• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Peru farmers clash with police in US trade protest

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 July 2006, 16:10 CDT

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Thousands of farmers, some holding pictures of Cuban Revolutionary hero Che Guevara, blocked highways and clashed with police on Tuesday to protest a U.S. trade deal that they say will ruin them financially.

Police used tear gas to disperse rice growers who blocked roads and burned tires near Peru's border with Ecuador, while road blocks by farmers in southern Peru caused hundreds of buses and trucks to back up along the main regional highways.

Hundreds of people marched in downtown Lima to decry the trade deal as a "felony against the nation," while farmers blockaded streets with rocks in Peru's second city, Arequipa.

"This accord has been negotiated behind the backs of the Peruvian people," Antolin Huascar, head of Peru's national farming association CNA, told Reuters. "U.S. agriculture is subsidized but in Peru there's no farming policy ... and we always end up losing."

Peru's Congress and outgoing President Alejandro Toledo last week ratified the free-trade deal with Washington, paving the way for its approval by U.S. lawmakers. Toledo plans to fly to Washington on Friday to urge legislators to ratify the accord before an August U.S. congressional break.

The government says the deal will create 80,000 jobs from 2007 and will increase economic growth by 1 percentage point every year, boosting exports to the United States, Peru's top trading partner, to $9 billion in 2010 from around $6 billion today.

Farmers counter the accord will cause 1.5 million job losses and say they cannot compete with subsidized U.S. goods such as corn syrup, a cheaper sweetener than sugar used in soft drinks.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category