Ibero-American News Digest
AEI Threatens Disintegration of Bolivia
Mark Falcoff, the Ibero-American "scholar" at the Cheneyac American Enterprise (AEI), is on a campaign to foment the division of Bolivia along racial and geographical "fault-lines." Falcoff has dedicated two issues of AEI's "Latin American Outlook" (December 2003 and June 2004) to this campaign, the which generated a recent wave of interviews with Chilean and Peruvian newspapers in which he pushed the same line.
Bolivia is committing "suicide," by denying natural gas to Chile, and "threatening to overturn long-standing contracts with international energy companies," Falcoff wrote in his June Outlook. "If current trends continue, we may witness the first major alteration of the South American political map in more than a hundred years." He forecasts a decision by the gas-producing "lowland" provinces (led by Santa Cruz and Tarija) "to form a country of their own ... leaving La Paz and the highlands to drugs and politics, the two thingsperhaps the only two thingsthey know how to do really well."
Bolivia's sin, is to have ousted Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, the private mining baron associated with Rio Tinto mining cartel, as President in October 2003, and with him, the lucrative "deal" negotiated with a consortium of foreign power companies (including British Petroleum and the Spain's Repsol) to ship Bolivia's gas to the U.S. and Mexico, via Chilean ports. According to Falcoff, a few days after his ouster, Sanchez de Lozada was in Washington forecasting that his ouster could lead to "the partition of Bolivia into two separate countries," one with "a legitimate product to sell to the world market, the other, highland Bolivia, which would refashion itself as the 'Republica de Narcotrafico,' in fact if not in name."
Falcoff assured Peru's La Republica June 9, that "the Republic of Santa Cruz...would have absolutely normal relations with Chile."
The AEI hitman "offered,"w however, that if Bolivia changed its Constitution to establish "the decentralization of authority and resources"i.e., if it handed control of gas over to provinces more easily controlled by foreign vulturesthen, maybe, Bolivia could remain a single nation.
Carter, Cisneros, Chavez Monkey Around with Venezuela's Future
On June 18 in Caracas, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter hosted a more than two-hour meeting between the Rockefeller family's favorite Venezuelan billionaire, Gustavo Cisneros, and the resident nutcase serving as Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez. According to the Carter Center, the two agreed "to honor the constitutional process," in the Aug. 15 recall referendum on the President, and its aftermath, and to hold a dialogue on how the Venezuelan media can ensure the right climate for the vote. (Cisneros owns Venevision, the leading opposition television channel in the country.) Both Cisneros and Chavez issued statements denying that they had reached any secret pacts.
The meeting between these two supposed mortal enemies, exemplifies the stinking fraud of Venezuelan politics, which continues to be run as a backroom game by the families of the elite, with no concern for the nation or its people. It is this fraud which Lyndon LaRouche has repeatedly identified as key to how Venezuela has become the leading flashpoint for left-right Synarchist warfare in Ibero-America. It was Cisneros, linked to known international drug money-laundering interests, as EIR identified in Dope, Inc., who helped put Jacobin madman Chavez in power in 1998, and it is he who leads and finances the opposition to Chavez today, with an eye to installing himself as President out of the chaos.
Now, the monkey experts are being called in. Cisneros reports that Carter proposed to bring in Harvard Negotiations Project heavyweight William Ury to run a "dialogue" between the government and the opposition media. Ury, an anthropologist who comes out of "Nuclear Negotiation Project" of mad utopian Leo Szilard, specializes in "war prevention," even as he wonders if there is an answer to "the one fundamental question: 'Are human beings capable of getting along?' " Ury is proud of having studied "our primate relatives," in order to "discover whether and how it is possible for humans to live together peacefully without artificial restraints."
(See also "Screwball Internet Slander of LaRouche Launched in Venezuela," in Latest from LaRouche.)
Paraguayans Take Desperate Measures To Protest Economic Policy
Last week, transportation workers nailed their hands to pieces of wood, to demand jobs. This week, trade unionists, doctors, and other employees of the hospital run by the Social Security Institute, are doing the same, to protest the deplorable state of the hospital, which lacks medicine and supplies, and to demand the firing of the Institute's director. One worker at the Institute said, "I am sacrificing myself today because the government must listen," to what the workers are saying. Institute and hospital workers say they will continue to resort to this method of protest, until their demands are met.
Argentine President Visits China with Large Delegation
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner left for China June 24, with a large delegation of businessmen, legislators, and state governors, to discuss strengthening economic and political ties between the two countries. There is a great deal of optimism about the trip, which Cabinet Chief of Staff Alberto Fernandez has described as "a unique opportunity" for Argentina. The trip follows on the heels of Brazilian President Lula da Silva's recent visit to China, and occurs at the same time that Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa is in Russia, discussing a number of bilateral trade and cooperation arrangements with the Putin government (see below).
