Ibero-American News Digest
LaRouche Interviewed on Dominican TV on Birthday
American statesman and Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed for an hour on his birthday, by Dominican Republic television. He appeared on Julio Hazim's "Revista 110," the nation's most important political commentary/news show program, which aired on both broadcast and cable television, and on the "Voice of the Tropics" radio station. The interest in the show was seen in the decision of the cable network to rebroadcast the interview that same night.
The interview, conducted by Dr. Cristino Del Castillo, was filmed during the annual Labor Day weekend annual conference of the ICLC-Schiller Institute in Northern Virginia.
Dr. Hazim built the audience for the interview on his Sept. 6 program, inviting his viewers to tune in on Sunday to see "the controversial U.S. economist, Lyndon LaRouche, who has been right in all his forecasts. Although we don't belong to his movement, I believe that it is necessary to see him and listen to him carefully."
There are plans for the interview to be broadcast also in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Hudson Institute Out To Add Brazil to 'Axis of Evil'
Constantine Menges, a neo-conservative lunatic Senior Fellow at the Washington office of the Hudson Institute, has been demanding since at least July that the Bush Administration take action to stop a potential victory by Workers' Party candidate Ignacio "Lula" da Silva in Brazil's October Presidential elections. While a Lula victory would be a threat to hemispheric security, Menges's campaign is so deranged that it plays right into Lula's hands, and discredits intelligent opposition to Lula.
Menges headlined his Aug. 7 article in the Washington Times "Blocking a New Axis of Evil." He argued that Lula and his party founded the Sao Paulo Forum, a continental grouping of terrorists and leftists (that part is certainly true), and says Lula is close to Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (also true). But from there, it's off the charts: "A Castro-Chavez-da Silva axis would mean linking 43 years of Fidel Castro's political warfare against the United States with the oil wealth of Venezuela and the nuclear weapons/ballistic missile and economic potential of Brazil," he wrote.
In his piece in the neo-con Weekly Standard in July, "A Strategic Warning: Brazil," Menges raved that were Lula to be elected, anti-American communist regimes would be established in the Andean region, and "if these regimes recruited only one-tenth of one percent of the 30 million military-aged males for terrorist attacks on the U.S., this could mean 30,000 terrorists coming from the South"!
Menges's real target is not Lula, but Brazil itself and particularly its military, its nuclear program, and the cooperation between the Brazilian and Chinese aerospace industries.
Brazil "could soon become one of the world's nuclear armed powers," Menges warned in the Washington Times article. "Between 1965 and 1994, the military actively worked to develop nuclear weapons; it successfully designed two atomic bombs, and was reportedly on the verge of testing a nuclear device," when the program was purportedly shut down. A U.S. Congressional investigation found that "the military had sold 8 tons of uranium to Iraq in 1981. It is also reported that after Brazil's successful ballistic missile program was ended, the General and 24 of the scientists working on it went to work for Iraq. There are reports that with financing from Iraq, a nuclear weapons capability has been covertly maintained."
China, he went on, has been "actively courting the Brazilian military. China has sold Brazil enriched uranium and has invested in the Brazilian aerospace industry, resulting in a joint imagery/reconnaissance satellite."
The Hudson Institute neo-cons are not the only ones demanding action to rein in Brazil's independent relations with China and Russia. Andres Oppenheimer, the Inter-American Dialogue/State Department mouthpiece at the Miami Herald, used his Aug. 26 column to complain that neither the Brazilian government nor opposition candidates are strongly favorable to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), but "their faces light up when they speak of strengthening ties with their neighbors in South America, and especially the 'emerging powers' of the world." Candidates Ciro Gomes and "Lula" da Silva are pushing this idea, but as Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer told Oppenheimer, this is not some new idea for the future; the incumbent Cardoso government has developed solid relations with China, Russia, and India.
Chinese Foreign Trade Ministry Establishes Office in Sao Paulo
The Chinese Foreign Trade Ministry has just opened an office in the Brazilian City of Sao Paulo, to expand trade and productive investment between the two countries. This is certainly not what the Anglo-American financial oligarchy wants to see developing. The office, which will operate under the name of the "China-Brazil Union," will be staffed with representatives from China's 31 provinces, and highly trained personnel to meet the needs of Brazilian businessmen who want to increase trade with, invest in, or form joint ventures with Chinese companies, among other things. Trade between Brazil and China has undergone significant growth within the past few years. Sun Qiangzhi, director of the new office, told Monitor Mercantil's Sept. 9 issue that "for trade and productive investments, the priority of the People's Republic of China is Latin America, and within that, our priority is Brazil."
One example of expanded cooperation is the agreement between Brazil's aircraft company, Embraer, the world's fourth-largest aircraft producer, and the China Aviation Industry Corp. II, by which Embraer will produce 30 planes (50-seaters) in the northeastern city of Harbin, with guaranteed sales in the booming Chinese aviation market. There is vast demand in China for 30- to 70-seat planes, used by regional airlines. According to Embraer's own estimates, China will account for half the 500 regional jetliner sales in Asia over the next decade. China is eager to have Embraer's technology to improve its own aircraft production capabilities.
Brazil Ppoposes New Strategic Policy for South America, Based on Military Integration with Argentina
According to an article in the Sept. 4 issue of the Argentine daily Clarin, the Brazilian government and Armed Forces, concerned about the possible introduction of U.S. troops into the Amazon region under the pretext of the anti-drug battle in Colombia, are drafting a new defense policy, premised on the "total" integration of Brazil and Argentina in matters of defense. This, in the Brazilian view, would guarantee regional stability, and thus keep out troops foreign to the region.
