Ibero-American News Digest

Panama's Darien Region Wants Development!

Sept. 30 (EIRNS)—Darien province makes up the eastern third of Panama, with its eastern-most region forming the so-called "Darien Gap" which borders Colombia, that swath of jungle through which no road or railroad yet crosses. The province may be the largest in territory in Panama, but it is the smallest in population, with just over 46,000 people abandoned to their fate.

Ninety percent of the border itself is currently locked up as a nature preserve, the Darien National Park, controlled by Prince Philip's genocidal "environmental" apparatus, which asserts that the major threat to this "ecoregion ... is the construction of the Inter-American Highway." The park also provides a safe haven for Colombia's narcoterrorist cartel, the FARC, and the rest of the Darien province is hardly more developed than the formally-designated "nature preserves."

An article appearing in the Panamanian publication Martes Financiero on Sept. 28 reported that there is 75% unemployment in the province, with only 5,000 people employed out of the 20,000 people who are able to work. The province is becoming a region of children and grandparents, its youth and adults leaving to seek work elsewhere.

Food prices there are the most expensive in all Panama, in large part because there are no paved roads in much of the province. Recently, a main road which had been in the works for more than 30 years was finally finished, but it stops halfway into the province, and thousands of people have to then travel by river or sea to their destinations.

Martes Financiero reports that the majority of the people in Darien province want the Pan American Highway to be completed. That highway, running from one tip of the Americas to the other and first proposed in 1889, has been completed—except for the 54 miles of the Darien Gap.

Prince Philip's minions are showing signs of worry that Lyndon LaRouche's campaign to transform the Biosphere with NAWAPA-style projects, can break the environmentalists' power to keep the Gap locked off from civilization. On Sept. 27, Panama's La Estrella daily published a commentary by the former executive director of the Darien Sustainable Development Program, Alfredo U. Acuña H., raving against completing the Pan American Highway, because once the Darien Gap is bridged by a road, it would mean, in short order, the end of national park along the Panamanian-Colombian border.

Ecuador's President Correa Survives Threat to His Government

Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa survived what he described as an attempted coup d'état, in the form of a police strike and uprising on Sept. 30, which appeared to have the support of at least part of the country's armed forces. Police protesters tear-gassed Correa, who had gone to meet with them over their opposition to a law reducing their labor benefits; they then wouldn't allow him to leave the Police Hospital where he had fled for treatment. After being held hostage for 10 hours—during which time Correa received international statements of support from most of the Presidents of Ibero-America, the heads of the UN and the OAS, and from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—he was rescued by military special forces.

But angry policemen don't make coups on their own initiative—even in Ecuador. Some of the questions that arise are:

What is the role of London, and its allies in the Obama Administration, in this operation, which could have thrown the whole region into chaos? Is London distraught at the serious blow delivered to Dope, Inc.'s FARC cartel, with the Colombian military's Sept. 22 killing of the satanic Mono Jojoy? (See InDepth for more on this.) Are they becoming alarmed that British asset Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan President who is joined at the hip with the FARC, suffered a significant setback in that country's Sept. 26 elections, and that his influence in Ibero-America is waning?

Correa has historically lined up with Chávez and other leftists in South America, but he has been careful to distance himself from Chávez's overt support for the narco-terrorist FARC.

Castro Goes to Bat for the FARC, Again

Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Fidel Castro once again came out in defense of London's cocaine cartel, the FARC, and lamented the death of its bestial military commander "Mono Jojoy," in his Sept. 30 column, "Reflections of the Comandante." Perhaps preparing for what may be revealed from the FARC military command's computers, which are now in Colombian government hands, particularly as regards his ally, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, Castro lied that the FARC cartel is a "revolutionary movement," insisting that it will not have to surrender. He blamed the United States for directing what he called "a gross assassination" of Mono Jojoy. "I have criticized the FARC," he said. I "disagreed" with their seizing "prisoners of war ... but I never denied the revolutionary character of the FARC," the aged Synarchist wrote.

U.S.-Mexico Border Resembles the Gaza Strip

Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—The U.S.-Mexico border, along New Mexico, Arizona, and California, resembles more and more the under-siege Gaza Strip. A New York Times report today described surveillance drones tracking drug traffickers from Mexico into the United States. Traffickers are digging sophisticated tunnel systems, to bring marijuana and cocaine into the United States. The border cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, which share a common drainage system, are one epicenter of this tunneling effort, second only to the Tijuana region. In the past two months, law enforcement officials have discovered 51 tunnels passing between the two Nogaleses alone. In the most sophisticated incident to date, a tunnel west of Nogales ran from the master bedroom of a home in Mexico, into the garage of a home across the border in Arizona.