Gasolinazo Protests in Mexico Are the Symptom of a Bigger Crisis Edgardo Buscaglia - Al Jazeera
go to original January 10, 2017

Tens of thousands of Mexicans have filled the streets in cities across the country over the past two weeks to protest about a double-digit spike in fuel prices that came into affect at the beginning of the year. (Financial Times)

In the past few weeks Mexico has witnessed an unprecedented spike in social violence caused by gasoline shortages and a 14 to 24-percent rise in prices. This increase, officially justified with the phasing-out of government subsidies, is a hard blow on Mexico's poor, who constitute 50 percent of the population.

The fuel shortages come as Mexicans have been facing gradual decreases in purchasing power owing to price inflation of the most basic basket of goods and services needed for survival.

For more than a decade now the population has also suffered from the consequences of pervasive political corruption and obscene levels of insecurity, with more than 28,000 forced disappearances since 2007, hundreds of thousands of people assassinated in the "war on drugs" and a tsunami of other human rights violations.



It is not surprising, therefore, that protests turned violent. Gas stations were attacked and burned and more than 500 people detained during clashes between protesters and the Mexican police, backed by the armed forces, in 28 of the 32 Mexican states.

But public anger has not been solely responsible for the vandalism. Witnesses have alleged that violent protesters are being paid by the government to disrupt and delegitimise peaceful protests. Fake social media accounts have also been used to encourage vandalism.

The present socioeconomic crisis is linked to the recent privatisation of the state oil monopoly PEMEX. The dire social and economic consequences of its sale were expected in the midst of uncontrollable political corruption together with lack of economic regulation and rule of law. The sale of PEMEX went ahead after aggressive international business lobbying and strong US government backing.

The current crisis is further fuelled by organised crime cartels stealing and smuggling large quantities of Mexican oil to the US and local informal markets.

Notwithstanding, this oil-related social crisis is just the latest manifestation of the social and political violence engulfing Mexico for the past decade. Mexico is presently suffering from two parallel and related maladies which explain the unprecedented levels of violence.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera

Related: The Great Mexican Gas Price War Exposes Core Mexican Problems (Strategy Page)

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