In this issue:

Brazil's Lula Proposes High-Level Meeting To Resolve Iraq Crisis

Peruvian Congressman Submits Resolution Based on LaRouche's Warning of Threat of Nuclear World War

Chile Bucks U.S. War Resolution, If Not Modified

Mexico Wavers Over Iraq Vote

Leading Brazil Daily Covers LaRouche's 'What Powell Didn't Say'

Brazil Announces Malaysian PM Mahathir Will Meet President Lula

Brazil and Colombia Ally Against Narcoterrorism

Brazil's Jacobin Landless Movement Ends Truce with Lula Government

Still Drawing Fire: LaRouche's Insistence That Key To Saving Venezuela, Is Recognizing Chavez Insanity

From Volume 2, Issue Number 11 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Mar. 17, 2003

Ibero-American News Digest

Brazil's Lula Proposes High-Level Meeting To Resolve Iraq Crisis

Brazil's President Lula da Silva proposed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that he convoke a high-level meeting of countries interested in resolving the Iraq crisis peacefully, Brazilian officials announced March 12. Foreign Minister Celso Amorim met with Annan for 45 minutes on March 12, at The Hague, to deliver a letter from Lula containing the proposal. Annan expressed interest, and promised to think about how to advance down that path, Amorim reported afterwards.

Lula has been increasingly active in diplomatic efforts to head off war, coordinating closely with France, Germany, and Russia. Brazil has expressed repeated concern, in particular, over the disastrous economic, political, and humanitarian consequences a war would bring on all nations. In a March 11 telephone conversation with President Lula—his third in a month—French President Jacques Chirac request that the Brazilian President use his influence to push for a peaceful solution, not only with the Ibero-American nations (particularly Mexico and Chile, who sit on the UN Security Council), but also nations in Africa, where Brazil has a long-standing diplomatic presence, particularly in the Portuguese-speaking nations. President Lula spoke with President Jose Eduardo dos Santo of Angola, another undecided nation on the Security Council, the next day, March 12.

Chirac asked Lula if he would participate in a meeting of African nations, and sounded him out on the possibility of his attending an upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight, to lay out what he had presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January: the dangers of war, and the need for a world campaign to eradicate hunger. Lula said he would be willing to attend both meetings, should the invitations be made official, Folha de Sao Paulo reported on March 12.

President Lula is to pay a state visit to France soon.

Peruvian Congressman Submits Resolution Based on LaRouche's Warning of Threat of Nuclear World War

Congressman Ivan Oswaldo Calderon Castillo, from the northern Peruvian province of Piura, submitted a resolution to Peru's Congress on March 7, which warns that "a military conflict would be economically and socially catastrophic." Citing U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche's warnings that the Iraq war could become a nuclear one, he proposes the Peruvian Congress "defend peace by supporting total and real disarmament"—which, the resolution asserts, requires the disarmament of Iraq, but also of the United States's "weapons of mass destruction."

"U.S. President George Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney (the most powerful Vice President in the history of the U.S., according to economist Lyndon H. LaRouche) are determined to initiate a war of aggression which crassly violates the United States Constitution, as it does the Nuremberg Code and the United Nations Charter," the resolution warns. "The long historical tradition of the United States as an open and democratic society, which obeys the law, is threatened by the frontal violation of the current President of that country. All of a sudden, President Bush declares himself ready to use, arbitrarily and unilaterally, his military superpower, including, if he finds it expedient, nuclear weapons."

He cites the opposition to an Iraq war expressed by Pope John Paul II, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Russia, France, Germany, and China, among others; the resolution details the Bush Administration's authorization of the use of a new generation of so-called "mini"-nuclear weapons, against "Third World tyrants."

"A nuclear first strike is no longer taboo," the resolution states. "The United States will not refrain from the use of these weapons against non-nuclear nations, unless we stop this insanity. Several prominent Democrats, among them the Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche, and Senators Edward Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein, have already warned the public of this insane change of policy by the utopian warmongers inside the U.S. government.... The possibility that the U.S. might use nuclear weapons against Iraq adds a new, and even more horrible, dimension to the threat of war in the Persian Gulf. As Lyndon LaRouche has warned repeatedly, this would mean the beginning of a Third World War, that would very likely be a nuclear one."

Four days after submitting the resolution, which he insisted be discussed on the floor of the Congress, Congressman Calderon Castillo added his name to the "Call for the Ad Hoc Committee in Favor of a New Bretton Woods," issued by LaRouche's international movement.

