Ibero-American News Digest

Sonoran Officials: Build PLHINO To Stop Food Crisis

June 27 (EIRNS)—The recognition that the world food crisis has gone from a yellow, to a red alert. with the flooding in the United States—as the Agricultural Secretary for the Mexican state of Sonora, Alejandro Elías Calles, stated earlier this week, in addressing a farm organization—has geared up the fight for the tri-state North West Hydraulic Plan, or PLHINO, in the state of Sonora. Elias Calles supported the PLHINO as key to responding to this crisis, as did the farmers leading the meeting.

Likewise, during the Annual Assembly of the Northwest Farmers Alliance on June 21—which pulled together nearly 1,000 people, primarily producers from the regional collective farms, as well as delegations of producers from Campeche, Veracruz, Chiapas, San Luís Potosí, Morelos, Chihuahua and Oaxaca—Sonoran federal Sen. Alfonso Elías Serrano addressed the serious repercussions facing Mexico from the world food crisis. The government's measures for addressing the emergency with a special assistance package do not represent a solution, he said; the only adequate way to deal with the emergency is to take actions designed to increase the national production of basic grains. Thus, the importance of the PLHINO, he said.

The common denominator of all nations that are experiencing outbreaks of violence and instability due to food shortages, is that they all have a major food dependency on imports, and that is the situation facing Mexico as well, he warned. The concept imbedded in the North American Free Trade Accord (NAFTA)—that it is cheaper to import grains than to produce them—has been proven wrong. The international situation has changed, and the country must act accordingly. Therefore, he reiterated, the PLHINO is more urgent and important than ever before.

Elías Serrano endorsed the organizing of the Pro-PLHINO Committee of the 21st Century, which has won over the national Senate and Congress, the state congresses of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Nayarit, as well as the governor of Sonora and the productive sectors of the region, to fight for the PLHINO. All that is missing, is the response of the federal government, he said.

WWF's Agents Under Fire on PLHINO Project

June 27 (EIRNS)—Mexican National Water Commission (CONAGUA) head José Luis Luege Tamargo, a self-proclaimed agent of Prince Philip's genocidal World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is running into trouble in his intention to sabotage construction of the PLHINO, by diverting the monies allocated by Congress for PLHINO feasibility studies, into fraudulent ecological studies, run out of his Mexico City office. Supporters of the PLHINO project became furious, when the intended subterfuge was exposed by the Pro-PLHINO Committee.

Speaking before the Northwest Farmers Alliance on June 21, Sen. Alfonso Elías Serrano specified that the funds should be managed as established by Congress—through the Sonora office—for the purpose of documenting the technical viability of the product, rather than diverting the funds into environmental impact studies.

That same day, the Sonoran office of CONAGUA presented the official position, that the funds are to be retained in Mexico City, a maneuver intended to eliminate regional pressure (for the PLHINO), so as to sabotage appropriate use of the funds.

Statewide papers and television the next day cited both Elías Serrano and Pro-PLHINO Committee organizer Alberto Vizcarra, as opposing the saboteur behavior of the National Water Commission.

Pro-PLHINO Committee demands that President Felipe Calderón remove CONAGUA chief Luege Tamargo from his post, for Mexico to survive this crisis, is now getting local press coverage, as the PLHINO campaign heats up.

World Bank, IMF Demand Governments Stop People from Eating

June 25 (EIRNS)—The heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund deployed to Ibero-America on June 23-24, with the proclaimed mission of stopping governments from ensuring their people can eat.

Shades of Boccaccio's Decameron! Here were the finance ministers of the Americas (most, not all came), meeting in the luxury of a Cancun resort, hosted by Mexico's humongously obese Treasury Secretary Agustín Carstens, listening to lectures from the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the World Bank's Robert Zoellick, on the dangers of giving in to the "temptation" of subsidizing food and fuel and restoring protectionism, because such policies—in the midst of a global hyperinflationary breakdown crisis!—might fuel "expections of inflation."

The World Bank report issued for the meeting on the impact of rising food prices on the Americas asserted that: Food prices are "relatively low," by historical standards; yet "high food prices are here to stay"; and that the cause of the high price of food is rising consumption in developing countries. Recommended measures include slave labor "food-for-work" programs, and cash handouts for extremely poor families who meet specified conditions (the favorite of the fascist Rockefeller Foundation).

Any generalized national subsidy program, however, is dangerous, because "it could spur inefficient consumption of these foods by non-poor households"!

Strauss-Kahn endorsed the World Bank report, and added a warning that governments must stop policies which are encouraging "domestic demand growth.... Social protection should not be used to justify a retreat into protectionism, or a delay in measures to cool domestic demand."

Genocide, anyone?