Ibero-American News Digest
Cabinet Change in Argentina Strengthens Kirchner's Hand
Argentine President Nestor Kirchner ousted both his Justice Minister and Security Secretary over the July 24-25 weekend, in what appears to be an attempt to take control of security policy, and entrust it to his closest political allies. Justice Minister Gustavo Beliz and Security Secretary Norberto Quantin disagreed with Kirchner's orders against repressing groups of unemployed protesters, called piqueteros. Kirchner argued that a preemptive and "dissuasive" policy is required to contain the protests, as harsh repression will only feed the opposition. The crisis came to a head on July 16, when a mob attacked the Buenos Aires Legislature building, and Quantin and the head of the Federal Police force in the capital gave orders to send armed policemen into the chaos. Kirchner immediately countermanded the orders, warning that, "that way, you'll hand them the deaths they want."
Beliz is a high-level member of Opus Dei in Argentina, and an asset of the British Crown's Transparency International NGO. Ironically, this hardliner has long advocated "reforming" security institutions out of existence, in the name of "fighting corruption."
Kirchner named one of his closest political allies, Horacio Rosatti, to replace Beliz. Rosatti had been serving as General Prosecutor of the Treasury, in charge of all state prosecutors. Last February, as vulture funds were placing liens on Argentine diplomatic assets in the United States, Rosatti authored an op-ed in the daily Clarin, asserting that the Drago Doctrine, which affirms that a nation's foreign debt cannot be collected by force, is still applicable today. The Drago Doctrine was elaborated in 1903, when Britain, Germany, and Italy attempted to forcibly collect Venezuela's debt.
Scandal Aims at Central Bank Leadership in Brazil
Brazil's Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles and the bank's Director of Monetary Policy, Luiz Augusto Candiota, are under investigation by public prosecutors and a Parliamentary Investigatory Committee (CPI) for tax evasion and money laundering, IstoE, one of Brazil's leading weeklies, reported July 23.
The IstoE leak marked a significant escalation by the national institutional forces to oust Meirelles and his team. Meirelles, who was a top executive of FleetBoston Bank before taking the helm at the Central Bank in 2003, is the linchpin of foreign financiers' control in the Lula government, and responsible for keeping Brazil's interest rates among the highest in the world.
Candiota resigned on July 28, swearing that he is innocent of charges that he conduited over a million dollars out of the country illegally, through offshore tax havens, when he was an official at Citibank in Brazil before joining the Central Bank in 2003. The Executive Director of Credite Suisse-First Boston's Investment Bank in Brazil, Rodrigo Azevedo, was promptly named as his replacement.
Folha de Sao Paulo suggested July 26 that Candiota was sacrificed, in order to shore up the position of Meirelles. Meirelles says he has no intention of quitting, although he admits to the charges against him: that he filed no tax return in 2001, because he was living in Boston that year, at the same time that he listed his official residence as Goias, Brazil, with Brazil's electoral authorities, so he could run for Congressfrom the Boston headquarters of FleetBoston! He insists there's no crime, because a tax residence and an electoral residence are legally different.
Whether Meirelles will weather the storm, remains to be seen. Calls for his resignation continue, and the release of the minutes of last week's Central Bank meeting where it was decided to keep the benchmark interest rate at 16%, is likely to increase the pressure for his ouster. The minutes suggest the Central Bank could RAISE interest rates, if inflation continues.
Synarchists Target PRI, Through Echeverria Case
Mexico's "Special Prosecutor for Political and Social Movements of the Past," the special prosecutor in charge of investigating the "dirty war" of late 1960s and 1970s against "left-wing" guerrilla movements, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, formally charged former Mexican President Luis Echeverria (1970-76) with "genocide" on July 23, for allegedly ordering repression against a June 1971 student demonstration which led to the deaths of about a dozen students. Indictments are pending against Echeverria's Secretary of Government Mario Moya Palencia, his Attorney General Pedro Ojeda Paullada, and Army Generals Manuel Diaz Escobar, Rogelio Flores Curiel, and Luis Gutierrez Oropeza.
The criminal court judge examining the evidence presented by Carrillo to determine if the case should proceed to trial (in the Mexican legal system, a judge performs the function of a grand jury in the U.S. system), dismissed the case on July 24, on the grounds that the 30-year statute of limitations had run out in 2001. Carrillo said he will appeal the ruling within three days, and will take it up to the Supreme Court, in necessary.
The charges against Echeverria were a transparent effort by the Synarchists who control the Fox government, to tryyet againto institutionally shatter the PRI party, of which Echeverria is a member. The majority of PRI congressman, in alliance with most of the PRD, have systematically blocked the repeated efforts of President Vicente Fox (PAN) to ram through privatization and other IMF-dictated structural reforms.
Playing right into the hands of the foreign Project Democracy fascists who lie behind this attemptnot to bring about justice, but to blow Mexico apartis PRD leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who continues to stick to the line that the accused should be tried, and only then should decisions be taken as to whether to pardon them.
