Mexico City - Protest leaders in Mexico's troubled Oaxaca region on Friday demanded that Mexican President Vicente Fox intervene in the crisis, one day after clashes with police left more than 50 people injured.
'It has been shown that the people are with us and we are going to defend Oaxaca with our lives,' Flavio Sosa, the leader of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), which has spearheaded the protests, said in an interview with Mexican television station Televisa.
Federal Mexican police clashed with protestors again on Thursday as they tried to restore order in the city of Oaxaca, capital of the southern Mexican state of the same name, after a five-month conflict that has caused 11 deaths.
Protestors led by the APPO have demanded the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz, in a conflict that has essentially become a power struggle after the teacher's strike which sparked the riots ended last week.
Federal authorities said more than 50 people were injured - 40 protestors, 10 police agents and three journalists - and 15 people were arrested in Thursday's violence.
But local government authorities - who have regularly put out their own numbers - denied that any protesters were injured and said 30 people were arrested. Four of the ten police agents had sustained serious injuries, according to the governorship.
The APPO - a radical leftwing organization at the centre of the protest that has paralyzed the city for months - said around 200 of its supporters were injured and 55 were arrested.
Sosa insisted that Fox intervene in the conflict directly, as the Interior Ministry had not been able to resolve the crisis.
Thursday's clashes were sparked when police approached the campus of Autonomous University Benito Juarez - the APPO's de facto headquarters - and encountered resistance in the barricades around 100 metres outside the university.
Protestors threw stones, sticks and Molotov cocktails, while the police responded with tear gas and water cannons.
The police retreated after a six-hour clash with protestors, who celebrated the withdrawal and began rebuilding barricades that had been brought down by authorities.
Since the university is 'autonomous,' federal police forces can only enter at the request of the university's administration.
Federal Police Chief Ardelio Vargas told journalists on Thursday that there are no plans to go within university premises and that his forces only seek to free roads for traffic.
Representatives of the Catholic church in Oaxaca accepted on Thursday APPO's request that religious leaders mediate in a dialogue with political authorities that could take place in an annex to the cathedral in the state capital.
But the church requested as a pre-condition that a truce be accepted by all parties while talks were underway.
In May, 70,000 public teachers went on strike with the support of APPO and other organizations, seeking pay raises and better working conditions, and occupied central Oaxaca.
The teachers ended their strike last week after reaching a negotiated settlement, and most of the students returned to classes on Monday. But students in the town of Oaxaca remained home due to the ongoing clashes.
President Fox sent large numbers of federal police to the region over the weekend to quell the violence, since previous federal government attempts to mediate were unsuccessful.
Last Friday US cameraman Bradley Will was killed in the clashes, and the prosecutor's office in Oaxaca said on Thursday that two municipal officials were arrested as suspects.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
