Colombia's nationwide Campesino strike takes a toll.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Colombia is still coming to terms with a nationwide campesino strike, the first in recent history, that dragged on for 19 days, affected all sectors of the economy, and resulted in a painful number of deaths and injuries.
The strike involved permanent roadblocks along dozens of routes and caused serious supply problems in the country's principal cities. The events were triggered by a crisis that has left hundreds of families in financial ruin and is prompting a gradual exodus from rural areas.
The campesino protesters blame their problems on the free-trade agreements (FTAs) Colombia signed in recent years with both the US and European Union (EU). They say the trade agreements allowed for an influx of foreign products against which Colombians cannot compete. Colombia's treaty with the EU, for example, applies to 9,745 products, 97.2% of which now enter the country tariff free. Before the FTA went into effect, Colombia imported just 1,469 EU products. Not only are the 8,276 additional products exempt from any kind of trade barrier, they are also unnecessary, the protestors say.
Worse still, claim small-scale potato farmers in the east-central department of Boyaca, is that "these treaties established an intellectual-property-protection regime that prevents farmers from
planting local seeds, obliging them instead to use seeds that have been genetically modified by large multinational companies."
The winds of change unleashed by the protests have swept away the old leadership in the country's agricultural producers' associations, which had accepted the FTAs without informing rural workers about what exactly the deals entailed. In their place, new organizational structures have emerged under the banner Dignidad Agropecuaria (agricultural dignity).
Organizers called off the nearly three-week strike on Sept. 10 after the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos agreed to freeze a 2010 resolution known as la 970, which required the destruction of Colombian seeds. The government said it would also consider adopting new insurance and loan programs and establish mechanisms to stop contraband. The current "peace," nevertheless, is precarious.
Resolution 970 at root of conflict
Rural Colombians have been grappling with Resolution 970 for the past three years. For the country's urban population, however, the issue had been of minor importance. As one reader of the daily El Tiempo commented, la 970 was "their problem," something for campesinos to...
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