Chile Bucks U.S. War Resolution, If Not Modified

President Ricardo Lagos of Chile announced on March 13 that his nation, one of the six rotating members of the UN Security Council which have been undecided on the Anglo-American-Spanish resolution on Iraq, would vote against any resolution with a March 17 deadline for Iraq to disarm. Such a deadline is "unrealistic and peremptory," the Chilean President told a press conference. Chilean United Nations diplomat Christian Maquieiara had made the point more colorfully on March 7, saying that "the Security Council diplomats have a better chance of getting a date with Julia Roberts, than getting Iraq to disarm in ten days."

Chile demanded, from the outset, that more time be granted Iraq, and that "benchmarks" for disarmament be specified in any resolution, so there could be an "objective" basis to decide whether or not Iraq had complied. President Lagos reported on Chilean radio March 8 that he had told President George W. Bush that destruction of Iraq's weapons could take two, three, or four months.

Given U.S. pressure and threats, however, Chile has not backed the French-German-Russian coalition, but rather attempted to forge a compromise, which could be approved by consensus. On March 14, Chile proposed a compromise resolution, backed by the five other "undecided" countries on the Security Council (Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Mexico, and Pakistan) that would give Iraq three weeks to meet five specific disarmament conditions, but without specifying any trigger for war.

U.S. pressures on the country, however, have damaged U.S.-Chilean relations. "Talking with the U.S. is like talking to an elephant," Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile's former Foreign Minister and the father of the current ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriel Valdes, complained, in the first days of March. The U.S. "is a big heavyweight country, generally with bad manners, and it considers Latin America to be its backyard."

Mexico Wavers Over Iraq Vote

Mexican President Vicente Fox, speaking from his hospital bed on March 13, one day after undergoing emergency spinal surgery for a herniated disk, reiterated that Mexico's position is, "no to unilateral decisions, no to an automatic war," because there are practical alternative ways to achieve the disarmament of Iraq peacefully.

Mexico's official stance continues to be that it will not decide how it will vote, until it must vote, because it hopes that the choices can be changed. President Fox told reporters on March 9 that there is still a chance for a change. Although "everything appears to indicate that there are few possibilities of changing things.... We cannot lose faith, nor are we going to stop insisting that there must be a consensus solution ... which has to be a solution without war." If the U.S. were to launch a unilateral attack, it would weaken the United Nations, which we cannot allow, he said, and so Mexico is searching for new ideas which might help reach a consensus.

Exemplary of the kind of brutal pressure being brought to bear on Mexico, is the report which appeared in a recent London Economist to the effect that a U.S. diplomat had warned Mexicans of "stir[ring] up feelings" against Mexicans in the United States, going so far that, wrote the Economist, "He draws comparisons with the Japanese-Americans who were interned after 1941, and wonders whether Mexico 'wants to stir up the fires of jingoism during a war' "!

On March 10, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, suggested reprisals would result if Mexico merely abstained from voting. "Will American attitudes be placated by half-steps or three-quarter steps on issues as large as war?" he asked Mexican reporters. "I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. Abstentions, increasingly, are seen as 'no' votes.... This Administration has been very supportive of Mexico. Will Congress's attitudes change? Perhaps."

Terrified Mexican businessmen are squeezing President Fox and his Cabinet members hard, to vote for the war, despite what that would do to the government's domestic political power, given the enormous domestic opposition, because they say U.S. investment will pull out of the country if Mexico dares vote against its powerful northern neighbor.

Even from his sickbed, Fox was strong enough to remind those Americans threatening reprisals, that U.S.-Mexican relations are a two-way street. "They also owe us many things," so I expect our relations to continue as they have been, he responded.

Leading Brazil Daily Covers LaRouche's 'What Powell Didn't Say'

Brazil's Monitor Mercantil daily reported March 12, on Lyndon LaRouche's statement, "What Secretary Powell Didn't Say," (see EIW #10 THIS WEEK YOU NEED TO KNOW), which asserts that "the week that began on March 10 will have an importance which, perhaps, could be as significant as the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962." That alert, Monitor says, "was sounded by Democratic economist Lyndon LaRouche, whose curriculum includes denunciations of the unreality of the stock markets, made as far back as the beginning of the last decade. LaRouche affirms that, were the U.S. permitted to use the threat of unilateral force, including nuclear weapons, against Iraq, it will either establish a U.S.-world empire modelled upon the ancient Roman Empire, or '[force] the nations of the world to undermine the power of the U.S.A. to conduct such policies; or sends the world to spend a few generations in Hell as punishment for failing to prevent the proposed war.' "

Monitor concludes: "LaRouche compares the current policies of the Bush government on Iraq to a 'caricature of the same hubristic folly which led ancient Athens into the tragic Peloponnesian War.' "

Brazil Announces Malaysian PM Mahathir Will Meet President Lula

The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir, will pay an official visit to Brazil March 16-19. He meets with the Brazilian President and gives a press conference in Brasilia on the 17th, and visits the headquarters of the Brazilian airline companies, Embraer and Avibras, in Sao Jose dos Campos, on the 18th, Brazil's Foreign Ministry announced.

