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MEXICAN PRESIDENT VICENTE FOX TOUTS PLAN PUEBLA-PANAMA TO TOO FEW PRESIDENTS, TOO MANY PROTESTERS.

Article Excerpt
Guatemalans gave Mexican President Vicente Fox an angry reception on his first stop on a tour of Central America aimed at resuscitating his waning Plan Puebla Panama (PPP). Fox's take on his visit with President Oscar Berger was that "Guatemala and Mexico are called to play a fundamental leadership role in the future of Mesoamerica and of Latin America."

But thousands of Guatemalans were in no mood for lofty pontifications. Outside the National Palace, where Fox's words echoed, and throughout the country, people blocked roads and chanted, "Fox get out," "No to PPP, yes to life," and "No more poverty." They carried picket signs and placards against the PPP and against free-trade schemes.

Fox tends to minimize

Inside the National Palace, until recently the seat of government but now formally the National Palace of Culture, the presidents were making a media show of telling their economics officials to convene a commission "to dismantle obstacles" to trade. Fox minimized the problems, calling them "a few small problems, some barriers."

Guatemalan private-sector and government officials, however, saw the problems as larger. They have complained of individual Mexican states imposing nontariff trade barriers in violation of a trade agreement signed between the countries in 2000 and which have been in effect since April 2001.

The...