Ibero-American News Digest

Sonora Mega-March for the PLHINO and Desalination

March 6 (EIRNS)—An estimate 10-15,000 people gathered yesterday in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, in a rally called by the Citizens Forum for Water in Sonora, to demand that the semi-arid northwestern state needs more water, and that great infrastructure projects such as the PLHINO and desalination of seawater are urgently required. The rally of farmers, students, a half dozen former mayors, regional political leaders, and others—and which included about 300 tractors belonging to area producers—strongly rejected Gov. Guillermo Padres' attempt to divide the population by his plan to take water from the Novillo Dam, which is essential for Yaqui Valley farmers, and divert it to the water-starved city of Hermosillo, arguing that the state already has enough water, but it just has to "manage" it better. This is also the line broadcast in Mexico by Prince Philip's Nazi WWF and its Mexican allies.

The keynote speaker at the event was longtime LaRouche associate and leader of the Pro-PLHINO Committee, Alberto Vizcarra, who told the crowd that water is not a financial commodity, "but rather an indispensable input for life, progress, and the welfare of our people," and that projects such as the PLHINO and desalination are needed for Sonora, Mexico, and the world.

Vizcarra said that among those who could be "heard" applauding this rally were Mexican nationalist figures such as Gen. Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928), "and our dear Norman Borlaug." Borlaug, the architect of the Green Revolution, worked for decades near Mexico City, and in Sonora, where he is widely known and well-loved. In fact, yesterday's march first gathered at the corner of 200th Street and Norman Borlaug Boulevard, named for the American agronomist, who died in 2009.

Vizcarra also told the crowd that simply by gathering, "we have defeated a force which is greater than the power that the government of Guillermo Padres boasts of: We have defeated fear." He was referring to the fact that the Padres government—which stole the July 2009 elections with evident backing from forces deployed by London's Dope, Inc.—had circulated hundreds of thousands of leaflets calling for the rally, but on the wrong day and the wrong time; put out countless radio and TV spots urging people not to attend; and issued direct threats against the event's organizers.

On March 2, a leading member of the Pro-PLHINO Committee, Humberto Aispuro, and with two other leaders of the transportation workers union, were assassinated by hired hit men. State law enforcement authorities have yet to establish the identities and motives of the assassins, or who sent them.

After months of demoralization and fear, in the wake of the stealing of the election, and the rising tide of drug-related murder and terror, Sonora's population and political figures have begun to move again.

Pro-PLHINO Labor Leader Assassinated in Sonora

March 2 (EIRNS)—At 6:15 this morning, Humberto Aispuro Rodelo, Secretary General of the Transport Workers Union in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, and a regional leader of the CTM national labor federation, as well as an active member of the Pro-PLHINO Committee, was assassinated as he was traveling by car to the city of Hermosillo. Aispuro was traveling with three representatives of the state transportation company. Two of them were also killed in the attack, which was carried out with AK-47s.

The report by state law enforcement authorities only states that the victims were overtaken by a Nissan which drew next to them, and its occupants then opened fire, killing the three men. Armando Contreras, the president of the transportation company of Ciudad Obregon, survived the attack.

Aispuro was, over recent years, close to the ideas of the international movement of Lyndon LaRouche.

Clinton Lauds Argentina Debt Paydown; Financial Vultures Unnerved

March 6 (EIRNS)—There were probably more than a few cases of heartburn in London and on Wall Street this past week, provoked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's favorable remarks on Argentina's management of its debt, during a March 1 press conference in Buenos Aires, with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Asked by a reporter to comment on President Fernández's plan to use Central Bank reserves to pay debt, Clinton replied this way:

"Well, I think that Argentina has made a tremendous amount of progress in paying down its debt. And the President and I were talking about the progress, which is very dramatic, just in the last several years. And I confessed to her that so far as I know, based on the figures, Argentina's debt-to-GDP ratio is a lower percentage now than the United States' debt-to-GDP ratio. So, however Argentina is doing it, it's working."

London-centered financier interests have been hammering away at the Argentine President for months, deploying their vulture funds to seize Argentine assets in the U.S., to satisfy their fraudulent claims stemming from Argentina's 2001 debt default, while shrieking that Fernández de Kirchner has no right to touch the "autonomous" Central Bank reserves to make debt payments.

Also on March 1, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling asserting that, under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Argentine pension assets deposited in the U.S. could not be seized because these funds hadn't been used for commercial activities. After Fernández de Kirchner nationalized private pension funds in 2008, the vulture funds succeeded in having U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa freeze $200 million in pension funds deposited in U.S. accounts, on the grounds that these were now assets belonging to the Argentine government and were fair game.

Fernández de Kirchner Defends Presidential System

March 5 (EIRNS)—President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner defended Argentina's Presidential system, "copied exactly from the United States Constitution," against those who would establish a parliamentary system in the country, and who are trying to force her government to either default on its debt obligations, or slash productive government spending in order to make those debt payments.

In a speech before producers in an agricultural region on March 3, two days after her discussion with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Fernández went after "the evident attempted destitution [of the government] by some national sectors"—she failed to mention the international sectors involved, i.e., the British Empire—who have gotten judges "who seem to have been rented" to block her attempt to put Central Bank reserves under the control of the government, and to use part of those reserves to establish a Bicentennial Fund with which to meet foreign debt obligations.

She blasted those who plunged the country into debt in the 1980s and 1990s, and who now turn around to try to stop her from paying those debts "with the reserves of the Central Bank," demanding instead that she cut the operating budget. "I want them to tell me how, paying the way they propose, we are going to be able to keep paying retirees their two increases per year, how we will be able to keep paying family benefits, how we will be able to continue with an infrastructure plan like the one we are announcing today."

"I am prepared to face the condemnation of any circumstantial Argentine judge, but I am not prepared to face the condemnation of history," she stated. And then she took off the gloves on the issue of principle involving the Presidential system:

"I know that the Argentine Republic has a Presidential system; there is no co-government with the opposition, it is not a parliamentary government. You can agree or disagree with this system of government that we have copied exactly from the United States Constitution; but if you disagree, what you have to do is not violate it, but change the Constitution and put in place a parliamentary government, for example. So, if we had a parliamentary government, if we were to ask this opposition for a proposal, what would they say to me? Some would say not to pay the debt and to investigate it; others, to pay it with an adjustment plan; and, then, what country would we have?"