Up to 100,000 Mexican Farmers Protest NAFTA

From Democracy Now!:

In Mexico, up to 100,000 farmers and supporters marched through Mexico City Thursday to rally against the lifting of tariffs on U.S. imports. A Mexican tax on basic crops, including corn, beans and sugar, from Canada and the U.S. ended last month under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Critics say NAFTA has devastated Mexican farmers by forcing them to compete with government-subsidized American and Canadian goods. Farmer Armando Villegas was one of the protesters.

Armando Villegas: “The public policies of the North American Free Trade are wrong. The public policies of the NAFTA agreement have created a Frankenstein and as it is fed with bad public policies, this is disastrous for us. The government has created a Frankenstein in the countryside with its bad public policies. If these public policies weren’t so bad the NAFTA wouldn’t worry us.”

To read more (in Spanish): Mega marcha campesina contra el TLCAN