In this issue:

Neo-Cons Tighten Grip on Bush Ibero-American Policy with Reich Nomination

New Minister Says Brazil Must Master 'All Scientific Knowledge'

Castaneda Resigns From Fox Cabinet, to the Relief of Many

Fox Opens Discussions with Farmers on Hated NAFTA Decrees

Mexican Ag Minister Booed Off Stage by Peasant Federation

Senator Warns Farmers: Don't Accept Globalization

Caracas Demonstrations Erupt in Violence; Chavez Threatens Martial Law

U.S. Neo-Cons Run Network Within Military Opposition to Chavez

U.S. Neo-Cons Run Network Within Military Opposition to Chavez

Uruguay Commits to Deeper Austerity Under IMF Pressure

From Volume 2, Issue Number 2 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Jan. 13, 2003

IBERO-AMERICAN NEWS DIGEST

Neo-Cons Tighten Grip on Bush Ibero-American Policy with Reich Nomination

The White House announced Jan. 9 that Iran-Contra operative, Cuban-American neo-con, and former Bacardi Rum lobbyist Otto Reich, has been named President Bush's "special envoy for Western Hemisphere initiatives," reporting to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, a post that does not require Senate confirmation.

The President reportedly decided not to re-submit Reich's name for Senate confirmation as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs, where he served from 2001-02, after incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, made clear he would not welcome a Reich nomination. Lugar told an interviewer that he had encouraged Secretary of State Colin Powell to appoint a "big-leaguer" to handle Ibero-American affairs. (Reich was never approved by the Senate; the first year, he served as Acting Assistant Secretary, until Bush gave him a recess appointment.)

The White House also announced that it was nominating the current U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Roger Noriega, as Assistant Secretary of State. Noriega is no "big-leaguer." This long-time staffer for Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), while a Mexican-American, made his career by running with the right-wing Cuban-American crowd. The Washington correspondent of Brazil's O Globo calls the Noriega nomination a "new defeat" for Powell, who had been widely reported to favor the current U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson.

Reich is reported by the New York Times to be one of the "hardliners" who want to impose tougher terms against Cuba, continuing to declare it to be a "hostile" country. Reich's ally in this, reportedly, is John Bolton, who is now the chickenhawk Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, who comes from the neo-con think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Last year, Bolton made a brief but splashy attempt to start a "red scare" against Cuba, when he charged it was developing bio-weapons. Rival officials in the Bush Administration produced reports skeptical of Bolton's scare stories.

New Minister Says Brazil Must Master 'All Scientific Knowledge'

Brazil must master "all scientific knowledge," declared the new Science and Technology Minister Robert Amaral, including mastering "the technology of the atomic bomb." This would not be to build a bomb or weapons of mass destruction, he said, but to apply nuclear technology in all areas of scientific endeavor: medicine, combatting hunger, and energy, among them. Amaral's comments, published Jan. 6 in an interview with BBC, immediately provoked howls of protest from various anti-technology quarters, because of his emphatic statement that Brazil must master "all scientific knowledge ... of the genome, of DNA, and of nuclear fission."

Amaral elaborated: "There is a strategy when you have a project [to build a] Nation. There are long-term objectives, to which medium- and short-term ones are subordinate." The military must be equipped, and allowed to develop its own advanced technology, he emphasized. Amaral indicated his understanding of the concept of a "science-driver" for the economy, as well: "When you obtain the technology to build a [nuclear] submarine, this is not an isolated technology. You get progress in various fields, simultaneously: in mathematics, engineering, physics, and computer [technology]. So, the submarine has that strategic role." He also referenced the satellite technology Brazil is jointly developing with China.

Amaral told BBC that his Ministry would prioritize the areas of space and nuclear technology, and that "in the area of nuclear medicine, we hope to move forward also.... In the use of the atom for peace, we are advancing greatly. In the area of energy as well." Amaral said he thinks the new Lula da Silva government should restart construction of the now-stalled Angra 3 nuclear plant, on which a decision will be made next April. Nuclear energy "is strategic" for the country, he said. Brazil is a peaceful country, a defender of peace, but it must be prepared, including technologically...."

His remarks set off a wave of hysterical reactions among Brazilian and international media, as well as numerous environmentalists NGOs, some of whom threatened that such remarks set up Brazil to be treated like North Korea.

Castaneda Resigns From Fox Cabinet, to the Relief of Many

Mexico's Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda has offered his resignation, President Vicente Fox acknowledged Jan. 8. It is expected that Fox will accept the resignation, since Castaneda was the Cabinet Minister who generated the most opposition to the Fox government from across the political spectrum.

