LaRouche Brings Water,
Power Proposals to Mexico
by Gretchen Small
U.S. statesman and Democratic party leader Lyndon LaRouche returned to Monterrey, Mexico on March 29, invited to address the 27th Symposium on International Economics: "Visionomics: Challenges and Proposals for Mexico," held on the campus of the Monterrey Technological Institute. LaRouche first addressed a forum at that prestigious institute in March 1981, when he laid out a perspective for the United States and Mexico to reach a long-term "oil-for-technology" accord as the only pathway to securing prosperity and peace on both sides of the border for decades to come.
Twenty-five years later, LaRouche's message to the audience of 150, mostly students at the institute, was in the same vein: It is in the interest of both countries to cooperate on developing the regions along both sides of their common border, in particular, with nuclear power at the center of that development.
LaRouche has become a near-legendary figure in Mexico, as the American leader who has not wavered in his defense of Mexico's sovereignty since he first denounced foreign financier plans to impose "genocide" on Mexico by "shut[ting] the border, and let(ting) them scream," in a U.S. 1976 national television broadcast. In his latest visit, LaRouche went after the current representatives of that same fascist outlook, naming, in particular, Wall Street banker and synarchist Felix Rohaytan, whose influence in the Democratic Party LaRouche vowed to obliterate.
LaRouche arrived as the debate over immigration nears a point of decision on both sides of the border, and three months before Mexico's Presidential elections on July 3. Not surprisingly, Monterrey's media bombarded LaRouche with questions about his view of the upcoming Mexican elections, and the prospects for their nation at this moment of transition to a new government.
On March 31, the daily Milenio de Monterrey featured an interview with LaRouche, "the leader and mentor of the International Youth Movement which bears his name," covering everything from his statement that the Nazi-like immigration bill now under consideration can and must be defeated, to his optimism that if we change U.S. policy, Mexicans will refind their historic national pride.
Another daily, El Norte, ran a brief note the same day on LaRouche's recommendation that the government invest in transportation infrastructure, water diversion, and nuclear energy. "If you can transport water from the south of Mexico to the north, and reactivate plans for nuclear plants for the production of energy, the northern region can once again be a productive area which would lessen the necessity to immigrate," LaRouche was quoted.
Threats and Solutions Lie Outside Mexico
LaRouche's message was delivered most broadly on March 29, when Architect Héctor Benavides, host of the most watched television news show in Monterrey, with a viewership which extends throughout northern Mexico and into Texas, broadcast an eight-minute segment of an interview with LaRouche on his evening news show (run pointedly right after coverage of the Cancun summit meeting between Presidents Vicente Fox and George Bush that same day). LaRouche delivered a bombshell warning that international finanacial disintegration may well hit even before the elections:
Benavides: From what you have observed, which of the three candidates from the major parties, [Felipe] Calderon, [Andrés Manuel] López Obrador, Roberto] Madrazo, has greater support from the United States' government?
LaRouche: Well, I think that they're looking at Madrazo as a very likely person, to get the maximum pressure on him. And if he doesn't do what they want, they'll get somebody else.
Benavides: The polls have indicated for two years, that López Obrador has a clear nine-point advantage, taking into account that each point is a half-million voters in Mexico. Are the polls wrong?
LaRouche: No, they are not wrong. That's in general what my reading is. He's been a very successful populist candidate, populist mayor. So, it was an attack on him, which worked to his advantage on the question of that road. So, all the things have gone to his advantage, in the ordinary sense. And if he becomes President, I wish him the best. But, I have deep ties to certain currents of the PRI; there's some people still alive who, I would consider friends. And I would trust them personally.
Benavides: What do they tell you?
LaRouche: I haven't talked to them about this question. I've kept my fingers out of the Presidential campaign in Mexico, and I'm looking at Mexico as a whole.
Benavides: A problem of ungovernability: Should the winner not be López Obrador on July 3rd—after two years of people hearing that he's the one on top—is there a risk of ungovernability?
LaRouche: Let me be very concrete: This is an international question, not a Mexico question. We're now at the point, we have gotten rid of Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan was in charge from 1987 until recently. Alan Greenspan was one of the worst things that ever happened to the United States—and to the world.
You have to realize that money is not worth anything, really. Because, what you have, you don't have deposits, assets in banks: You have financial derivatives. And these financial derivatives are in layers. You saw what happened in Iceland. Iceland is totally bankrupt. New Zealand is bankrupt. Australia is near-bankrupt. They're having a meeting in Australia now, of bankrupt countries: But it's not just them. Every leading bank in the United States is bankrupt. The housing bubble is about to blow—all kinds of things are about to blow.
We can have, in the period of the coming months, April, May, June, these three months, are potentially three months of an incalculable rate of financial collapse internationally.
So, therefore, when you're talking about an election coming up in Mexico, you have to realize that whatever the situation is now, you have to factor in the fact that we're facing a very great danger of an immediate collapse.
Presently, the leading bankers of the world have realized that this is the case. Therefore, they're not going to put any more expansion or any money into the system. They're going to allow the bubbles to collapse. They're going to shut down the carry-trade. Unless they change their mind in the coming months. But, right now, if they continue on the present policy, during the next three months, we're facing a general collapse of the financial system, with horrifying effects on the economies and on the condition of people in national economies.
In France, you have three million people going on strike; you have strikes in Germany; you have an ungovernable situation in Italy. Poland is breaking down. The Belarus election shows you that there's no popularity for this trend over there. Ukraine, they've lost. Netanyahu has lost the election in Israel: You're now in a global political crisis, building up, so that there is no stable condition on which to hold to hold an election. Because, you can proceed like a commanding general in warfare, to have a strategy, which takes all conditions into account, but you can't predict anything. No one can predict, because you have too many people who are now unpredictable in powerful positions.
Benavides: Will this panorama which you're painting for us become worse in Mexico? The majority of the banks in Mexico are no longer ours.
LaRouche: That's right! That's the worst of it....
Something to reflect on, Benavides concluded, announcing that the full interview will be broadcast on April 9.
