The Oaxaca quagmire

Houston Chronicle:

Federal riot police battled Molotov cocktail-throwing protesters Thursday outside the state university's gates in the contested city of Oaxaca as a five-month struggle aimed at toppling the state governor intensified.

At least a dozen people were injured, including policemen who suffered burns, a Mexican news photographer hit with a small explosive device and several club-battered protesters.

The police — who used clubs, tear gas, water cannons and occasional gunshots to restrain the crowd — pulled back at mid afternoon. They had been confronted by militants' homemade clubs, rockets and firebombs — the first time such weapons had been used.

Protest leaders claimed victory.

"For our part, we are going to stay calm, figure out how many people are arrested, how many are missing, how many are injured," said Florentino Lopez, a spokesman for the militant's umbrella organization known by its Spanish initials, APPO.

"We're going to have to organize and see what our next moves are going to be," said Lopez, who claimed that at least 50 protesters had been arrested or were missing and that many were injured.

In a statement Thursday evening, the federal police said their officers pulled back because the violence threatened to get out of control and because the objective of clearing streets near the university had been achieved.

The bulletin said two other journalists were slightly injured in the melee. It didn't mention the number of arrests made.

President Vicente Fox had ordered thousands of federal police, backed by troops, into the colonial city following the killings last Friday of three people by pro-government gunmen. One of the dead was Brad Will, 36, an American activist who wrote for an Internet Web site, indymedia.org.

At least a dozen people, all of them dissidents or their sympathizers, have been killed in the struggle since the summer.

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It doesn't sound like either side is winning at this point. It should be pointed out that indymedia is a notorious radical left wing site. They have published anti war puke diatribes since 9-11. Mexico needs to deal with those disrupting the rule of law in Oaxaca. Fox is in a good position to do so before the new government takes office and he should.