Before assuming the post of Secretary of Foreign Relations, Castaneda was an armchair leftist activist, who preferred to teach in U.S. universities. Once in office, he became a stalwart defender of globalization, and argued that Mexico had no options but to follow United States dictates in all matters. Castaneda, who is said to harbor Presidential ambitions, had let it be known for some time that he wanted out of his position, reportedly preferring the more politically useful post of Secretary of Government or Education, which Fox did not want to give him.

Statements of relief that Castaneda is leaving were issued by Senators from every Mexican party, including Fox's own PAN. The question now is, will Casteneda's annexationist policy be dumped along with him?

Fox Opens Discussions with Farmers on Hated NAFTA Decrees

Mexican President Vicente Fox personally opened the first round of discussions with farm leaders on Jan. 6, to hammer out a "National Accord for the Countryside" by the end of January. Fox acknowledged that 30% of Mexico's rural families "live or survive" on an income of less than one dollar a day, but he insisted NAFTA was the law, and, like his Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga Arroyo (see below), lectured the farmers that they should put aside their individual interests, and work to make agriculture "profitable and competitive," suggesting they produce crops where Mexico has a comparative advantage under NAFTA, and the like.

If the Fox government sticks to this policy, the country will blow up. The government won a 20-day reprieve at the end of December by agreeing to hold negotiations on the National Accord, but the situation has not calmed down. Protests were held Jan. 6 at seaports, airports, and two border points. Much of the action is being directed by groups dominated by left-populist/Zapatista tendencies, who named the series of actions they have planned from Jan. 5 to Feb. 5, "a great national insurgency." They promise to mobilize a half-million peasants throughout the country in fasts, marches, blockades, and "symbolic" closings of ports, custom houses, and borders through which food enters the country.

Mexican Ag Minister Booed Off Stage by Peasant Federation

Several hundred National Peasant Federation (CNS) delegates attending an international conference on "The Countryside: Our Struggle for Justice," staged a raucous protest Jan. 6 against Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga Arroyo, when he lectured them that the farm crisis was their own fault. Usabiaga said they needed to stop complaining, and learn to take care of their farm machinery, follow "modern" weather reports better, and develop "financial instruments" to secure better sales. His bodyguards were pushed around as they hustled him out of the hall, in the midst of chaos and demands for his resignation.

The CNC had called upon the Fox government to declare the agriculture-sector crisis to be "an emergency situation," and to take diplomatic initiatives to draw up an agricultural accord parallel with NAFTA with the U.S. and Canada. Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told the CNC conference on Jan. 4 that the Fox government had no intention of renegotiating the agriculture portion of NAFTA, a proposal he called "simplistic."

Senator Warns Farmers: Don't Accept Globalization

Senator Antonio Cafiero told the CNC conference (see above) that they must not make the same mistake that Argentina did by accepting globalization. Pointing out that today, globally, the wealthiest 358 people possess as much wealth as the poorest 1.5 billion, Cafiero (Peronist Party) issued "a dramatic call to the Mexican people and government," El Universal reported Jan. 5. He appealed to them: "Do not follow literally what the big multilateral mechanisms tell you. Distrust the advice of the techocrats and experts which control these bodies. Find your own path to development and autonomy."

Caracas Demonstrations Erupt in Violence; Chavez Threatens Martial Law

An opposition march of tens of thousands in Caracas on Jan. 3 against President Hugo Chavez ended in a melee, when more than a thousand Chavez supporters—many hooded—gathered at a bridge to block the march, by setting fire to the bushes along the hillside, and throwing rocks and fireworks at demonstrators and the police and National Guard, who were attempting to keep the two groups apart. As in previous demonstrations, unknown persons shot into the crowd, killing at least two people and wounding five others. Another 70-plus were injured by rocks, rubber bullets, and tear gas.

President Chavez responded that he was prepared to impose martial law, if "forced" to do so. Speaking at the Venezuelan embassy in Brasilia at the end of his trip to Brazil Jan. 2, Chavez threatened "violent revolution." Raving that the opposition is led by fascists who "make Adolf Hitler look like a small-timer," he reiterated that "early elections [are] impossible.... Those who close the path to peaceful revolution, open it to violent revolution. This is what is at stake in Latin America," he said. "I am the same revolutionary Chavez" as the one who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, he said, "with necktie, but with the same conception of the goals to be achieved.... I would not want a return to the path of violence."

When it became known that the two killed were Chavez supporters, the regime charged that the Metropolitan Police (PM) were responsible for their deaths (although the fatal bullet wounds were of a different caliber than weapons used by the police), using the murders to advance Chavez's project to eliminate the 11,000-member force. The PM answers to the Mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Pena, an opposition leader—not an insignificant factor in the battle to control the streets of the capital.

