Thousands in Mexico City Protest Rising Food Prices

[Judi Lynn]

2/1/2007
The New York Times
Thousands in Mexico City Protest Rising Food Prices

by: Elisabeth Malkin

Mexico City — Tens of thousands of workers and farmers filled this city’s central square on Wednesday to protest spiraling food prices, ratcheting up the volume over a problem that has dogged President Felipe Calderón in his first weeks in office.

Left-wing parties joined the unions and peasant organizations that had called the protest. The protesters, some of whom handed out ears of corn, marched up Mexico City’s main avenue to the Zócalo, the site of protests through much of the summer and fall against Mr. Calderón’s election.

The high cost of tortillas and other food staples has consumed politics here over the past few weeks, posing a stubborn challenge to Mr. Calderón as he seeks to project an image as a take-charge leader. It has spilled into the ever-simmering debate here over the country’s commitment to free-market economics.

As marchers gathered at dusk in the city’s main square, a former television personality, Verónica Velasco, read a statement condemning the government’s policies. “While other countries are looking for alternatives to neoliberal policies, in Mexico, the government has lagged behind and insisted in applying a model that, after a quarter century, has shown its inefficiency and inequality,” the statement said.
(snip)

City officials would not give an estimate of the size of the protest.
(snip/...)

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=6979

Or:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/americas/01mexico.html?hp&ex=1170392400&en=c883fa5038046147&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[denverbill]

1. Did the government give a corresponding increase in the minimum wage to compensate?

I thought not.

And why, all of a sudden, are the laissez-faire policies trumpeted by the neo-cons suddenly being called 'neo-liberal'? I saw an article yesterday calling pre-Chavez reforms in Venezuala called that also. 'Neo-libertarian' yes.