KEY POINTS:
A Wellington writer and activist, Julie Webb-Pullman, says she is trapped with students and other protesters in a university in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where troops and police have been cracking down on a localised revolt.
Oaxaca has been in chaos for the past six months as striking teachers, Indian groups and leftists protest against the state governor, Ulises Ruiz, who faces corruption allegations.
"The mood is tense - we cannot leave here until either the police come in and kill or arrest us, or the federal Government does something like get rid of Ruiz," Webb-Pullman said on the Scoop website.
She fled violence that flared on Friday when hundreds of activists tried to surround federal police occupying the city's central square. Armoured riot trucks with water canons drove the protesters away from the plaza and sent them fleeing down side streets.
In October, federal authorities forced their way into the city, popular with foreign backpackers, to try to end the conflict, which has killed more than a dozen people.
Webb-Pullman said in an email that Friday's protest was peaceful until after the march when groups formed at every intersection surrounding the city square, intending to stay there for 48 hours to bail up the Mexican Federal Preventive Police.
"After a couple of hours things got nasty, and police gassed the crowds, then came the bullets," she said. "That pepper-spray-cum-tear gas really hurts!"
"Three of us fled through backstreets and eventually made it to the university - and we were probably the only small group that made it - the rest got caught by either paramilitaries or police, or large groups made it together, on foot or in trucks."
In common with many other Latin American universities, the Oaxaca campus is autonomous, with police supposed to only enter by invitation.
- NZPA