The concept was debated at a two-day seminar on the "New Defense Policy," held in the third week in August, and chaired by Congressman Aldo Rebelo, president of the Defense Committee of the House of Representatives. Representatives of the Foreign Ministry, Congressmen, the commanders of the three branches of the Armed Forces, the Defense Minister, and many active and retired military officers participated. Rebelo next visited Buenos Aires on Aug. 30, to lobby for the initiative with his Argentine counterparts.
The president of the Military Club, former Amazon Army commander Gen. Luiz Gonzaga Lessa, in his address to the seminar, warned that foreign interests are eyeing Brazil's rich Amazon, and could use anything to justify interventions, perhaps even without OAS or UN cover. The purpose of integration would be to provide greater protection to national territory, "at the expense of international actions of intervention," Lessa emphasized.
Defense Minister Geraldo Quintao, in his speech, argued that the U.S. advisers involved in Colombia are not so much the problem. What is feared is the deployment of massive numbers of U.S. troops, stationed for a long time in regions near Brazil's borders. Brazil must act decisively on military integration with Argentina, taking "advantage of the fact that there is no possibility of armed conflict [between South American countries], and assume a more forceful posture" conveying Brazil's intentions to create a "South American agreement" on defense. This would "raise our ability to dissuade interventions by other countries or extra-regional blocks." Any integrated force would not intervene into other countries, Quintao added: "Brazil defends the self-determination of peoples in internal conflicts."
The text of the "New Policy" is still being revised by the Armed Forces, according to Clarin's report, and it will fall to the next government to approve it. Congressman Rebelo, however, assured the Argentines that two opposition candidates, Lula da Silva and Ciro Gomes, have already given their "unqualified" support for the project. "There is total cohesion among diplomats, parliamentarians, military and social forces. This is not only an interest of a party. It is a policy of state, with continuity and permanence." Rebelo was emphatic: "It would be a tragedy to have U.S. troops permanently in South America."
South Americans Skeptical of U.S. Assurances It Won't Send Troops to Colombia
Despite assurances from Bush Administration officials that they are not planning to send troops into Colombia, South American officials evidently do not view those assertions as credible. According to Gazeta Mercantil of Aug. 23, Ecuadoran President Gustavo Noboa reiterated Aug. 22 that his government is against joining "a supposed multinational force to combat the subversive army in Colombia," without identifying who was proposing such a force. The same day, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer reiterated that Brazil's policy is that the Colombian conflict must be resolved internally. Similar statements by various Brazilian officials were issued yet again after the visit of State Department Policy Planning chief Richard Haas one week later.
Will September Be a Hot Month in Venezuela?
A joint OAS-Carter Center-UN development program team arrived in Venezuela Sept. 9, with a mission of getting underway negotiations between the Chavez government and the opposition, during their five-day visit. The team was invited in by Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. Some of the opposition agreed to meet with them also, but whether they can get anything off the ground, remains to be seen.
Both the opposition and President Hugo Chavez have warned that September is shaping up as a "hot" month. Although no date has yet been set, the opposition is preparing to call another national strike against the government, as soon as it estimates it has the force needed.
Chavez has threatened to expropriate businesses which strike this time. Speaking Sept. 7 before 1,500 workers pulled in to found a new, government-run central labor federation (to replace the Venezuelan Federation of Workers, or CTV), Chavez announced that the had ordered the Ministry of Labor to draw up a decree authorizing workers to seize any company which participated in any strike against his government. A "popular offensive" is needed, Chavez told the crowd. "You cannot permit the counter-revolution to take control of the streets." If the "oligarchy" is thinking of running another April 11 (when Chavez was overthrown), we warn them there will be "another April 13" when he was returned to power, with the aid of the fascist Bolivarian Circles. "Millions will come out to defend the revolution."
Chavez stopped in Havana to meet with Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Sept. 6, on his way back from the UN summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, frozen since April 11, would resume Sept. 8, Chavez announced upon his return.
Argentine Leaders Outraged at New York Times Piece Promoting Patagonian Secession
Argentine political leaders, businessmen, and educators were outraged at the Aug. 27 New York Times article which promoted the secession of Patagonia from Argentina. The secession of oil- and mineral-rich Patagonia is precisely what the Anglo-Americans have in mind, and the lengthy Times article by Larry Rohter concluded that the country's profound economic crisis made this outcome inevitable.
Patagonians say otherwise. Professor Gerardo De Jong, who was interviewed by Rohter, told Prensa Sindical Internacional (PSI) that the article reflects "the intentions of the U.S. State Department" to seize Patagonia's natural resources. "What I told the American reporter is that local [thinking] shouldn't be interpreted as a tendency. If he insisted in presenting it that way ... this is something that reflects some intentionality, and [we must] analyze where it comes from." De Jong called on Argentine media to be alert to attempts to promote secession. This is something being pushed "strongly from abroad, and there are, even locally, some officials working in this direction," he said.
Angry regional legislators issued a joint statement denouncing the article, for debate at the Sept. 2 meeting of the Patagonian Parliament. They charged that the article reflects the interests of the U.S. and European Union, which promote globalization and look covetously at Patagonia's natural resources. Deputy Julio Accavallo of Rio Negro warned that "the proposal is dangerous, because it's known that Patagonia is very appetizing to foreign interests. We can't read this ingenuously." Senator Luz Sapag of Neuquen added that the Times piece reflects "interests created by the United States to put the issue on the table." De Jong told PSI that despite Argentina's terrible crisis, "We shall reverse the mechanisms by which the country has reached this state [of affairs].... It would be a barbarity, a perversity, that anyone should think of [Patagonian] independence."
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