Hotels, shops to shut doors in tense Mexican city

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Scores of restaurants, hotels and shops in the Mexican city of Oaxaca will close for a day next week to protest the federal government's failure to halt violent protests that have slashed tourist numbers.

Business owners in Oaxaca, a pretty colonial city now sprayed with graffiti and full of burned cars and smoking garbage as left-wing radicals try to topple the state governor, agreed on Friday to close their doors on Tuesday.

Protesters, who have set up camps in the central Zocalo square, say Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz is corrupt and oppressive and they want him to resign.

The three-month crisis in Oaxaca has seen half-a-dozen people killed and has driven away all but a handful of tourists, costing local businesses some $100 million in lost revenue, according to a local business chamber.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25369273.htm

Mexico: Federal government must address Oaxaca’s crisis
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGAMR410422006