Oaxaca, June 03: Three people were killed and 30 were injured in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in a shootout outside a town hall between friends of the local mayor and hundreds of mixed Indians who wanted to run him out of office. "Followers of the mayor opened fire on some 1,8000 people who had gathered in the square outside the Town Hall," Hugo Aguilar, a lawyer for the mixes told reporters yesterday after the firefight in the southeastern town of Mixe de San Miguel Quetzaltepec.
Witnesses said the shots were quickly answered by armed men in the crowd and that the gunfire back and forth lasted several minutes.
"Three people were killed, including a student from the local secondary school," mayor Gregorio Ramirez later told reporters.
The gathering outside the Town Hall was in protest of Ramirez' mandate, which was contested all the way to the Oaxaca electoral court after the local assembly voted him in office in late 2001.
Despite the legal challenge, Ramirez' election was ratified by state authorities, prompting a group of mixed Indians to form their own local shadow government and set up a "people's town hall." Bureau Report