LaRouche: Defend Peru's
Sovereignty as Our Own

The following is an interview which the Peruvian magazine Gente conducted with U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche on May 31.

Q: It's a great honor for us to ask you a question from Lima, Peru, Mr. LaRouche. Our first question is in relationship to the role being played by the Organization of American States [OAS], in particular their observation mission in Peru. What degree of confidence should we have in this mission's objectivity?

LaRouche: I don't think we should count on anything. There are obviously positive factors coming from among circles within Central and South America, but we know that in the United States, and also in some circles in Europe, there are desperados at work. One should add that the way in which the government of Peru, the President of Peru, and so forth, have handled this situation, shows that a firm patriotic response does encourage sane behavior on the part of observing parties.

Q: I would like to ask you about charges that have been made in EIR magazine, and in statements from Dennis Small when he was in Lima, about the links of Eduardo Stein, the head of the OAS mission to Peru, with the Soros Foundation in Guatemala. What can you tell us in this regard?

LaRouche: Well, Dennis Small is well aware of the details, and I can confirm them. We've gone over this for a number of years, and we know the relationship of Soros to operations based in Britain and out of New York City, and therefore, Stein's connection to him tells us what kind of jungle he comes from. One has to understand that the people who are playing this international game, are counting on looting Central and South America, and other parts of the world, through drug-trafficking, as well as other means. Soros has a long history of being that kind of pirate, a predatory hyena attacking other countries.

Q: What is the role that George Soros is playing with regard to Peru, and the Fujimori government in particular?

LaRouche: First of all, the Soros crew is known for international drug-trafficking legalization. He walks a delicate line, between actually pushing drugs himself, and demanding that this traffic be legalized. But from a moral standpoint, the man is a drug pusher.

Q: Since he is so well known as a promoter of the drug trade, how come the man isn't in jail? How come he hasn't been charged? Is he protected by powerful forces in the United States?

LaRouche: Yes, he is. Remember, the British East India Company operation, which was launched in the 1790s, which led into Palmerston's wars against China, the Opium Wars. The people involved with Palmerston and the British East India Company, from the late 1790s through the middle of the 19th Century in the United States, were the leading people from around Boston, Massachusetts, Yale University in Connecticut, and New York City. And their involvement in the international drug traffic is identical to that of the British East India Company and their North American friends back in the early 19th Century.

Look what happened to the countries of Central and South America from, especially, the cocaine and the opium traffic, and also marijuana, including the recent attempt to destabilize the government of Peru, the nation of Peru. It's identical with British policy in conducting the Opium War policy against China.

For example, the attack on the government of Peru in the recent period, is identical in character to the attack on the government of China during the period of the Opium War. And as we know, those circles on Wall Street, which are closest to Al Gore, as well as to the Bush family, are identical to the financial circles whose great-grandfathers were part of the U.S. financier alliance with the China Opium War policy. Remember, that every American President, from the time of Andrew Jackson until Lincoln, was involved financially in the drug-trafficking policy. And you have the same tendency, among the same political circles, at high levels in the United States today. The only thing that's different, is the historical time period, and this has been going on since, essentially, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This has been a constant trend in financier circles out of New York and London and elsewhere.

Q: What is your view of the Bill Clinton government in the United States?

LaRouche: It's a mix. Bill Clinton is not a bad fellow. He's been terribly persecuted and endangered from within the United States, from people associated with George Bush and his friends, since 1992. I've been involved in dealing with many of these threats to the President, to defend him against these threats. But now, he's become, in this period, what is called in the United States a "lame duck," a President who cannot be reelected. And since the beginning of February, or about that time, the President has been totally a prisoner of his commitment to support Al Gore, and Al Gore is the worst. It's a question of how far Clinton is willing to go in supporting Al Gore.

The major threat to Peru right now from the U.S. side is coming from circles associated with Al Gore, which are not different, essentially, from those behind Bush, but it also happens to be Gore's circles. Because [U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine] Mrs. Albright is very close to Mr. Gore, in this sense, at this time. And I would hope that President Clinton would be among those who are taking now a more moderate policy toward Peru.

Q: One of the clear indications that Clinton is a prisoner in his own realm, as you have stated, is the State Department statement that they do not support the recent elections in Peru.

LaRouche: Exactly.

Q: We would like to know your view, or thoughts, regarding the complaint that you have presented to the OAS with regard to the theft of 53,000 votes of yours in Arkansas, as your documents have claimed.

LaRouche: Well, the evidence in terms of Al Gore and his friends running this operation against me in the United States, was clear. It is a fistfight behind the scenes, as well as in public. But the issue here came to my attention when I read the conditionalities which Mrs. Albright and company presented to Peru on the recent election. Because every one of the conditionalities which Mrs. Albright was dictating to Peru, Mrs. Albright's confederate Al Gore was violating in the United States. Under those circumstances, I thought it very necessary and morally obligatory for me to show the world, that what the United States State Department was demanding of Peru, was exactly what they were violating within the United States. Therefore, I was concerned to alarm the world, including the nations of Ibero-America, to recognize that this attack on Peru by the State Department, or by Mrs. Albright's crew, was a piece of immorality that had to be turned back, for the sake of all of the states of the Americas.

