Above: NAFTA protest by farmers at border National Association of Producers’ Enterprises (ANEC).
Note this is a computer translation of an article originally written in Spanish.
The National Association of Producers’ Enterprises (ANEC) makes this day a lock on the international bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, to protest the plight of farmers live 20 years after the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Through a statement read in mobilizing the peasant organization criticizes the consequences of two decades of neglect of the field by the federal government.
“We are not poor, impoverished us NAFTA and policies of contempt, neglect, dispossession and exclusion”, denounced the peasants.
Moreover, ANEC said that organized “autonomous mobilizations and fair prices for our crops of corn, coffee, sugarcane, beans, rice, sorghum and wheat among others, in defense of our lands and our territory, and all struggling because we recognize that we are productive subjects and individual and collective subjects of law. ”
Farmers charge that NAFTA is “an ocean of lies and broken promises” because two decades ago the federal government promised that Mexico would be a first world country.
“Today we continue to live like a third world country but accelerated decomposition and loss of independence and sovereignty,” he asserts.
They also criticize the privatization of various commercial sectors and question: “What have served privatization, trade liberalization, the growth of trade and foreign investment? What have served if you have not grown our economy and change itself has increased inequality, poverty, migration, food prices, disorder and monopolization of markets, insecurity and dispossession of our lands, waters and resources. ”
ANEC ensures 20 years of NAFTA, “those holidays are now major food companies in Mexico, USA and Canada and a minority of large farmers.”
Therefore, rural producers call retrieve food sovereignty and demand fair prices for their products, a multi-year policy of State for food self-sufficiency; unqualified observance of the ejido and community.
They demand the right to not migrate and live with dignity in their communities.
“We reject NAFTA and now the Trans (TPP) Treaty being negotiated in secret, without our participation and equal or worse than NAFTA. Also know the call Energy Reform for not having consulted and therefore lack legitimacy, “said the peasant organization.