Carrillo Prieto was educated at Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain, a synarchist nest which played a key role in creating "leftwing" Theology of Liberation, in particular. Carrillo's grandfather, Jorge Prieto Laures, however, was a founder of the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth in 1920, which later played a role in the Cristero War and the founding of the Nazi's National Synarchist Union. In 1939, his grandfather helped found the Revolutionary Anti-Communist Party, and, later, the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) of notorious Moonie, death-squad fame. His Anti-Communist Party supported the Presidential candidacy of Gen. Juan Andrew Almazana Nazi, whose campaign chief was PAN founder Manuel Gomez Morinin 1940.
Mexican Youth Remind Spanish Royals: Your Empire Is Dead
Carrying posters and banners with messages such as "No to the Hispano-Synarchist Reconquest! Enforce the Monroe DoctrineLaRouche," and "Renationalize the Banks! Kick Out the Financial Vultures: Santander and BBVA; Sovereign Credit for National Industry!LYM," the LaRouche Youth Movement in Monterrey, Mexico, gave a raucous welcome to Spanish Prince Felipe de Borbon and his wife Letizia on July 19, when they arrived as the stars of an International Hispanists' Association Congress.
Everywhere the Spanish royals went in Monterrey, they were followed by fawning mediaand the LYM, who were chanting and giving bullhorn briefings, and giving out a leaflet denouncing how the Spanish banks and energy companies were grabbing up Mexico's resources, acting as frontmen for Synarchist financiers who intend to reconquer Mexico and Ibero-America, "in a utopian attempt to turn the clock of history back to feudalism and monarchies." These are the networks out to install fascist regimes again around the world, using assets such as Spanish fascist Blas Pinar and his foreign allies, the LYM warned.
The mobs of national and international journalists swarming over the royals could not avoid the LYM organizers. Their demonstration was filmed by Spanish Television (TVE) and Miami's Telemundo, and reported by the National Radio of Spain. Mexican dailies Mural, El Norte, and Extramex reported that the prince and princess "were greeted by a demonstration of the LaRouche Youth Movement, whose members denounced 'the rape' of Mexico by Spanish banks Santander and BBV." Monterrey's TV Channel 12 noted that a group linked to "the American LaRouche" had protested looting by Spanish banks.
Conflict in Mercosur Highlights Urgency of LaRouche Policies
The summit of Mercosur Presidents in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, on July 5, was characterized by extreme tension, particularly between Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Just before the summit, Argentina had unilaterally announced it would impose restrictions on imports of Brazilian electrical appliances, and implied that other products, including textiles, refrigerators, shoes, and now possibly cars, motors and auto parts, would be added to the list.
This provoked outrage among Brazilian producers, while Argentine businessmen say the measure is necessary to eliminate "asymmetries" in trade between the two countries. This year alone, Brazilian exports to Argentina have increased by 75%; exports of stoves by 121%, and of refrigerators, by 176%, in the first five months of 2004.
Talks between Argentina and Brazil on discuss trade issues have smoothed over some issues, but the crisis between the neighbors continues. In Argentina, the alleged economic "recovery" has largely been based on activating installed capacity (paralyzed during 2001-2002), allowing for a certain degree of import substitution. Now, producers are panicked at the flood of imports coming in from Brazil, even while they do not have either cheap credit or infrastructure available needed to gear up actual production, beyond what has already occurred.
In Brazil, meanwhile, domestic credit rates remain prohibitively high, while credit for export is significantly cheaper. Sixty percent of Argentina's auto market is dominated by Brazilian products. Brazilian Industry Minister Luiz Fernando Furlan has already hinted that he has measures prepared to impose on Argentine products exported to Brazil.
Only a regional, continental development program based on LaRouche's global industrialization plan, can change the dynamic that has developed.
Uruguay's Leading Leftist Presidential Candidate Bows to Bankers
No sooner did the World Social Forum's candidate for President of Uruguay, Tabare Vazquez, win the primary, than he flew to Washington, to ask Inter-American Development Bank chief Enrique Iglesias to serve as his Finance Minister. A long-standing member of the Inter-American Dialogue, Iglesias is the "soft cop" for IMF policies in Ibero-America, and a vehement defender of drug legalization. Iglesias declined Tabare Vasquez's offer, because he preferred to stay in his international post, but he promised Vasquez he would support his government (should he win the elections) "101%", and would be its "permanent adviser." Vasquez reported, after his July 12 dinner with Iglesias, that Iglesias assured him that it was no concern whatsoever to the financial system, nor to investors, nor to businessmen, that the governments of the region were passing into the hands of "progressive forces."
Uruguay's Presidential elections are to be held in October.
Vazquez is currently the leading contender in the race, heading a coalition of parties grouped around the "Frente Amplio" (Broad Front) originally founded by the Tupamaros guerrillas. The Frente Amplio was a founding member of the Sao Paulo Forum continental narco-terrorist alliance, along with Lula's Workers Party (PT). Tabare is from the moderate, political wing of the Frente, but it appears that he's decided, as Lula has (so far), that the route to power lies through selling your soul to the financiers.
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