Ibero-American News Digest
Cheniacs Take a Hit in Mexico
Wall Street and its Synarchist allies in both the United States and Mexico got slammed Dec. 11, when a combination of a majority faction in Mexico's opposition parties, the PRI, the PRD party, and a number of smaller opposition parties, joined together to vote down the fiscal reform plan. President Vicente Fox, the former chairwoman of the PRI Congressional delegation, Elba Esther Gordillo, and the country's wealthiest circles had told Congress they had to pass this plan, or Mexico would become "another Argentina." As the voting advanced, a rousing chant grew throughout the Chamber of Deputies: "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!" The similarity to the chant "Argentina! Argentina! Argentina!" which filled that country's legislative assembly when then-President Alolfo Rodriguez Saa, in December 2001, could not be missed.
The defeated "fiscal reform" plan, as one livid PRI opponent put it, was "the product of the most radical right wing of the country!" It would have put an 8% tax on food and medicine, a 13% tax on other basic necessities, including public transportation, tuition, books, a variety of social benefits, and a 25% tax on all workers' income, whether it be from pensions, retirement benefits, overtime, the Christmas extra-month bonus, loans, etc.while lowering the corporate tax rate from 34% to 30%, and the income tax on the country's wealthiest, from 30% to 25%.
Although the margin of defeat was small (17 votes), it was decisive. Not only must Fox now explain this latest defeat to his increasingly irritated foreign puppet-masters, but also, on Dec. 11, Gordillo was finally ousted from her post as chairman of the PRI congressional delegation, and a more-nationalist PRI majority has regained the leadership of the party's congressional faction. The financiers are already moaning that Fox will have an equally impossible time ramming through his energy privatization schemes.
Legislators will begin a special session of Congress next week to come up with a new tax law, as well as the 2004 budget, before the legal deadline of Dec. 31. During this time, the Congress can expect to hear more from the LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico. LYM organizers demonstrating in front of the Senate on Dec. 11, caused a stir with their large banner: "Russian and Italian Senates Discuss New Bretton Woods. And Mexico's? WHEN?"
Brawl in Colombia, Too, Over IMF Tax Packages
On Dec. 5, Colombia's Congress approved an amended version of the tax package demanded by the IMF, after weeks of arm-twisting by the government, bankers screaming of "dire consequences," if the tax reform were not passed, and, finally, a threat by newly-appointed Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla to resign, were it not passed.
The original "reform," which included everything from a significant hike on the value-added tax (VAT) for commodities of the basic market basket, to a tax on pensions, as well as an array of new taxes, was first rejected in a national referendum presented to the electorate by President Alvaro Uribe in October. Following that, Colombia's Constitutional Court threw out three elements of a tax reform passed one year ago, which will cost the government a hefty chunk in annual tax revenues as a result.
Not only opposition Congressmen, but even some of President Alvaro Uribe's supporters in Congress rejected the measures as too unpopular with their constituencies. Several of Uribe's allies in the economic commission, who had presented the tax bill in Congress, resigned. Said one freaked-out banker, "The notion that Congress would just throw the country off a cliff by not fixing the budget strikes me as hard to swallow."
Uribe had to make concessions, and pare down some of the more draconian aspects of the bill, to finally get it approved before the IMF's deadline of Dec. 16. The government's compromise took the form of accepting a 3% VAT tax, instead of the 5% the IMF wanted, and also had to abandon the tax on pensions. The government also had to swallow Congress-proposed taxes on financial transactions and a tax on fortunes above a certain income level, both of which hit the government's wealthier supporters where it hurts, in the pocketbooks.
Dominican Republic on Edge of Official Bankruptcy
Dominican Republic President Hipolito Mejia, flanked by top military officers, called in bankers, foreign-exchange traders, exporters, and tourism operators on Dec. 3, to tell them that the speculation against the peso had to stop, yanow. They were informed that a council had been set up to oversee the foreign exchange market, which would include the Secretary of the Armed Forces, another Army general, and a police major general. Anyone involved in selling currency without authorization from the Central Bank would be arrested. Central Bank governor Jose Luis Malkun, who was present, along with the bank superintendent and the finance secretary, emphasized that the IMF will not sign any agreement with the Dominican Republic, unless the peso was under 40 to the dollar. The value of 30 pesos to the dollar was set as a goal to be reached within two weeks.
