In this issue:

Argentine President's Visit to China Highly Successful

Nuclear Energy on Argentine-China Agenda

Kroll Joins Chorus of Synarchist Attacks on Argentina

Argentina: Conditions Might Make Debt Unpayable

Colombia Opens Dialogue with Narcoterrorists

Nazi Narcoterrorists Strike Again in Ayacucho, Peru

Bolivia Faces Terror Upsurge on Referendum Day

From Volume 3, Issue Number 28 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published July 13, 2004

Ibero-American News Digest

Argentine President's Visit to China Highly Successful

Argentine President Nestor Kirchner paid a state visit to China June 28 to July 2, categorizing its success as a "12" on "a scale of one to 10." With a delegation that included cabinet ministers, legislators, nine provincial governors, and 250 businessmen, the trip involved more than 700 meetings over the five-day period, between representatives of the different sectors on both sides. Kirchner characterized the visit as "the most important trade mission" in Argentina's history. He used the opportunity of the trip to take a public swipe at the International Monetary Fund.

Plans have already been announced for Chinese President Hu Jintao to visit Argentina in November. The Chinese President also indicated that his government hoped to expand trade with the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), working through Argentina.

Numerous agreements were signed relating to many different areas of the economy. In their personal meeting June 28 in Shanghai, Kirchner and Jintao agreed to set up a working group at the Deputy Finance and Trade Ministerial level to discuss projects of mutual interest. They also discussed the creation of binational companies. In subsequent meetings throughout the week, particularly among businessmen, a variety of other agreements were signed, defining specific export-import, infrastructure, and investment projects.

Nuclear Energy on Argentine-China Agenda

During President Kirchner's state visit to China June 28-July 2, it is noteworthy that the Argentine delegation included representatives of the respected technology company Invap, which is deeply involved in the nuclear industry—inside Argentina and internationally—and the ENSI company, producer of heavy water. Both of these companies are owned by provincial governments: Invap by Rio Negro, and ENSI by Neuquen. Also of interest, was the report by Planning Minister Julio de Vido, who said there is great interest in forming a "strategic alliance" between Chinese mining and oil companies, and Argentina's newly created state energy company, Enarsa, "to take action in those unexplored areas in Argentina's south."

Kroll Joins Chorus of Synarchist Attacks on Argentina

Kroll Associates, long an instrument of British imperialism, joined the chorus of synarchist attacks on Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, using the pretext of the Jacobin violence unleashed in recent weeks by the "piquetero" hordes of unemployed. During a June 1 seminar sponsored by the Inter-American Bar Association in Madrid, Kroll vice president Frank Holder charged that the Kirchner government is "financing" the piqueteros, creating an unwelcome environment for foreign investors. Holder echoed the arguments put forth by former Presidential candidate Ricardo Lopez Murphy, who has repeatedly attacked Kirchner for failing to deal with the violence, making Argentina very "vulnerable" to chaos. From Chile, Argentina's pipsqueak former President Carlos Menem warned June 30 that the state of Argentina borders on "anarchy" and "disintegration."

The chaos is precisely what the synarchists want, so they can get rid of Kirchner.

It should be said that the piqueteros, many of whose leaders receive World Bank-financed subsidies for the unemployed, are not a minor problem. They are becoming increasingly violent and have targetted Buenos Aires, the capital. To the degree that Argentina remains in an economically precarious state, and Lyndon LaRouche's policies are not implemented, the situation does become ripe for chaos. There are people inside the Kirchner government who are part of this scenario. Notably, one of the speakers at the Madrid seminar was Juan Carlos Blumberg, whose son was kidnapped and killed a few months ago in Buenos Aires. He has become a tool of the "anti-corruption" forces inside the government, typified by Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz, who coordinates closely with Transparency International to "reform"—dismantle—such institutions as the police force, which he claims are responsible for the high rate of crime, kidnappings, etc.

Argentina: Conditions Might Make Debt Unpayable

An "external shock" could affect Argentina's ability to pay its debt, the Kirchner government warned in a "shelf registration statement" presented July 2 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), required as part of the process of restructuring $99 billion in defaulted debt. The document adds that given high levels of poverty and unemployment, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund. Such austerity measures "may not be successful, and, moreover, may be unpopular, and generate social and political unrest," the document states, according to the July 5 edition of the daily Infobae.

EIW has not yet reviewed the full document, but judging from excerpts published in the Argentine media, plus hysteria from financial predators, London and Wall Street are alarmed. The statement indicates that, given political opposition in the Congress to austerity—which the government states somewhat coyly it is trying to implement—"the government might not be able to meet obligations made to creditors, including those who agreed to restructure the debt, by participating in the offer, were there to be a significant political opposition to these obligations." In addition, "there is no guarantee that the government's decision to complete the offer will definitively resolve Argentina's existing default, or that the government can make the payments on the new bonds until they reach maturity" (emphasis added).

