Ibero-American News Digest

Argentine President Counters Agricultural Strikers

June 17 (EIRNS)—In a nationally-televised speech this afternoon, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner deftly flanked striking agricultural producers, and their controllers, by announcing that she would send a bill to Congress with the provisions for higher export taxes which she had put into effect by decree last March. The export taxes are the ostensible reason for the producers' strike which has now gone on for 100 days, and whose ultimate goal, as per the British Empire faction orchestrating it, is to topple the government.

The drumbeat from the City of London and allied factions demanding Fernández de Kirchner's overthrow, has been intensifying daily, so enraged are the globalists that the Argentine leader has enacted protectionist policies. Their line is that the President is a "tyrant" who is mercilessly imposing "totalitarian" policy on the poor abused farmers. Little mention is made of the fact that the soybean producers have made spectacular profits, or that the driving force behind the strike is the Rural Society, representing the landed oligarchy which models itself on English country gentlemen.

Fernández wasn't obligated to go to the Congress, since, as she pointed out, she is empowered by the Constitution to issue decrees, such as that of March 11, which raised taxes on soybean and sunflower exports. However, the move nicely undercuts the agro-producers claims that she is acting "undemocratically" and puts the onus on them to act responsibly. She pointed out that she was elected six months ago with 46% of the vote, and used her executive powers to legislate on behalf of income redistribution, "so that Argentines' food——bread, meat, and milk—will continue to be affordable."

Agriculture leaders ended their strike, temporarily, on June 20, to see what comes out of the Congressional debate. But the vice president of Rural Confederations (CRA), one of the four agro-organizations on strike, threatened that if Congress didn't vote on behalf of the producers, "it should be dissolved."

No Surprise: Soros a Factor in Destabilizing Argentina

June 18 (EIRNS)—It should surprise no one that British agent and drug-legalizer George Soros is right in the thick of efforts to overthrow Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, on behalf of British and other foreign financier interests.

Soros has a long history of skulduggery in Argentina, dating back to the early 1990s. How does he fit in now? Through his company Adecoagro, Soros controls one of Argentina's three largest "sowing pools"—speculative investment funds—that have made a financial killing in the soybean business that has expanded so much in recent years that it now accounts for 54% of all Argentine grain production. In several speeches made since agricultural producers launched a strike to protest the government's March 11 decree, Fernández and her closest advisers have repeatedly identified the "sowing pools" as the financial interests driving the strike.

The sowing pools are predators, whose only objective is to make large profits quickly, and get out. Investments in soybeans today yield a net profit of approximately $2.15 for every dollar invested, as compared to corn, which yields $0.45 for every $1 invested. These speculators find foreigners to invest in soybeans in return for a percentage share in the profits, which they promise will be higher than those offered by other financial options. With a large amount of money to throw around, and control over large planting areas and production volumes, these pools negotiate better prices for land rentals, agricultural machinery, and other "services," so as to maximize their profits.

They treat small farmers engaged in subsistence agriculture brutally, forcing them out of their communities, driving them into urban slums where no jobs are available. Argentine agronomist Alberto Lapolla, who signed Helga Zepp-LaRouche's statement calling for doubling world food production, noted in a June 17 article that rural workers who end up working for soybean producers in "semi-slave labor, two-thirds of whom work off the books" in the informal economy. What the soybean producers are disputing are not one or two points in export taxes, Lapolla states, but rather "the State's right to intervene in the economy to modify the distribution of national revenue."

Food Crisis, Poverty Force Haitian Girls Into Sex-for-Food

June 21 (EIRNS)—In the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, girls as young as 14 are being increasingly forced into prostitution, selling themselves in exchange for food. Girls placed in this situation are labelled degaje, a term signifying someone who is in a "survival" mode.

Following food riots that occurred last April, Haiti received emergency food shipments from several nations. But these barely made a dent in a country whose rice-producing capabilities were wiped out by the murderous free-trade policies imposed on it, in exchange for loans from the World Bank or IMF. Farmers who used to produce enough rice to sell domestically, are now only producing for themselves and their families.

Since April, food prices have continued to skyrocket.

The head of the South Florida-based charity Food for the Poor, a large aid group working in Haiti, reports that those Haitians who had some kind of job used to spend 80% of their salaries on food. "Now they've gone from 80% to impossible," he said.

On the streets of the capital, Port au Prince, children were always seen begging for handouts, but now they have been joined by the elderly, and even young adults, who implore passers-by or cars for money.

Legislators to Bachelet: Chile Needs Nuclear Energy Now!

June 21 (EIRNS)—A group of Chilean legislators, from both the ruling Concertación coalition and the opposing right-wing Alliance for Chile, presented President Michelle Bachelet with a bill proposing to enact plans for the development of nuclear energy in the country.

The legislators' mid-June action occurs against the backdrop of an acute energy crisis which threatens the functioning of Chile's mines in the northern part of the country. A severe drought in central and southern Chile has also devastated agriculture.

Sen. Jaime Orpis told the President that "the time has come to make a decision on this issue. It's not good enough to keep studying it. We're sending a very important political signal that congressmen want to legislate on this, and with this [bill], we want to contribute to making the decision." He particularly emphasized that nuclear plants would be crucial for desalinating seawater, and guaranteeing adequate water and electricity supplies for both agriculture and mining operations.

Bachelet has stated that no nuclear energy development will take place in Chile while she remains in office, but she has come under increasing pressure to consider it as a result of the country's dire energy crisis.