Ibero-American News Digest

Soros's Narco-Politicians Call for Legalization

Feb. 11 (EIRNS)—The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD), whose sponsor and financier is Nazi-trained dope-pusher George Soros, did what it was paid to do, at a Feb. 10 press conference in Rio de Janeiro: It release its report calling for drug legalization and capitulation to the drug trade.

Co-chaired by former Presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, César Gaviria of Colombia, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, the LACDD declared the war on drugs "lost," and demanded a new "paradigm" of toleration for decriminalization of such "harmless" drugs as marijuana.

The LaRouche movement has warned that the Commission's sole purpose was to serve as a fifth column for the British Empire's war to legalize the global drug trade, and confronted its leaders at every opportunity on their sponsor's past as a servant of the Nazi wartime occupation of Hungary. Mexico's Zedillo responded to one such intervention in Washington with the statement that Soros's working with the Nazis to confiscate the property of his fellow Jews, was "completely irrelevant to me."

The LACDD's prime target is Mexico, which is being ripped apart by the drug cartels. Mexico, the Commission argues, must not follow Colombia in waging a war on drugs, but rather join in pressuring the United States to legalize, too. The same message will be delivered in Washington next week at an Open Society Institute-funded event on Mexico's drug war at the CATO Institute, where Soros's lead hitman on drugs, Ethan Nadelmann, is billed as a featured speaker.

At the Rio event, Cardoso apologized that the Commission had only called for legalizing "personal" use of marijuana, and not other drugs such as cocaine. "You have to start somewhere," and it wouldn't have been "realistic" to call for legalizing all drugs, he explained.

The Commission had announced for months that it would hold a public meeting in Mexico before releasing its conclusions. Soros's agents apparently are not as welcome in Mexico as they had hoped, as that meeting never came off.

Colombia's Interior Ministry Slams Soros's Lies

Feb. 13 (EIRNS)—Two days after the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD) issued its report advocating drug decriminalization, Colombia's Interior and Justice Ministry countered the report's lies today with a sharply worded communiqué.

In stark contrast to the daily El Tiempo, owned by the oligarchic Santos family, which today lavished praise on the LACDD's report, the Interior Ministry warned, "If Colombia hadn't waged a frontal and uninterrupted war against the global drug problem, our democracy and institutionality would have been broken and subjected to the corrupting power of transnational crime."

It is a proven fact, the communique states, that the cocaine-trafficking routes (on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts) are the "most violent in the world, with higher per-capita rates of homicide and kidnapping. It is the drug trade with its criminal networks that are responsible for the massacres, torture, and terror that have invaded Latin American streets. To legalize or weaken the State's action against this criminal enterprise, doesn't contribute to meeting the region's common goals" (emphasis added).

"Colombia today is 'hostile territory' for the drug trade," it states. The narcoterrorists financed by the cartels "have been systematically defeated." Colombia "shall never again live through the regime of terror of past years, when it was the victim of bombs, takeover of towns, and murder of its political leaders, perpetrated by the large drug cartels and the drug-trafficking guerrillas, which unsuccessfully sought to impose their conditions and subjugate the entire nation."

Drug Cartels Are an Existential Threat to Mexico

Feb. 10 (EIRNS)—On the anniversary of Mexico's "Loyalty Day" Feb. 9, Defense Secretary Gen. Guillermo Galván issued an appeal for national unity, to combat the drug cartels which threaten Mexico's existence as a sovereign nation. He made clear that the Armed Forces are, and will be, the central component in the defense of the Mexican Republic.

Speaking just a week after the Feb. 2 murder of prominent Gen. Mauro Tello Quiñones by cartel assassins, Galván stated that organized crime's rampage is an existential threat. It is not unlike the threat that the nation faced in February 1913, when traitors to the Mexican Revolution conspired to overthrow that Revolution's hero, elected President Francisco Madero, with backing from "sordid domestic and foreign interests."

On Feb. 9 ninety-six years ago, Galván said, Madero courageously marched to the National Palace to confront the coup organizers, garnering along the way the support of the Military Academy's cadets, who marched with him. By escorting Madero, Galván added, these cadets were also "escorting" Mexico itself, just as the Armed Forces do today, and will continue to do, defending "domestic security, and the integrity, independence, and sovereignty of the nation," while always abiding by the Constitution.

Madero sacrificed his life for Mexico, he said, and "promoted national unity to confront the most serious and uncertain post-revolutionary avatars." Mexicans today can do no less.

Organized crime must be fought "with the full force of the State," the general continued. Moreover, "our spirit is revitalized, our morale is unbreakable," he concluded. "No one shall intimidate us, and no one shall stop us. Just as on that Feb. 9 at the beginning of the last century, we, the Armed Forces, shall continue to escort Mexico."

Mexico Uses Satellite Imaging in War Against Drugs

Feb. 10 (EIRNS)—Mexico is seeking to upgrade its already successful use of satellite imaging to pinpoint where to strike the drug trade. According to Mexican press reports, the Mexican Navy is discussing with three U.S. companies to contract satellite services for strategic vigilance, combatting drug running, and domestic security.

Navy commanders with responsibility for handling the Spot ERMEXS system which has been operating in Mexico since 2004, receiving satellite images at the Navy Ministry, said the new images will significantly increase Mexico's ability to see the entire national territory.

"With the high-quality images generated, we could define the details and analyze specific areas of interest related to the movements and the situation of organized crime, the movements of the drug cartels," Navy sources told El Universal.

Paraguay Takes on the Drug Cartels

Feb. 12 (EIRNS)—In his weekly press conference on Feb. 9, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo warned drug mafias and contraband gangs that they will no longer be allowed to operate with impunity in regions that, until now, were abandoned by the State. Lugo was joined in the press conference by Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola.

Lugo has already enraged the George Soros crowd by seeking assistance from the Colombian government in combatting the drug trade, and by making clear that he opposes drug legalization.

Now, he is taking on the drug mafias in the country's northern provinces. Previous governments had allowed San Pedro, Concepción, and Canindeyú to become what drug traffickers and other criminals referred to as "liberated zones," Lugo explained.

From now on, the President warned, "there will be no more 'no man's land' in Paraguay." Over the past month, he noted, a task force of military and police forces launched Operation Jerovia, to establish a permanent institutional presence in the North, and to take on the drug traffickers who ride roughshod over the impoverished local, largely peasant, population.

According to the daily ABC, Operation Jerovia confiscated some 8,900 kilos of marijuana, destroyed 400 hectares of marijuana plants worth $12 million, and confiscated a large quantity of contraband weapons and cars. This was just the first blow to what is a huge drug-production and -trafficking operation, however, and Lugo warned that he will deploy these special forces to other provinces, should that be required.