Ibero-American News Digest

PLHINO Project Shaping Midterm Elections in Sonora

April 11 (EIRNS)—The PRI gubernatorial candidate in the Mexican state of Sonora, Alfonso Elías Serrano is vowing to cause a "hydraulic revolution" in the rich agricultural Yaqui Valley by building the Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), garnering support in the southern part of the state that is making his electoral opposition very nervous. The PLHINO project has taken shape as a defining issue in the midterm elections in this crucial Mexican state, which borders Arizona.

The LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) is creating the intellectual shockwave required for this election period to lead to the national policy changes Mexico must adopt if it is to survive. The LYM distributed 4,000 copies of its DVD "Nawapa-PLHINO: The Future of the Americas," in six weeks' time, in the state of Sonora alone.

On April 6, Elías held a rally with 8,000 people, after meeting earlier in the day with businessmen. He told his audience that in the Yaqui Valley, "where the Green Revolution made it possible to produce food for Mexico and the world, we're going to launch a hydraulic revolution! We're going to make the federal government understand that to oppose the PLHINO is to oppose Mexico's development."

It was just a few days later that Elías's opponent from the National Action Party (PAN), Guillermo Padres, held a press conference to announce that he, too, supports the PLHINO, has always done so, and plans a number of big infrastructure projects if elected. Padres, however, has never supported the PLHINO, even when he served as federal Senator.

LYM Spoils Soros's Dope Show in Mexican Congress

April 14 (EIRNS)—Their behavior modified by years of drug cartel terror and violence, Mexico's pliant Chamber of Deputies (lower house) opened its doors on April 13 to a three-say debate organized by followers of drug kingpin George Soros, on whether or not Mexico should legalize the drug cartels' biggest international money maker, cannabis.

The "Forum Debate on the Regulation of the Cannabis Plant in Mexico" began on the eve of U.S. President Barak Obama's state visit, in which fighting drugs was the leading item for discussion. It quickly became clear that the Soros-sponsored debate was really a British geopolitical trick to reverse his opposition to legalize and capitulate to the drug cartels.

The debate featured some of the worst drug-promoting scum from around the world, ranging from Soros's own drug strategist, "Athan Needleman" (a.k.a. Ethan Nadelmann) to representatives of the British House of Lords-centered Beckley Foundation, the U.S.-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and others.

What the organizers didn't count on, was the intervention of the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM), which busted up the controlled environment, intervening from the floor to expose Soros's past collaboration with the Nazis, and his role as an agent for the British Empire's Opium War against the Americas. The LYM's intervention, which included bel canto singing both inside and outside the Congress, received wide media coverage, while the words "Soros ... Nazis ... drugs ... the British" could be heard throughout the hall. At one point, an organizer stood up to offer the speakers and attendees "a gift"—the leaflet the LYM put out for the occasion, titled, "George Soros and Ethan Nadelmann: Prostitutes for the British Empire."

Notably, the debate turned out to be a flop, although the effort is still a dangerous one. Despite all the media hype, a grand total of 30 people attended, including the LYM, for most of the opening day. The second day proved no better for the drug pushers. The Congressional sponsors fronting for Soros loudly proclaimed that this was to be an "informed" discussion of the pros and cons of "regulating" marijuana; but there was only one speaker in the entire first day who opposed the deadly project.

British Make a Grab for Bolivia

April 21 (EIRNS)—When the British House of Commons held a debate March 3 on relations with Ibero-America, there was one point of agreement expressed by left-wing Labourites and their nominal opponents in the Conservative Party: Britain should harken back to the days when "the Bolivarian wars of independence started in Britain," and Britain's commercial and financial domination of the region followed.

Noting that the U.S. is bogged down in economic as well as foreign policy problems, and paying little attention to Ibero-America, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP who initiated and led the debate, asserted that Ibero-America can finally "free" itself from the United States—and step into the waiting arms of the British.

Bolivia was the lead country discussed in that Commons' debate, a testament to its strategic importance. Located at the center of South America, it borders five nations; most transcontinental Atlantic-to-Pacific rail routes must pass through it.

Lyndon LaRouche has warned repeatedly of this British imperial danger to Bolivia and South America as a whole, and offered a concept of U.S.-allied regional integration and infrastructure development which could stop these plans cold.

But the Bush-Cheney Administration's thuggish foreign policy caused U.S.-Bolivian relations to fall apart. Bolivia and the United States no longer have diplomatic representation in each other's country, and President Evo Morales kicked out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. This is when the British moved in to grab a strategic position. As the country headed towards civil war in 2008, the Soros-promoting British Ambassador Nigel Baker positioned himself as head of the European Union team "mediating" between opposition regions and the government.

The British Defence Ministry has moved in as well, to oversee the rewriting of the national defense and security policy, sponsoring a seminar to that effect at the end of 2008, and equipping a new Joint Doctrine Center, which just opened on March 25, with a mandate to "modernize" the mission of Bolivia's Armed Forces in today's globalized world.

Fascist Behavior Modification for Devastated Haiti?

April 22 (EIRNS)—In the absence of any real assistance to the devastated island nation of Haiti, some are proposing that the Rockefeller Foundation-funded "Opportunities" program, could be an alternative. It is based on handing out small amounts of cash to impoverished families, if they adopt "responsible" behavior: send their children to school, have them vaccinated, look for a job, etc.

Forget about what Lyndon LaRouche has proposed, or what Franklin Roosevelt did during the 1930s and 1940s to make Haiti self-sufficient in food production. The Opportunities program has been a favorite of New York Mayor Michael "Mussolini" Bloomberg, who relies on it to control people while he implements brutal austerity. The Mexican and Brazilian governments have adopted variants of the program.

Haiti is desperate for foreign aid. But the most recent donors meeting in Washington offered a little over one-third of what the government requested, and appeals from President René Préval to several international groupings produced a pittance. Haitian economist and radio commentator Kisner Pharel thinks Opportunities is the way to go: Develop the country "from the bottom up."

From the bottom up? The conditions that sparked food riots a year ago have, if anything, worsened. Malnutrition among children is rampant. The number of children admitted to the St. Catherine Laboure Hospital in Cité Soleil, suffering from severe malnutrition, is on the rise. At least 2.8 million out of Haiti's population of 9 million, are classified as "food insecure." People in this category resort to eating seeds or unripe crops, and often eat only one meal a day, including the now-notorious "mud cakes" made of a small quantity of grain mixed with mud.