrived in six planes on Saturday morning, a Reuters photographer said. Isolated gunshots were heard in the city, popular with tourists for its colonial architecture, cuisine and indigenous crafts.

It is unusual for federal forces to be sent to conflicts in Mexican states, which are the jurisdiction of local police.

At least three people, including US independent journalist Brad Will, were shot and killed on Friday when men in civilian clothes opened fire on the protesters.

A Mexican newspaper gave the names of the attackers and said they were local police. The US Embassy in Mexico said police may have been involved in the shootings.

Many stores in the city near Mexico's southern Pacific coast did not open on Saturday. Residents edging past hundreds of barricades made from sand bags and burned vehicles said they hoped the crisis would soon be over.

"I'm scared of the police coming, but it is time for the teachers to be moved from here," said Maria Fernandez, 22, who said she no longer walked in the streets with her 4-year-old son at night for fear of being hit by a stray bullet.

About a dozen people, mostly protesters, have been killed since the unrest began in May, when activists occupied much of the city in a bid to topple Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

The crisis has escalated with frequent shootings against barricades built by protesters.

They say Ruiz is behind the shootings and accuse him of corruption and repression of dissenters, whose roadblocks have driven tourists from Oaxaca and hurt business.

The conflict is a major headache for outgoing conservative President Vicente Fox, under pressure for weeks from the governor and local businessmen to send the police or the army to the city.

He has vowed to end the crisis before handing over to President-elect Felipe Calderon on Dec. 1.

A Reuters photographer at the shootout that killed 36-year-old Will on Friday said violence began when protesters came under fire after blocking highways and burning vehicles.

He said a man may have been shot and killed in an argument with protesters. Most activists were armed only with powerful fireworks, rocks and Molotov cocktails.

At one entrance to the city, Indian activists brandishing sticks and machetes listened to a protester-run radio station that broadcast instructions to use heavy vehicles to reinforce barricades ahead of a possible police offensive.

"People need to rise up with dignity, but we feel a great impotence because we have no weapons," said Araceli Gaytan, 40, a mother of two at a protest camp on the edge of the city.

This week, striking teachers voted to return to classes but many activists say they will not back down until Ruiz, who blames the protesters for the violence, steps down.

Uniformed police have not entered the center of Oaxaca since being fought off by protesters during a failed attempt in June to break up a protest camp in the city's central square.

- REUTERS