OAXACA, MEXICO — Thousands of federal riot police using tear gas and water cannons battled demonstrators in this once-picturesque state capital Sunday, prompting striking teachers and leftist groups to abandon the central square they had held for five months.
After hours of smoky clashes in the streets, the end of a political crisis that had left at least nine dead and tested President Vicente Fox came quietly.
With police halted at the edge of the central square, or Zocalo, late Sunday, demonstrators who had encamped there since May demanding the resignation of the state's governor started heading home.
"We've decided we're going to leave this space," said Daniel Reyes, a spokesman for the striking teachers.
But Reyes added that a march was planned for today, ending at the Zocalo.
"This is the heart and the house of the people," he said. "This is ours, and we'll take it back peacefully."
Protest leaders also said that a 15-year-old boy had been shot and killed, a report that could not be verified.
About 4,600 Federal Preventive Police officers moved into the sprawling city of 275,000 people about 230 miles southeast of Mexico City on Sunday morning after three people, including an American, were killed Friday.
With water cannons and riot shields, police dispersed protesters from behind barricades of rocks, tree trunks and sheet metal.
They were met with taunts, pleas, scoldings and the occasional hurled rock. Some demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, triggering a return volley of tear gas.
Police then retreated to the edge of the Zocalo and waited for several hours before protesters started leaving about sundown.
Most of the resistance appeared to be peaceful. Many protesters stood face to face with the rows of incoming officers, chanting slogans. Others cut themselves with knives and syringes, smearing their blood on placards and the Mexican flag. Local websites reported about 50 arrests.
Protest leaders voiced anger at police tactics.
"The police came in fighting, as is their habit," Flavio Sosa, a leader of the protest coalition, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, said in a radio interview.
The federal forces were dispatched over the weekend by Fox to end an increasingly ugly standoff between local government authorities and the union representing 70,000 striking public school teachers.