IMF pressure on the government is enormous, as financier outlets such as London's Economist warn that the country is verging on "illiquidity," which will prevent the country from meeting its international obligations.
Haunting the crisis discussions, is the proposal promoted by U.S. Treasury #2 John Taylor and the synarchist interests represented by the Wall Street Journal, for the Dominican Republic to dollarize. President Mejia stated on Nov. 29 that dollarization was not immediately possible, because the countryand, in particular, the banksare not yet prepared for such a step. He does not oppose it on philosophical grounds, he said, but rather, because a lot of information is required, to make such a decision.
Treasury's Taylor paid a personal visit to the Dominican Republic three weeks ago, to promote dollarization. On Dec. 11, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, another Bush neo-con, paid a 24-hour visit, and held closed-door meetings with the country's top political and financial figures.
Uruguay Votes Down Oil Privatization
The Uruguayan population rejected an attempt to privatize the state oil monopoly, ANCAP, in a referendum held on Dec. 7. A law that would have opened up ANCAP to private foreign investment, was roundly defeated by a 60% majority, and the results are now being seen as a foretaste of what to expect in the 2004 Presidential elections. The referendum was organized by the PIT-CNT trade union federation, and the leftist New Majority alliance, in which the coalition led by Presidential aspirant Tabare Vasquez, is the leading member. Right now, Vasquez is favored to win next year's elections, with a 46% popularity rating.
This is the second time in two years that Uruguayans have stymied attempts to privatize state-sector companies. In 2001, another referendum defeated the government's bid to privatize the national telephone company. This has enraged the IMF, which has pressured the government of Jorge Batlle to privatize more state-sector companies, and impose stringent austerity, to qualify for financial assistance. Free-marketeer Batlle was reportedly badly shaken by the defeat, and has yet to make any public statements.
Synarchists Move To Spark Religious War in Venezuela
Synarchists moved to turn the already near-civil war state of battle between Hugo Chavez's forces and the opposition, into a religious war. On Dec. 6, two anniversaries were commemorated in Caracas: the first Presidential electoral victory of Hugo Chavez five years ago, celebrated by Chavez's supporters with a big march; and the first anniversary of the assassination of opposition demonstrators gathered in the Plaza Altamira, which was to be commemorated by opposition figures with a rally in that plaza.
Conflict between the two opposing bands is frequent, but what happened this Dec. 6 was new: Motorcycle-mounted Chavez supporters, serving as the advance for the march, wheeled into the Plaza Altamira, and wrought havoc for a half an hour, sending opposition television and local officials, preparing for their commemoration, fleeing. When the Chavistas left, two plaster statues of the Virgin had been defaced, one decapitated, and the other, spray-painted with obscene graffiti.
This is a classic synarchist provocation, lifted from the annals of the Spanish Civil War.
The Archdiocese of Caracas issued a communique, denouncing the act. For his part, the president of the Roman Catholic Bishops Council, Msgr. Baltazar Porras, stated in an interview with Radio Union, that what happened is more than a simple act of vandalism, but "a demonstration of true contempt for the minimal respect which any person or any symbol, not merely a religious one, should receive." This, he said, is a manifestation of the "continuous escalation of utter disrespect for every type of institution, of every type of value, as if a political project were an Absolute God," and it is unacceptable that official supporters attempt to make "absolutely everyone kneel down before ... the political and the diatribe."
The Chavez government, for its part, has defended the provocation. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel first called it a "civic act," and nothing to get excited about. He then issued a communique denouncing Msgr. Porras for his remarks, and demanding he "temper" his language. What happened in the Altamira Plaza "was not an act of provocation nor of disrespect for religion," the statement declared. Rather, the presence of the statues of the Virgin in the plaza for the opposition cause, was the real sacrilege. He charged that Porras was acting like the Spanish Catholic Church in the 1930s, in promoting "the Franco-ite crusade."
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