Disgruntled Bulgarian Tobacco Growers Clash with Police

Source from:  Novinite 01/31/2011

Several hundred of protesting Bulgarian tobacco growers have blocked the E-80 international road near the southern city of Harmanli. The blockade was staged at 10 am Saturday morning, but the tobacco growers were pushed by force by the police to a nearby parking lot. The demonstrators threaten to make a new attempt to block the thoroughfare. The protest is against the State failing to buy up the tobacco and the low purchase prices. Organizers insist the rallies are not politically motivated and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) has nothing to do with them. They say the Agriculture Ministry is clueless about the problems in the sector and condemns hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian families to poverty. Tobacco growers from the municipalities of Gotse Delchev, Garmen and Satovcha, are also protesting Saturday. "We demand the enforcement of the referent period promised to us by the State. If those in power want an alternative to tobacco they must tell us we should grow vegetables and then give guarantees this production will be purchased. But to just say – tobacco has no future; its growing is dead, so you can die too – this is unacceptable," one of the organizer is quoted saying by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR). The demonstrators threaten to continue their protest Sunday and warn the rallies can turn into civil unrest.