Mexican riot police backed by helicopters and armored trucks tightened their grip over the city of Oaxaca yesterday after seizing it from leftist protesters in clashes that left one person dead.
Thousands of federal police, some armed with assault rifles, stormed the city 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 yesterday 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.
Mexican 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.
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.
Fox has vowed to end the crisis before handing over power to President-elect Felipe Calderon of the conservative ruling party on Dec. 1.
The federal government's decision to send forces into Oaxaca came after teachers agreed to return to work by yesterday, ending a strike that kept 1.3 million children out of classes across the southern state. It was unclear if the police presence would undermine that agreement.
While some teachers planned to return, others said they would stay home.
``We are not willing to go back [to work] until we get written guarantees'' for teachers' safety, said Daniel Reyes, one of the last of the striking teachers to leave the main square as police gathered around it Sunday night.
During the strike, some dissident teachers tried to open schools, and parents armed with sticks and pipes fought off protesters who tried to block the entrances to the schools that were able to open.
The protests began in May as a teacher's strike in the colonial southern Mexican city of roughly 275,000 inhabitants. But the demonstrations quickly spiraled into chaos as anarchists, students and Indian groups seized the central plaza and barricaded streets throughout the city to demand Ruiz's ouster.
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