Mexican riot police backed by helicopters and armored trucks tightened their grip over the colonial city of Oaxaca Monday, after seizing it from leftist protesters in clashes that left one person dead.

Thousands of federal police, some armed with assault rifles, stormed the beautiful city popular with foreign tourists early on Sunday and steadily gained control by using tear gas and water cannon.

They finally occupied its central square as night fell and demonstrators armed with metal poles and sticks pulled back.

Armored trucks with water cannon were deployed in the main square early Monday to stave off a possible counter-attack from activists who had held control for five months in protests aimed a toppling Oaxaca's state governor, Ulises Ruiz, who they accuse of corruption and repression.

One man was killed on Sunday. Protesters said he died after being hit by a tear gas canister and they covered his body with a white sheet and a Mexican flag.

The acrid smell of smoldering buses and barricades drifted across Oaxaca, and some said the fight was not yet over.

"Tomorrow there will be a blood bath," said Mario Jimenez, an 18-year-old sitting on the steps of the city's cathedral on Sunday night, watching police pull down protest camps.

"Ruiz has to resign so this problem doesn't go on any longer," said Jimenez, a supporter of the group spearheading the demonstrations that began with a teachers strike in May and have since escalated with around a dozen people killed.

President Vicente Fox had resisted pressure to send federal forces in sooner but changed his mind after three people, including a US journalist, were shot dead on Friday, apparently by local police in civilian clothes.

After breaking through burning barricades and clashing with protesters throughout Sunday, hundreds of police slept under the arches off the main square and in streets. The government said they would stay until order was fully restored.

Oaxaca is best known for its architecture, cuisine, indigenous crafts and nearby archeological ruins, but the centre has been badly scarred in the past five months. Graffiti covers almost every wall, the garbage of barricades litters the streets and many shops and restaurants have closed down.

Some welcomed the arrival of the federal police, cheering and waving white flags from doorways, and hoped tourists would soon return, helping the city get back on its feet.

"I'm sick to death of these damn barricades," said one resident, Noemi Gutierrez.

But others were furious. "The government said it would move people out peacefully. But it is not peaceful when there are dead," said Enrique Lopez, 36, who supports the protesters and says he has donated money to their cause.

Critics accuse Ruiz of hiring thugs to silence his opponents. Most of those killed in the last five months have been leftist activists, often shot dead at the barricades.

(China Daily October 31, 2006)