Q: There's also some discussion of OAS interventionism in the internal affairs of countries in the continent, and in this regard, the doctrine of "limited sovereignty." What are your views on this matter?

LaRouche: Well, this is an old story. In the history of the Americas, especially from the time of the Congress of Vienna, the states of the Americas which were either independent, or struggling for independence, were all imperilled by the British and their Vienna Congress, Metternichean, Holy Alliance allies. So, most people don't know this, but the struggle for independence for the new nation-states in the Americas was the struggle for the principle of equality and republican freedom for the world as a whole. As a result of that, since the time of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, every American leader who was not virtually a British agent, has--like the case of Lincoln with Mexico--always come to the defense of all the republics of the Americas, knowing that the fate of each and all of the republics of the Americas and of the United States itself, are interlinked.

And, from my standpoint, anyone who proposes limited sovereignty, for any of the republics of the Americas, is virtually a traitor to the United States. Independence of each and all of the republics of the Americas, is the first line of national defense of the United States. And I would also say, the prosperity of these republics, too.

If we stand together on this principle, we are strong in the world. When we are separate from one another on this issue, then we are weak. We are not the most populous part of the world--we have less than a billion people in this hemisphere--but united we are a powerful force in the world. And a powerful force for good.

I consider anybody who proposes limited sovereignty for any country of the Americas, if he is a U.S. official, to be virtually a traitor to the United States.

Q: I'm interested in knowing about the fact that you are going to present, or have already presented, to the OAS a document with regard to the Peruvian situation.

LaRouche: Yes, that's being done on my behalf by my representatives, who are now in Washington.

Q: What's the tenor, or the point, of this document?

LaRouche: The point, essentially, is to assert the principles which have been upheld by U.S. Presidents in this century, especially President Franklin Roosevelt and also by President John Kennedy. The political purpose is to try to bring a sense of unity among the patriotic figures and factions in the hemisphere, to bring them together around a principle of common defense of the independence and freedom of the states of the hemisphere.

I would emphasize in particular, that if you look at the strategic situation within the Americas, Peru is crucial. The key countries of the Americas are currently Mexico, Brazil, and Peru. If the attempt to destroy Peru, launched in the name of this [Presidential candidate Alejandro] Toledo, had succeeded, the situation of Brazil and Mexico would have become almost impossible. And you know the situation of our friends in Colombia and in Central America, in Argentina, and so forth.

My view is to arouse the conscience of people in my own country, and in the Americas, to look at the facts of this case, the situation in Peru, and to recognize that we will not turn back from this point of defense of the issue posed, in the case of the recent Peru elections. And to emphasize that the question of political freedom inside the United States itself, as in Peru but also in all the South and Central American countries, depends upon our uniting in defense of this common principle.

Q: Coming back to the question of Stein and the mission which he led in Peru, I have a follow-up question. Can you say a bit more about his intentions in coming to Peru, and if you can be more specific about the activities here, and why he's trying to do damage to the Peruvian government?

LaRouche: I don't think he's that important. He's significant, but not important. He's like a dagger stuck in someone's back by a Venetian. His intentions are not important. The people who use him, their intentions are important.

It's obvious, this is a long story. It comes from the period when [former U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger was in power, when they proposed discussion of the Second War of the Pacific. Since that period, there has been a consistent attempt to destroy Peru, as a part of destroying all of the nations of the hemisphere. All Stein is, is a despicable little dagger which has been stuck into the back of Peru, with the attempt to assassinate Peru.

When you get the connection to the Inter-American Dialogue crowd, and you look at the Wall Street crowd, including [New York Stock Exchange President] Richard Grasso, who is behind this, and you look at the evil, old Venetian-style man [former U.S. State Department official] Luigi Einaudi, who is also behind this operation, and you detect the work of Einaudi against Peru before Stein even got out of diapers, then you understand the hand behind the dagger. It's not Einaudi, but the people for whom Einaudi has always worked.

This is an old war, which many of us have been involved in for a long time. This is really just that they've sent a new mercenary to attack Peru again. And Stein is nothing. His importance should be precisely identified, but not exaggerated. His significance is, that the evidence of who and what he is, and who owns him, points toward who is controlling the hand behind this latest choice of poisoned dagger. The fact that he seems to come from a family of assassins helps us to understand this.

Q: Can you be a little more specific when you say that Stein comes from a family of assassins?

LaRouche: Well, he's got a brother Ricardo, and a whole group of connections, which have been documented, which are well known. And, of course, my reaction on this is conditioned by my long experience in these matters.

