Ibero-American News Digest

Campaign for PLHINO Goes National in Mexico

Aug. 29 (EIRNS)—The fight to build the great, tri-state water management plan, the North West Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), is becoming a national campaign, as the reality of the world food crisis and economic breakdown hits. The meeting two days ago of the LaRouche movement-sponsored Pro-PLHINO Committee, representing 32 farm, labor, business, social, and other organizations in the state of Sonora committed to constructing PLHINO, with Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, son of Mexico's great President and friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lazaro Cárdenas, marks an important step forward.

While in Mexico City, the Pro-PLHINO Committee leaders also gave a presentation at the University of Chapingo, Mexico's leading agricultural college, to professors in hydraulics and soil mechanics, and a large group of students about to graduate. The university committed itself, as an institution, to support the PLHINO, and plans to promote it with a document that will be signed by the university president. This is particularly significant, because Chapingo is where American agronomist and Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug carried out his Green Revolution studies and experiments in the middle of the 20th Century.

Sonoran representatives in the federal Congress from the PRI and PRD parties are also campaigning hard. Congressmen Gustavo Mendivil, discussing his plans when he takes his turn as coordinator of the Sonora delegation in Congress this week, announced that the Sonoran delegation is going to be pushing the PLHINO, because it will not only benefit the three directly states involved, but all of Mexico, reviving the countryside in the midst of a world food crisis.

Sen. Alfonso Elías Serrano is out on the stump, with the idea that "Sonora can once again become the granary of Mexico.... If the President comes on board, the project can be done," is his evaluation.

Pro-PLHINO Committee Meets with Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas

MEXICO CITY, August 27 (EIRNS)—The Pro-PLHINO Committee issued the following press release on its meeting with Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas today:

"For more than an hour, members of the board of the Pro-PLHINO Committee, which included Adalberto Rosas López, Alberto Vizcarra Osuna, Antonio Valdez, Jesus María Martínez and Manuel Frías Alcaraz, held a meeting with Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas Solorzano this past Wednesday in Mexico City, at which they presented the economic reasons underlying the strategic importance of the Northwest Water Plan (PLHINO), and also urged other prominent figures to offer their support to the productive sectors of Mexico's Northwest for the construction of a water project that the food crisis itself has made urgent and unavoidable.

"It is notable that Cárdenas sent a letter three years ago to PLHINO advocates Adalberto Rosas and Alberto Vizcarra, in which he backed the project, something which he reiterated in this meeting, indicating that the PLHINO should be seen as a project that demands everyone's support, but especially the support of state, municipal, and federal authorities. The construction of dams, said Cárdenas, is intimately tied to the development of the regions and to the establishment of human settlements that have permitted the creation of cities and of economic growth.

"He explained this after being informed that officials of CONAGUA (the National Water Commission) are opposing the PLHINO, and the construction of dams in general, using the simplistic cost-benefit argument and a twisted environmentalist ideology. In that sense, Cárdenas commented that it should be obvious that regions like southern Sonora, in this case Cajeme and Navojoa, would not be possible without the Mocuzari and Oviachic dams. This opened up a wide-ranging discussion of how and why policies of public investment and budget must be based on the visionary concept of economic potential, rather than on the financier and monetarist idea of cost-benefit.

"Also discussed with Cárdenas was the importance that oil revenues once again be used as leverage for the industrialization of the country, and in particular, for investment in infrastructure projects like the PLHINO, which address the food emergency, the urgency of creating jobs, and which increase the productive capacities of the economy in general. Cárdenas acknowledged that the country needs this kind of infrastructure project, drawn in part from oil profits, to support a capital budget that operates as a fund for expanding and growing the national economy.

"Responding to an invitation from the Pro-PLHINO Committee board members, Cárdenas committed himself to visiting Sonora in early October, to support the mobilization for the PLHINO."

Brits Threaten Uribe with 'Fujimori Treatment'

Aug. 30 (EIRNS)—George "I Worked for Hitler" Soros is not happy with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who, by combining blows to the FARC (the leading drug-traffickers of South America), joining Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in building regional railways, and launching a campaign against drug legalization in July, opened a window of opportunity to crush Britain's Opium War against South America.

So, the British attack dogs have been unleashed against him.

On Aug. 20, the Toronto Globe and Mail published a column by one Daniel Linsker, head of the South America Desk for London's Control Risks intelligence operation, warning that unless Uribe announces, quickly, that he will not seek a third term, he could end up like Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori sits in jail today, after being run out of office in an operation bought and paid for by George Soros (with a little help from Madeleine Albright's State Department). Linsker's article was then picked up by newspapers around the world.

Soon thereafter, drug legalization champion, former Colombian President, and Liberal Party head César Gaviria, suggested charges might be brought against Uribe in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The hand of Soros could not be clearer. Gaviria, who as President from 1990-94 allowed the drug mafia to buy up members of the Constituent Assembly, is co-chair of Soros's latest drug-legalization initiative, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, established in April 2008, in Rio de Janeiro. The ICC is also controlled by Soros.

Bolivia: British Flashpoint South America War

Aug. 30 (EIRNS)—Long-standing British operations to split apart Bolivia, and thus unleash chaos throughout the continent, are nearing end-game, should leadership capable of flanking the British game not emerge.

Separatist leaders in the eastern states have escalated their offensive against President Evo Morales, declaring that they don't recognize the authority of the central government. On Aug. 22, they announced that they have placed themselves on a "war footing" against Morales, and on Aug. 29, after the President announced a national referendum for Dec. 7, to vote up or down the new Constitution drafted by his supporters, Santa Cruz prefect Rubén Costas responded with threats of "civil war."

Since Morales won a referendum, by a smashing majority, on whether he should stay in power, elected officials of the eastern provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Chuquisaca, and Tarija have led strikes and road blockages, on both internal roads and those connecting Bolivia with Argentina, Paraguay, and other nations. The fascist Crucenista Youth Union, modeled on the Hitler Youth, violently attacked police, government offices, and Morales supporters. Cattle-ranchers in Santa Cruz and Beni announced they would stop sending beef to those western provinces that support the President.

The separatists had threatened to take over oil and gas fields and other government installations, should the President go ahead with a referendum to approve the new Constitution, which would divide the country, by establishing "indigenist" autonomous zones. Whether they can, or will do so, is now a question.