Ibero-American News Digest
Mexico Passes Union-Busting 'Reform' of Social Security Institute
The 82-23 vote of the Mexican Senate Aug. 5 in favor of a bill to reform the pension system of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), opens the door to the bankers' plans to bust all Mexico's public workers unions, and bankrupt and privatize the IMSS, to boot. The reform buries "the first social Constitution of [the last] century, the 1917 Constitution," nationalist PRI Sen. Manuel Bartlett charged after it passed. The bill, already passed by the Chamber of Deputies, now only awaits President Vicente Fox's signature to become law.
The IMSS is the largest health-care system in the country. According to the 2000 government census, only 40% of Mexicans have health-care coverage, and of that, 81%a third of the populationreceive it from the IMSS. Over the past months, a vicious campaign was carried out, charging that the IMSS is heading towards bankruptcy, because of the "cushy" pensions paid to IMSS's 370,000 employees and 120,000 retirees. That the collapse of the Mexican economy has slashed payments by workers and employers into the system, is never mentioned.
The reform prohibits the IMSS from using any employer/employee payments to fund pensions of any newly hired IMSS personnel (doctors, nurses, etc.). New workers will have to finance their own pensions, which must be "self-sustainable." The details on how this is to be accomplished are not spelled out.
Senator Bartlett and public sector union leaders charge that the law also opens the door for the IMSS administration to claim down the road, that "we just don't have enough money," and then walk away from their obligations under labor contracts. And if the IMSS can do it, then no labor contract in the country can be upheld. Another reform opponent, PRI Sen. Laura Alicia Garza, warned that the law provides "the perfect pretext to declare IMSS bankrupt." IMSS union leaders have been warning that just such a bankruptcy declaration is in the works. Privatization would follow.
The Los Angeles Times coverage Aug. 6 of the Schachtian victory against the IMSS, gloats that passage of the bill in Mexico is just the start of a campaign for similar reforms across Ibero-America. "Overhauling government pension programs has taken on new urgency throughout Latin America, where weak economies and poor tax collection have created unsustainable financial burdens," Times staff writer Marla Dickerson lies. Private sector union pension plans were busted in the late 1990s across the region, but civil service unions have resisted. "Public pension reform is an absolute necessity in much of Latin America," a killer bureaucrat at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School told Dickerson.
Synarchist Bank Hosts 'Spain-Latin America' Seminar
Emilio Botin's Santander Group brought journalists and officials from around Ibero-America to be lectured on "the right way to do things," at a two-day seminar sponsored by the synarchist bank at the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, in Santander, Spain, July 29-30. The seminar was a show of force by the fascist-linked bank. As the article, "Empire Strikes Back: Spanish Banks Recolonize Ibero-America," documented in EIW #26, in Spain's banks and private companies are leading a takeover of the Ibero-American economies, on behalf of the global synarchist financier cartel.
Spanish Central Bank Jaime Caruana was blunt, in his speech closing the conference: Do it our way, or else. Ibero-America is vulnerable to financial crises, because it hasn't yet put through the "second generation of reforms," he said. More independence must be given to the central banks; the "excessive preponderance" of the public sector in the economy must be cut back; the banks have to be treated as "a strategic sector," and developed as the key to "stability." Predictability of policies is key; "there are no short-cuts, nor room for alternative or excessively imaginative routes," he intoned.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos adopted a "softer" approach, going after the previous Aznar government for leaving policy up to the Spanish private companies in Ibero-America. The Zapatero government wants to revive a state policy towards the region, he said. Neo-liberalism requires "wealth redistribution policies," social policies, to make them adequate. Of course, he quickly added, his government recognizes the necessity of "supporting" the interests of the Spanish companies in the region, as "we are the number-one investor in the area." He suggested Spain play a "catalytic" role in "channelling" Ibero-America's interests in international bodies such as the IMF. Here, he specifically cited Argentina, supporting President Nestor Kirchner's "leadership ... in adopting reforms and "modernization."
The new head of the IMF is Spain's former Finance Minister, Rodrigo Ratowhom Santander's Botin brags that he owns.
Mexican Central Bank chief Guillermo Ortiz was as rabid as his Spanish counterpart. Democracy is threatened in Ibero-America by the lack of sufficient "structural reforms" and "fiscal discipline," he told the seminar. Its economies remain overly-protected. Mexico, for example, has some of the strictest labor laws in the world. They must be overturned, because "the possibility of creating jobs depends in great part on the flexibility to be able to fire people."
