From Volume 37, Issue 26 of EIR Online, Published July 2, 2010

Ibero-American News Digest

Argentina: British Colonialism and BP are One and the Same

June 28 (EIRNS)—Speaking June 24 before the UN's Decolonization Committee, Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman slammed the British government for refusing to hold talks on the Malvinas Islands, which Britain calls the Falklands and illegally seized from Argentina in 1833. Defying numerous UN resolutions calling on both sides to engage in dialogue, British Prime Minister David Cameron argued that there is nothing to discuss.

The newly named Foreign Minister also took aim at BP, charging that what it has done in the Gulf of Mexico is no different from the British government's trampling on Argentina's rights in the South Atlantic. "At a time when one of the worst ecological catastrophes has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, as a result of the spill caused by British Petroleum's oil rig," he warned, "we shouldn't minimize or downplay the risk implied for our entire region, from an environmental standpoint, by the United Kingdom's colonialist adventure in the South Atlantic, based on the plundering of non-renewable natural resources." He expressed concern that British oil companies operating elsewhere—e.g., the Malvinas—may be cutting corners on safety standards, just as BP did in the Gulf.

Timerman also offered his government's "full solidarity" to those Americans who have suffered from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, while Argentina's UN Ambassador, Jorge Arguello, reminded the British government that the U.S. had declared its "neutrality" in the British-Argentine dispute—much to London's distress—and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had offered to serve as a mediator between the two governments, during her visit to Buenos Aires last March.

Argentina's sovereign rights to the Malvinas are "non-renounceable," the Foreign Minister stated, referencing his country's anti-British sentiment, which dates back to the pre-independence era of the early 19th Century. In this year of Argentina's bicentennial celebration, he pointed out, it is remarkable that "we are still debating a colonial issue.... We are still debating what our heroes, our founding fathers did. It is an anachronism that there are still colonial powers in the 21st Century."

The British Are Gunning for Colombia

June 28 (EIRNS)—Only two countries in Ibero-America have waged a fight against British policies in the recent period: Argentina and Colombia. With the run-off in Colombia's Presidential elections now over, London is gearing up operations to get the victor, incoming President Juan Manuel Santos, to capitulate to Britain, by turning against outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and the nation's military forces, while imposing the City of London's Hitlerian economic policies.

Santos won a smashing, 69% to 28% victory over his opponent, Antanus Mockus, by campaigning as the man who would continue Uribe's policy of fighting narcoterrorism. That continuity of policy, despite the clear mandate of the Colombian people, is what the City of London is out to break.

Uribe's "crime" is certainly not that of having bucked London's economic policies, but that under his leadership, from 2002 to today, Colombia demonstrated that Britain's modern Opium War can be defeated, with some backing from sane American circles. Just as Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Peru's military high command demonstrated—until they were driven from power, and into jail cells in 2001, in an operation personally overseen and financed by Britain's top drug-pusher George Soros.

London demands that Uribe and the top military leaders be given "the Fujimori treatment." London's drug-pushing Economist magazine summarized the message, in its June 24 story on the elections: "Colombia's Presidential Election: Too Much Continuity?" Santos's hardest task "will be correcting Alvaro Uribe's excesses."

The Washington Post proposed two days later, in an article titled "Backlog of Colombian Human Rights Cases Pose a Test for New President," that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission's ruling last week that the Colombian government was responsible for the 1994 assassination of Communist Party leader Sen. Manuel Cepeda, can be used to pressure Colombia into a generalized purge under the "human rights" pretext.

Rains Cause Misery in Haiti, After Obama Nixed Emergency Rebuilding

June 26 (EIRNS)—It is now almost four weeks into the hurricane season in the Caribbean, and heavy rains—not yet full-fledged tropical storms—are spreading misery and despair in Haiti. This is because President Obama blocked an Army Corps of Engineers approach to relocation of people away from high-flood zones, and into national rebuilding programs.

More than 1.5 million people are living in the streets or the equivalent. The shelter program to date consists mostly of 700,000 tarps, and 70,000 tents, 40% of which are judged now to be in want of replacement. They were inadequate from the day they were delivered.

A Haitian source reported that there is now a lot of flooding. Many people have no way to protect themselves from the rains, and the government is really not doing anything. The NGOs don't do anything beyond providing charity.

In the central Caribbean, thunderstorms have struck eastern Cuba, Jamaica, and the island of Hispaniola (which is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Puerto Rico reports that this year to date, is the wettest on record. In the Dominican Republic, 3,000 people have been evacuated in recent days because of flooding; two persons are confirmed dead from drowning, and several are missing.

In Haiti, flooding is underway in the northwest and other run-off danger zones. For example, the coastal city of Gonaives is flooded. Though not hit by the Jan. 12 earthquake, the town has thousands of refugees who fled the quake zone in the south, and conditions are desperate. Gonaives City flooded twice in storms since 2004, with of lives lost. A nationwide Code Orange alert has been issued by the Haiti government, but they lack the resources to care for their people.

Given this deteriorating situation, it is more clear than ever that intervention is required for mass relocation to safe ground, for interim CCC-type housing and infrastructure-building programs, as Lyndon LaRouche has called for from the start.

Instead of that, support for Obama's do-nothing policy came out this week, in the form of a report released for the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by Committee staff. Titled, "Haiti at a Crossroads," the 17-page report states that rebuilding has "stalled out."

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