The peasants and farmers abandoned the dialogue table with the Ministry of the Interior this Tuesday, after more than four hours of negotiations in which the agricultural workers asked for an increase in the prices of their crops, the discussion on the water law and in which they showed their discontent with the insecurity of the country. “We have decided to withdraw from this table until they call us again with a different will,” said member of the National Front for the Rescue of the Mexican Countryside Heraclio Rodríguez, in statements reported by the national press.
The Ministry of the Interior and the farmers began dialogues a few hours earlier, in response to the blockades that agricultural workers maintained this Tuesday in at least 17 territories of the country. It is the impulse that both actors have maintained since the end of October, when they began to cut across the country’s main roads to demand answers to the crisis facing the countryside. “We will remain until we deem it prudent to be present, in each of the regions,” added Rodríguez, who assured that a consultation will begin to decide what will happen at the table.
Lockdowns that hit at least 22 states last Monday appeared to have been eased on Tuesday. Even from the Ministry of the Interior, they defended that this number of blocks has increased, “despite having asked, since the beginning of the meeting, to communicate with their members to allow free transit”. “Today, they not only kept some road sections where they were stationed yesterday closed, but they also increased the number of blocks,” Interior Undersecretary César Yáñez said in a statement.
The controversy over these roadblocks was fueled this last day after the bans that the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, issued on Monday against the demonstrators, claiming that these calls had political connotations. The head of the agency also specified that “investigative files” had been opened on the leaders of the protests over the road closures.
The response to these comments was not long in coming. The member of the Front, former federal Labor Party (PT) deputy for Chihuahua, Eraclio Rodríguez, reacted strongly: “To say that there are interests of the political parties is the stupidest speech I have ever heard.” President Claudia Sheinbaum assured on Tuesday, in her usual morning conference, that Icela Rodríguez’s statements had been misinterpreted. “We don’t persecute anyone who demonstrates,” he defended.
The diary Reform Among these, the disagreement between the Front and the National Association of Transporters, the two large groups that called for roadblocks, with the farmers of Guanajuato, led by Mauricio Pérez, shortly before entering the dialogue table. “Those who entered from Guanajuato do not represent the Front, they are the same ones who agreed with the Government on the 950 pesos of support and the Government came out to say publicly that they had already agreed with them. Those are moving separately!”, declared Rodríguez in statements collected by that newspaper.
Yáñez reported that the meeting was accompanied by other representatives of the federal executive: the Minister of Agriculture, Julio Berdegué; the Undersecretary of Agriculture, Leonel Cota; the deputy general director of the Hydroagricultural Infrastructures of Conagua, Aarón Mastache; and the deputy director general of the Water Administration, Mauricio Rodríguez.
The protesters are demanding that their crops be purchased at 100% of the cost of production, plus an additional 30% for profit. A figure different from that defended by the Sheinbaum administration, which proposes payment of 50% of production. Groups view purchase amounts as an indispensable part of the negotiation. “We are in full harvest and we have to sell to pay all the financial commitments we have with the commercial houses, who are the only ones who don’t trust us and we can’t make them look bad”, explained the Front MP.
The deployment of protesters in different parts of the Republic continued this Tuesday in some key areas, such as the Juárez border crossing in northern Mexico. Even the areas near the capital were not spared from the strikes. In the State of Mexico, farmers also maintain their presence on the Arco Norte highway, the large ring road of the metropolis used to decongest the passage of vehicles through Mexico City. They are also maintained on the Mexico-Querétaro highway and on other roads such as the Tepoztlán stand, in Morelos.
In Michoacán, farmers maintained the same road closures that occurred in the early hours of the morning. In the north of the Republic, Chihuahua saw protesters occupy some streets towards Delicias; and in Jalisco the Morelia motorway (key point of the October demonstrations) also remains closed. It is the most rigid part of the great mobilization of agricultural workers, who in other territories have maintained partial or slow traffic blockades, such as on the Mexico-Puebla highway.