Dr. Mahathir will likely give President Lula "a different perspective on development, economic and land reforms, and managing an economy ... that is under severe financial strain," writes senior journalist Hardev Kaur, who often serves as a semi-official outlet for the Malaysian government, in the New Straits Times March 13. "In terms of economic performance, Malaysia outperforms" Brazil, which faces enormous economic problems, including deep poverty, an economy "totally subordinated to the debt," high interest rates, etc. Malaysia, on the other hand, has succeeded in dealing with its poverty, and "is a model among developing countries."

"Brazil wants to know Malaysia's formula for success. Discussions between Lula and Prime Minister [Mahathir] will seek to identify areas of cooperation and ways to improve the Brazilian economy and put it onto a healthy and sustainable growth path," Kaur writes. She notes, accurately, that this is especially important now, because "Lula's honeymoon appears to have ended."

Although unmentioned by either source, preventing a war against Iraq is also likely to be prominent in their talks.

Dr. Mahathir is currently on a private visit to the Amazon.

Brazil and Colombia Ally Against Narcoterrorism

The Presidents of Brazil and Colombia, Lula da Silva and Alvaro Uribe Velez—the first usually labelled a "leftist," the second a "hardliner"—announced March 7, following a five-hour meeting, that their countries will cooperate in fighting drugs and terrorism in the region, while increasing joint trade and infrastructure projects. The announcement opens new possibilities for forging a sovereign South American response to the disintegration of the region. (See "Brazil Tries To Evade Imperial Game Plan," in INDEPTH for more.)

Brazil's Jacobin Landless Movement Ends Truce with Lula Government

Brazil's Jacobin landless movement (MST) two weeks ago ended its truce with the Lula government and launched a series of land invasions, saying Lula hasn't acted fast enough on the issue of agrarian reform. The MST, allied with Colombia's FARC and representing the worst elements of the ruling coalition, had declared a truce when Lula was inaugurated, but that ended March 6 when 500 MST militants invaded the regional headquarters of Incra, the government's agrarian reform agency, in Cuiaba (Mato Grosso state) and another 500 MST women occupied Incra headquarters in Goiania, Goias state.

This is only the beginning. The MST warns it will set off "a wave of invasions" running into April, throughout the country. These developments underscore the insanity of Lula's policy course to date. He cannot apply IMF policy and at the same time deal with the dire social problems he promised to address during his campaign. As long as he stays on his present path, the MST will have a free hand to wreak havoc. Rural landowners are already arming themselves, and forming militias to respond to threatened land invasions.

Still Drawing Fire: LaRouche's Insistence That Key To Saving Venezuela, Is Recognizing Chavez Insanity

U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche clearly hit a raw nerve with his insistence that the key to saving Venezuela, is to recognize the insanity of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Here we publish LaRouche's March 7 response to an e-mail sent from Brasilia, written as an open letter to EIR's Spanish edition, Resumen Ejecutivo—with a copy reportedly sent to the pro-terrorist Internet magazine Rebelion—which goes so far as to lie that LaRouche is actually organizing for a Pinochet coup, with his statements.

LaRouche responded as follows:

"Admittedly, given, especially. the extreme decadence in education in the world since the 'rock-drug-sex youth-counterculture' of the 1964-72 interval, and the descent of the culture of Europe and the Americas from production-oriented to consumerist orientations, there are diminishing numbers of people capable of rational assessment of phenomena such as the impact of the unstable personality of extreme eccentricity of President Chavez.

"For example, British agents 'Philippe Egalité' and Jacques Necker financed and organized the July 14, 1789 affair of the Bastille as a stunt designed by the British Foreign Office to break up the movement for the Constitution of Bailly and Lafayette. This, under the continued role of British Foreign Office agents Danton, Marat, et al., led France into the obscenity of the Jacobin Terror, the tyranny of Napoleon's successive patrons Maximilien Robespiere and Barras, into the first modern fascist tyranny, that of Napoleon Bonaparte.

"Some say Chavez is a Castro creation. I think not. If one finds a porcupine and a fox in the same bed, one does not assume that they are husband and wife. Do not seek a hero, where there is only a fool, a fool like the poor Dutch anarchist who created the Reichstag fire which was used to establish Hitler's dictatorial power.

"Your blindness to what I actually said, is typified by your accusing me of seeking a Pinochet-type coup against Chavez, when I have warned explicitly against such a threat which I fear is already a very real one. Treat poor Chavez as the mentally unstable shallow populist demagog he is, and avoid the ugly fate of post-July-14, 1789 France. Former U.S. President Carter and Lula acted responsibly; unfortunately, foolish demagog Chavez himself threatens to waste the useful work which Lula, Carter, et al. have done."

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