The Chavez regime's move to have loyal Army and National Guard units take over the Caracas police in mid-December, was stymied when the Supreme Court ruled the decision illegal, and ordered the Army and National Guard to withdraw from the PM's communications center by Jan. 3, and from all installations by Jan. 9. The regime has no intention of complying, and the commander of the National Guard in Caracas, Chavista Gen. Garcia Carneiro, on Jan. 6 ordered all PM motorized units grounded. If the police wish to patrol, they can do it on foot, he said.

Nor is the opposition yielding. The teachers' unions voted Jan. 4 that they will join the strike, and bank workers voted to close the banks—already operating only three hours a day—entirely on Jan. 9 and 10.

U.S. Neo-Cons Run Network Within Military Opposition to Chavez

The group of military officers who have come out publicly against Hugo Chavez, operating out of the plaza in Altamira, Caracas, are a mixed bag of decent fools and fundamentalist nuts, but the website maintained in their name, www.MilitaresDemocraticos.com, reveals a nasty operation by the U.S. chickenhawk crowd who would hook up their chaos operations in Ibero-America to the war against civilization in Iraq.

The English-language section of the slick website raves about the dangers of a joint Saddam Hussein-Fidel Castro-Hugo Chavez bioweapons plan to destroy the United States (did you know that Saddam Hussein introduced West Nile virus into the U.S.? And that you won't find a bioweapons lab in Cuba anymore because it was flown for protection to Venezuela?), and how Hugo Chavez sent a million dollars to the al-Qaeda through the Taliban regime after Sept. 11, 2001. These "revelations," crudely tailored to get the Bush Adminstration to bring down the Castro and Chavez regimes, are coming from a "defector" now seeking asylum in the U.S., with the profile of a classic intelligence operation: the Air Force major who served as Chavez's personal pilot, until he saw the light, joined the opposition, and fled Venezuela in the hull of a fishing boat last December, to be able to give dramatic press conferences in Miami, Florida.

Peruvian Supreme Court Opens Door to New Trials for Top Narcoterrorists

The Supreme Court of Peru has overturned the laws under which Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA terrorists were tried, thereby opening the door to new trials, and potentially, freedom for top narcoterrorists. The Court issued a 60-page ruling Jan. 4, in response to a petition from 5,000 people (mostly family members of the terrorist prisoners), contesting four emergency decrees issued by former President Alberto Fujimori in 1992, which permitted captured terrorists to be tried, convicted, and jailed in military courts. Until those emergency decrees were issued, captured terrorists had been freed en masse by judges terrorized by death threats regularly fulfilled by the terrorists.

The full ruling has not been released yet, but Court President Javier Alva Orlandini announced that the court threw out the decree that allowed suspects to be tried for treason, the which he denounced as "state terrorism." Clauses and articles of the other decrees were also thrown out, and the court declared life sentences unconstitutional. Instead of eliminating the latter, however, the court ordered Congress to pass a law automatically revising sentences after 30 years served.

The effects of this decision made by a Supreme Court formed under the State Department/Project Democracy/George Soros coup which overthrew Fujimori and installed President Alejandro Toledo, will be momentous. Retrials are now expected for those who led the 12-year genocidal terrorist war against Peru, because they were convicted under the treason decree.

The Toledo government continues to purge and drastically shrink the nation's Armed Forces. More than 400 officers were cashiered in December, and more purges are expected.

Meanwhile, color posters of a smiling Alberto Fujimori began appearing around Lima at the end of December, accompanied by the phrase: "He Does Know How To Govern."

Uruguay Commits to Deeper Austerity Under IMF Pressure

Uruguay has committed itself to deeper austerity, to "strictly comply" with debt payments, following the withholding by the IMF of two loan disbursements late last year. The Fund charged that the country wasn't complying with IMF conditionalities regarding failed banks. On Dec. 27, Uruguay's Congress approved a plan to merge three insolvent banks under a new financial institution, which will supposedly "streamline" those banks' operations, and meet IMF criteria. The Batlle government's hope is that this will convince the Fund to release the withheld disbursements, which it desperately needs.

On Dec. 28, Finance Minister Alejandro Atchugarry promised the government will "strictly comply" with its foreign debt obligations in 2003, which amount to $1.6 billion. But to do so, it will have to obtain Congressional approval of "reforms" the IMF demands, which include politically unpopular measures to downsize the government and raise taxes. Unemployment is at the unprecedented rate of 19%, while inflation for 2002 hit 26%.

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