Mexico tourist city in grip of political unrest

OAXACA, Mexico - 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 Governor 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 favourite backpacker destination, state capital Oaxaca city was quiet but a mess today, 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 colourful 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 today.

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.

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.

- REUTERS