Rabid Ex-President Calls for Killing Venezuela's Chavez
Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, nicknamed "CAP," proclaimed on July 25 that "Chavez should die like a dog ... with my apologies to that noble animal," because the Aug. 15 referendum on whether Chavez should be removed from office "will not resolve anything." "I am working to get Chavez out. The violent route will permit his ouster. It's the only one we have. I am part of that battalion," he raved.
Twice President of Venezuela (1973-78 and 1989-93), CAP has been a life-long synarchist asset, who got his start in the Dulles brothers/Social Democracy-run Caribbean Legion, which spawned numerous Synarchist operations, from Fidel Castro to the Nicaraguan Contras. It was his brutal imposition of IMF policy by military might in 1989 which made his fellow synarchist spawn, Hugo Chavez, possible. (Chavez's claim to fame was his failed 1992 coup against the hated President Perez.) Now, from his exile in Miami, he's once again pushing for war in Venezuela.
Newsweek Launches Dirty Trick Against Colombian President
Newsweek magazine, which published an undisguised death threat against Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez when he was a Presidential candidate in 2002, has now printed, in its Aug. 9 issue, quotes from a raw, "unevaluated" Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report filed in 1991, which named Uribe as an alleged drug-trafficker. The DIA report naming 106 people involved in drug-trafficking, was obtained by the National Security Archives under the Freedom of Information Act and first passed to Newsweek. Entry #82 of that report deals with then-Senator Uribe, described as "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels" and "a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria," and detailed various related charges.
The Defense Department, State Department, former U.S. officials involved in the anti-drug war, and the Colombian Presidency issued sharp statements denying the report had any veracity. Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Conway gave various interviews to Colombian radio, emphasizing that the report was raw, unevaluated intelligence, and that it is the view of the U.S. Southern Command, that Uribe's anti-narco-terrorism record speaks for itself. An unnamed U.S. intelligence official told the Aug. 2 Los Angeles Times that the memo was based on a single, confidential informant in Colombia.
Newsweek is owned by the synarchist banking firm Lazard Freres. The only person interviewed for the Newsweek article, by name, was Adam Isaacson, a professional drug legalizer from George Soros's stable. Author Joseph Contreras, today Regional Bureau Chief for Latin America for Newsweek, is the same reporter who, in March 2002 during the Presidential campaign, published a thinly disguised death threat against Uribe, as the lead to a diatribe against the President's policy of refusing to negotiate with narco-terrorism and the FARC. That 2002 article was an attack not just on Uribe, but on any attempt by institutional Colombia to rally the nation to defeat narco-terrorism, and anyone in the U.S. government and Congress who would support them. In the first paragraph, Contreras brazenly threatened that "it seems nothing short of an assassin's bullet can stop the maverick politician from winning the May election." Contreras then rushed into print a biography smearing Uribe, published before the election.
This particular smear does not appear to be going anywhere, but Contreras's story is calculated to lay the basis for a campaign to block Uribe's bid for re-election. President Uribe's disastrous policy of negotiating with the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a group of narco-terrorists as much as the FARC, however, provides his narco-enemies a wide-open opportunity to go after him.
IMF's 'Mistakes' Sent 15 Million Argentines to Poorhouse
The IMF's mistakes "caused 15 million Argentines to become poor," said President Nestor Kirchner, in response to an IMF report documenting its "errors" in dealing with the country, in the period leading up to the 2001 default. (The Fund claims its mistake was being too lenient!). Kirchner told an audience in the city of Rosario that "it's very easy for them to talk about Argentina from their comfortable offices. But their mistakes cost us 15 million poor."
Finance Minister Roberto Lavagna also had harsh words for the IMF. In a statement released July 29 addressing the report by the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office, Lavagna charged that "the Fund's mistakes translated into more unemployment and poverty, ... more destruction of production." He added, "we have no urgency in signing an agreement with the Monetary Fund. We will continue to talk as long as it takes."
Brazil Readies Space Vehicle
In an interview with National Radio of Amazonia on July 28, the Chairman of the Brazilian Space Agency, Sergio Gaudenzi, reported that the clean-up of debris from the explosion of Brazil's VLS test rocket last August will soon be completed, and that the next test launch is on target for 2006. The Brazilian government also hopes to attract launches by Ukraine, Russia, and China. An agreement with Ukraine to launch its Tsyklon rocket has been signed, and awaits ratification by congresses of both nations. "Each launcher demands a specific launching platform," Gaudenzi explained, requiring a substantial investment at the Alcantara launch site from each nation planning to participate. Although Guadenzi said that there "are good signs" for Brazil to reach a similar agreement with the U.S., this seems highly unlikely, as the U.S. has insisted that Brazil give up its "dual use" rocket program as a precondition for American participation at Alcantara.
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