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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2007 
Massive Protest Planned for Zócalo
 Kelly Arthur Garrett - Herald Mexico
| | A woman holds a sign that says 'Calderon, lower the eggs' during a protest in Mexico City last week. Dozens were protesting a recent increase in the price of eggs and tortillas in Mexico. (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP) |
Mexico City´s central square will be packed with people again Wednesday afternoon, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are expected to gather in protest of high tortilla prices.
The march and rally - and the snarled downtown traffic that will no doubt go with it - will be reminiscent of several spirited mass protests that took place before and after the 2006 presidential campaign. But unlike those events, Wednesday´s action will not be aimed at promoting a candidate or demanding a current office holder´s ouster.
The turnout this time will be motivated by a pure pots-and-pans issue - specifically, the sudden, speculation-driven jump in the price of a kilogram of tortillas from 5.50 pesos to 8.50.
The rise, combined with higher prices for other basic commodities such as milk, sugar and gasoline, outpaces a recent modest hike in the minimum wage.
There is general agreement even inside President Felipe Calderón´s administration that the tortilla inflation imposes an economic burden on the poorest of Mexican families, most of whom depend on tortillas and beans for the bulk of their caloric intake.
Calderón responded by increasing corn imports and negotiating a temporary pact with suppliers and manufacturers to maintain the 8.50-peso per-kilo price.
But many outside the administration, including protest organizers, see a larger issue in play, what they call "nutritional sovereignty." In their view, Calderón´s responses were not only a case of too little and too late, but the wrong approach entirely.
"The federal government can´t just leave its legal and political responsibilities in the hands of the law of supply and demand," said Manuel Canto, a spokesperson for an alliance of more than 60 civic organizations known as ADOC, one of the organizations leading the protest.
Plans for the protest were first announced on January 22 when more than 200 unions and union umbrella organizations, as well as social activist groups and campesino organizations, announced their backing.
Wednesday´s event is scheduled for 4 p.m. Most of the participants will begin their march from the Ángel of Independence on Paseo de la Reforma. Some will start out at other sites, such as the Benito Juárez monument outside the Alameda park in the Historic Center.
All will converge on the Plaza de la Constitución, or Zócalo.
The demonstration will mark the first mass action since Felipe Calderón´s tumultuous swearing-in ceremony on December 1, 2006. The president has spent most of the last week out of the country, but some of his supporters spoke out Monday against the protest.
One PAN lawmaker directly accused the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), the leading opposition party that will have a major presence at the march, of exploiting the tortilla issue to destabilize Calderón.
"Elections are coming in several states and the PRD prefers to continue its politics of rancor and violence," said federal Deputy Adriana Dávila in Tlaxcala Monday.
There has been some controversy among protest organizers about whether Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the PRD´s 2006 presidential candidate who still refuses to accept Calderón´s victory as legitimate, should be a featured speaker. The protest leaders have tried to present the event as free of alignment with any political force, and some fear a López Obrador speech would jeopardize that goal. |
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