Argentina's Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Redrado explained that Kirchner seeks to establish a "permanent strategic" relationship with China, and a "partnership for growth." Argentina can provide China with food, of which it produces a great deal, he said, as well as agricultural technology and manufactured goods. Argentina's Ambassador to China, Juan Carlos Morelli, reports that there is "enormous anticipation" in China about the Argentine trip, and about the diversity of the business delegation accompanying Kirchner. "The idea is to establish permanent interests in this country," he said.
Russian-Argentine Business Council Meets in Moscow
Russian and Argentina discussed a number of strategic and economic projects during the second meeting of the Russian-Argentine Business Council, which met in Moscow on June 23. In statements to reporters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underscored that the two nations together could "carry out a series of joint projects in the areas of space, oil and gas exploitation, the energy industry, and hydraulic technology." The Putin government is optimistic about collaboration on such projects, and strengthening economic and trade ties as well, Lavrov said.
Lavrov met with Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa on June 25, to "analyze the international political situation, exchange information, and issue a joint communique" on the results of meetings held, and on the status of bilateral relations. Lavrov emphasized in his remarks that the two countries are developing "an active dialogue on world and regional problems."
Synarchist Think Tanks Demand End of Nation-State
The synarchist Cato Institute joined with Argentina's Mont Pelerinite FIEL (Foundation for Latin American Economic Research) Foundation, in a June 16 seminar, to demand the nation-state be eliminated. The seminar was ostensibly organized to present a book written by economists from both institutions, entitled International Financial Crises and the Role of Governments. But it occurred just two weeks after President Nestor Kirchner had accused officials of FIEL of involvement in destabilizing his government, including predicting that he wouldn't last out his term in office.
According to Clarin June 17, not much was said about the current situation during the seminar, whose featured speakers included FIEL's Ricardo Lopez Murphy, a former Presidential candidate and University of Chicago madman, and Cato's Director, James A. Dorn. The book itself demands that the free market be given a "central" role in all nations, and that "state intervention" be limited. Dorn ranted that Argentina hadn't followed through on tax and revenue-sharing reforms that it had promised the IMF, and therefore faced a difficult future. Daniel Artana, who briefly served as Lopez Murphy's Deputy Finance Minister in March 2001, charged that Argentina's economic crisis exploded in 2001, because it is still a "closed economy."
Wall Street Succeeds in Holding Down Brazil Wage Increase
The Brazilian Senate delivered the Lula government a major defeat in its efforts to satisfy the creditors on June 17, when it voted, by 44 to 31, to increase the increase in the minimum wage by almost double what the government proposed, despite personal lobbying by President Lula da Silva.
The minimum wage was 240 realsequal to a bit over US$70 a month. A third of the country's workers and state pensioners receive the minimum wage, and raising it has been a major plank of Lula's Workers Party (PT) since its founding. The government insists, however, that it could only be raised to R$260 (US$83), barely equal to inflation, because anything more would blow out fiscal austerity. When put to a vote in the Senate, however, the Senate rebelled, and voted to raise it to R$275 a month, with 12 Senators from the government's coalition parties breaking ranks to vote for the higher wage.
The Financial Times and BusinessWeek had warned in advance that the financiers considered this a "make it or break it" vote for the government, and they were furious at this "humiliating defeat" to the government. "If Lula can only muster 31 of his 45 nominal allies in the Senate to vote for his minimum wage proposal, how can he hope to secure approval of the much more controversial and all-important labor reform?" moaned one Wall Street banker, who sent out an e-mail recommending investors hold fewer Brazilian bonds now.
The government, however, managed to reverse the defeat on June 23, when it got the Chamber of Deputies to vote down the higher minimum wage, thus shoring up (momentarily) the government's Wall Street policies. Reportedly, a lot of money was freed up for the favorite projects of those deputies who voted for the government, and promises made for posts of greater power within the Congress. The minimum wage will only be increased to R$ 260.
Lula's Popularity Plummets Over Austerity Policy
According to the survey just released by the Census Institute, at the request of the National Transportation Confederation (CNT), Brazilian President Lula da Silva's popularity dropped to 29.4% in June from 35% in May. In a June 21 press conference announcing the survey's results, CNT president Clesio Andrade, who is also Deputy Governor of Minas Gerais and a member of the Liberal Party, which has harshly attacked the government's economic policy, warned that people see "apathy in the government, and are losing hope in President Lula." Lula has failed to keep his promises, Andrade added.
Discontent with Lula was on display June 22, when the President attended the wake of the popular 82-year-old Leonel Brizola, a prominent and outspoken figure in Brazilian politics for decades, who died of heart failure on June 21. When Lula arrived at the funeral, he was greeted with shouts of "PT traitor" by members of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), founded by Brizola. Brizola had run as Lula's Vice Presidential candidate in the 1998 elections, and got his start in politics in 1945, influenced by nationalist President Getulio Vargas.
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