Marco Ugarte/Associated Press
| Tens of thousands of farmers gather Friday in Mexico City, waiting to start a march to demand greater protection against U.S. imports under NAFTA and greater aid for the countryside. |
By Tessie Borden
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Feb. 1, 2003
MEXICO CITY - Tens of thousands of banner-waving, hat-wearing peasants on foot, horseback and tractor thronged elegant Reforma Boulevard on Friday in a "megamarch" toward the city center protesting the Mexican government's rural policies and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"It's excellent. It's surpassed all expectations," said Victor Suarez
Carrera, president of ANEC, one of the organizers of the march and a leading
force in the farmers movement. "Today, the people are expressing themselves,
and they will not be ignored."
The 25 farm groups, under the banner "The countryside can bear no more," have been pressing President Vicente Fox to renegotiate the agriculture portion of NAFTA since December.
They say the Jan. 1 tariff drop on a host of American farm products crossing into Mexico is wreaking havoc on small Mexican farmers who can't compete with American production or subsidies. Many have had to sell or rent their land, then cross illegally into the United States to work on corporate farms.
"I'm the wife of an ejido farmer. As women, we know how hard the struggle is so that our husbands can continue planting the earth," said Flora Lina Mungarro of Sonora. Ejidos are hereditary communal farms.
The tariff drop was part of NAFTA's gradual elimination of all tariffs among Mexico, the United States and Canada. But this step included products such as corn and beans that Mexican farmers consider a birthright.
They resent the fact that the Mexican government imports, at a lower cost, products that they grow and that are culturally important to them. Corn has been a staple of the Mexican diet since pre-Columbian times, and farmers accord it almost mystical status. To make matters worse, they say, the imported product is of lower quality and the savings aren't passed on to consumers.
Peasants say presidential indifference since the 1960s has left them with no support, no subsidies and no infrastructure for a sector that employs one-fifth of all Mexican workers. They want Fox to begin a turnaround.
The farm groups first threatened to block the U.S.-Mexican border at the moment when the new tariff rules went into effect but backed down in favor of talks with Fox and Agriculture Minister Javier Usabiaga. At first, Fox indicated a willingness to talk about renegotiating NAFTA. But in later speeches, his support of free trade remained steady.
At one point, Economic Minister Ernesto Derbez, who recently became foreign relations minister, told the farmers they needed to become entrepreneurs. The farmers countered that they have tried that but that the world market is closed to them.
ANEC, Suarez's group, tries to find new markets for small producers. Suarez said previous administrations that promoted and enacted NAFTA promised to help small farmers form cooperatives to promote their products internationally. But the help, financial or technical, never came.
The January talks stalemated, then broke down, and the farmers prepared for the megamarch.
Police attendance estimates stood at about 20,000. Among them, farmers and Indians, in characteristic straw hats and colorful traditional garb, stood out. They began gathering early Friday afternoon at the monument to the Angel of Independence, holding aloft banners that read, "Hunger will not wait," and, "Enough of the misery, you jerks."
Even before the march, unions, environmental groups and political parties pledged widespread support for the peasants' cause.
Though an estimated 8,000 businesses along the protest route closed for the day, the march was an opportunity for taco vendors and soft-drink peddlers to make a few pesos.
Radio reports noted, with some surprise, the relative orderliness of traffic elsewhere in the city. Predictions of monster snarls likely kept motorists off the streets. The march was orderly, though spirited.
"The main point we are trying to make to Fox is that listening to a small
minority of big agribusinessmen is not the most advisable course," Suarez
said before his speech at the Zocalo, the city's main square. "The people
want a new farm policy."
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