As for potential "external shocks" referenced, the document warns that any new crisis in an emerging market could seriously affect Argentina's ability to pay debt, pointing to what happened in previous crises, such as Mexico in 1994, Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998, and Brazil in 1999. It emphasizes that Brazil is again a potential crisis spot, noting that any drop in that country's Gross Domestic Product would have disastrous consequences for Argentina, as Brazil is its most important export market. It also warns that there are a number of other factors, such as international interest rates, over which the government has no control, and which could affect it negatively.

Colombia Opens Dialogue with Narcoterrorists

In what is being viewed with widespread skepticism both inside and outside Colombia, the Alvaro Uribe government has begun negotiations with 10 leaders/negotiators of the so-called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), otherwise known as the "paramilitaries." Ostensibly formed to counter the threat of the FARC/ELN narcoterrorists of the "left," the AUC is in fact an umbrella for a variety of drug-trafficking, kidnapping, and other criminal elements, and the majority of its leaders are wanted for extradition to the U.S. on trafficking charges.

In an eerie repeat of what former President Andres Pastrana did with the FARC back in the 1990s, to try to kickstart a doomed "peace process," Uribe has set aside 142 square miles of land for the AUC in the northern state of Cordoba (long a paramilitary stronghold), where neither arrest nor extradition warrants may be served against the armed AUC leaders, and where 400 "paras" have agreed to be confined for the duration of the negotiations with the government. Although the Colombian military is supposedly deployed to contain the AUC within the defined area, the military has never had any support in this region of the country, and its patrols are not expected to be anything more than symbolic.

The Uribe government's willingness to begin the negotiations was based on the AUC's agreeing to a ceasefire, but in fact, there are few who believe the ceasefire will take hold, and the AUC negotiators have already demanded that the terms of the ceasefire be redefined as a condition of the talks. A major sticking point of the talks is expected to be whether the known criminals among the AUC leadership will do jail time—in Colombia or in the U.S.—or whether they will get a blanket amnesty. Colombian law currently requires demobilized fighters found guilty of human rights violations to serve a minimum five-year sentence. Kofi Annan of the UN has already said that there must be no de facto immunity granted the paras, and that their disarmament must be the primary objective of the talks.

While there were many local and national leaders attending the opening of the talks, U.S. and European ambassadors, and the majority of South American ambassadors to Colombia as well, chose not to attend, as an expression of their "reservations" about this latest phase of Colombia's fatally flawed "peace process." Until the IMF-dictated economic conditions that underlie Colombia's dynamic of violence and instability are addressed, no amount of negotiations, concessions, and threats will bring this country any closer to real peace.

Nazi Narcoterrorists Strike Again in Ayacucho, Peru

Thousands of "protesters" overran the Peruvian city of Ayacucho, the former birthplace of the narcoterrorist Shining Path, on July 1, after protests stemming from a nationwide teachers strike turned into a violent rampage. City government buildings were wrecked and burned, including the municipal justice palace, the mayor's residence, hotels owned by the mayor, etc. Demonstrators prevented fire fighters from controlling the fires; ATM machines were broken into and looted; an estimated 40 people were injured, and 15 arrested. The state stopped short of declaring a state of emergency, instead sending in several hundred additional police to try to control the crisis.

All departmental records on drug-trafficking and terrorism were destroyed in the fire.

A tense calm reportedly exists at the moment. While the teachers' union blames the police for provoking the violence, the Interior Ministry blames the infiltration of Shining Path terrorists into the situation. This news service's Lima bureau, however, warns that the attack in Ayacucho demonstrates how far the operation to build a "narco-Synarchist" movement in the country has already advanced. In our last issue, EIW published, in its In-Depth section, a groundbreaking exposé of how the so-called Humala "ethno-nationalist" movement, which is uniting cocaleros, Shining Path terrorists, and poor Army reservists, is financed and supported by both Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela, and old Nazi and Franco-ite oligarchic networks.

Bolivia Faces Terror Upsurge on Referendum Day

After eight hours of debate, the Bolivian Congress voted July 6 to approve a referendum on the Mesa government's proposed oil and gas policy, to be held on July 18. The referendum is being described by many analysts as a litmus test for whether the nation-state of Bolivia survives or not.

The narco-Jacobin hordes are already being mobilized to set the nation aflame around the issue of the referendum. Indian provocateur and former Congressman Felipe "el Mallku" Quispe, an active collaborator of the Nazi Humala gang in Peru (see above), held a press conference on the doorstep of the National Congress that same day, to promise a virtual Indian uprising to stop the referendum from being held. Quispe outlined the sabotage measures he and his coca-growing dupes will take, including blocking highways and roadways and holding "community assemblies" starting on July 16, and ultimately seizing and burning ballot boxes on the day of the vote, July 18. He called for the Indian population of Bolivia to create a "state of siege" comparable to what the Aymara Indians have done in Ayo Ayo, the border town whose mayor was murdered last month by a Jacobin mob in the name of "community justice." Outside authorities have been refused admission into the town ever since.

President Carlos Mesa plans to deploy military and police July 18 to try to protect the voting, but Quispe has responded: "We are going to dictate a state of siege, like they have now in Ayo Ayo where original law reigns, and we aren't interested in the other laws or that they will come out with military and police."

Mesa has said he will resign if he loses the referendum.

All rights reserved © 2004 EIRNS