NAFTA, Insecurity, Power Vacuums and Violence in Rural Mexico Victor M. Quintana - CIP Americas
go to original June 4, 2014

If the fields are burning, it is not only due to the “bad guys” - the drug cartels, hit men and thugs and much less to the self-defense forces, community police groups or farmers defending their territories. Rural Mexico is experiencing a crisis in human security crisis, where criminal violence is not the only factor present or the main cause.

The drastic transformation of public policies towards the agricultural sector, induced by programs of structural adjustment and trade liberalization, of which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the cornerstone, created conditions for the emergence of multiple forms of violence in Mexican agriculture.

The adjustment policies and NAFTA have contributed to deterioration of the diverse forms of security that constitute human security. They have generated power vacuums in government and society and have given rise to the many forms of violence seen today in the countryside.

Read the rest at CIP Americas

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