I've been fighting for the freedom of the developing countries since I was involved in World War II in Asia. And I've learned from much experience, never to ignore the assassin who is sent to kill you, but when you're dealing with an assassin, don't worry too much about his motivations. That's clear; he's a mercenary. Look at the enemy who sent him. And when you see this photograph of Grasso embracing this chief drug pusher, this FARC leader in Colombia, and then you look at the relationship of this New York crowd and the Inter-American Dialogue to that embrace, that is the clearest indication of what we are up against.

Q: Finally, would you say that the hand which is behind Stein, is the same hand that is behind Toledo, who ran in the recent election?

LaRouche: Absolutely, absolutely. Toledo is nothing, he's obviously a nothing. Look at his background. He's a contemptible piece of dirt, but he has a history, of how he was developed and trained. He was trained by the same people who created this regime around Pinochet in Chile. He's a low agent, he's a mercenary with no morals, with no politics, with nothing. He's just another mercenary. He's not someone who comes from the political process of Peru, who represents something in Peru. He's a filibusterer. Like they used to send these fellows from the southern part of the United States, to these countries in the Caribbean, to run filibustering wars to take over and destroy countries. He may have a Peruvian background, but he's actually an enemy agent deployed against Peru. That may be difficult for some people to understand, but for an old fighter like me, who has been in these wars all these decades, I recognize that phenomenon immediately.

Q: These connections you're talking about, in terms of his training and the connection to Pinochet, could you elaborate?

LaRouche: Like Harberger. Arnold Harberger is the key man, who was formerly at the University of Chicago. You had this fellow Milton Friedman, who was also there at the time. Friedman is essentially a stupid ideologue, who has no intelligence, but he had around him in his so-called Chicago Boys, a real bunch of skillful, nasty assassins, of which Harberger--who was the immediate trainer of Toledo at the time--was the key man. Harberger was the man who orchestrated the Chile coup.

I don't want to interfere in the internal affairs of Chile when I'm talking about Peru, but I would think that if somebody in Chile wanted to put somebody on trial for what happened under Pinochet, they ought to put Harberger on trial, and maybe Toledo along with him.

Q: Within all of this, what connections might Eliane Karp, Toledo's former wife, have to all of these things?

LaRouche: Oh, who knows? It's probably a collateral part of the operation.

Generally, I find, in my experience, that these people are picked up in bunches. Sometimes they are discarded, sometimes they play different roles. I leave these kinds of matters to the biographers, who tell the history of the corpses of the mercenaries on the field of battle.

Q: I'm sorry to insist on this point, but you really get the impression from watching Toledo, that he's been programmed to insist, to demand, to provoke violence, and to keep pushing things forward in trying to destabilize Peru.

LaRouche: Well, yes, naturally. You've got to remember that this man is an agent. He's nothing but an agent. And if one thinks about how serious political people function, they function for principles, even wrong principles. That's the difficulty sometimes in dealing with a serious opponent, because they may be bad principles, and you've got to deal with their principles.

But when you get someone like Toledo, if he fails in his mission--as he has failed so far--the enemy, the people who use him, will dump him, they'll sacrifice him in all kinds of ways, whatever they consider politically convenient. Toledo is a man who is virtually one step away from becoming a corpse in a garbage dump. And the danger to his life does not come from Peru. It comes from the people who employed him, to whom he is now becoming an embarrassment. Maybe Madeleine Albright, who is that kind of a Romantic, who would do that kind of killing, would wish he would be assassinated. And knowing what I know of Toledo, I think he's trembling in his pants, and maybe doing something else as well.

Since the Peruvian elections have occurred, and since people within the OAS, and even within the United States, are making a delicate tactical adjustment in their form of attack on Peru, these people who employed Toledo may toss him as a corpse onto the trash heap. I guarantee you that this man is hysterical, desperate, paranoid, terribly frightened. And what he has to fear most, is people around Madeleine Albright. For the rest of us, I think we'd be happier if he would just go disappear peacefully someplace.

Q: Last question. What possible connection might there be between the businessman Baruch Ivcher and the role of the Zionist lobby?

LaRouche: The Zionist lobby is a tricky term to use, because there is the so-called Zionist faction which killed the former Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Rabin of Israel, and who are the enemies of Prime Minister Barak today. With that qualification, I would say that there is an element of the Zionist lobby--which would be that element, as opposed to patriotic Israelis such as Barak or Shimon Peres and others--these guys who are closely tied to drug runners politically, and who were an integral part of former Vice-President George Bush's Iran-Contra operation during the 1980s, and who are an integral part of George W. Bush's Presidential campaign today. They are a major problem for Peru, but they should be looked at exactly in those terms of reference.

Q: Thank you very much, Mr. LaRouche, for this opportunity to talk with you.

LaRouche: Thank you.