Ibero-American News Digest
Global Fascist Drive Reaches the Dominican Republic
President Leonel Fernandez announced in his Aug. 16 inaugural speech that the Dominican Republic was bankrupt, and the only possible solution was to "recover confidence" in the country. Therefore, he announced, his government will cut spending "by no less than 20%" as the IMF demands, and deepen electricity privatization. He repeated the failed mantra that only the private sector can create jobs; the government cannot. Citing Winston Churchill, he offered Dominicans "blood, sweat, and tears."
Why? "Today, those who decide the financial destiny of the peoples are some young people between 25 and 35 years old, well-educated and trained, who work for the risk-rating agencies, such as Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Bear Stearns, as well as for investment banks, such as J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley," the lackey cum President said. Those young people have rated the Dominican Republic's "economic behavior" as CCC; only Argentina has a lower rating in Ibero-America.
To regain the "confidence" of those banker-fascists, Fernandez would kill his people. The IMF informed the government that it will not release any monies, until the government cuts subsidies for cooking gas and electricity to the minimumwith the political consequences that this will bring. Fernandez has set up a commission to come up with a proposal within 15 days for how to reduce the subsidies, and discussed with his cabinet, "the necessity of forming a national program of blackouts and conserving of energy and fuel, to ration the use of fuel due to the increase in the price of oil on the international market."
This, in a country where electricity blackouts already run an average of 20 hours a daydevastating in the Caribbean heat, and where people can go for up to 10 days at a time without being able to find any propane gas with which to cook.
Fuel Costs Blow Up Bolivia
Bolivia, like the Dominican Republic, exemplifies how the soaring world oil price may prove to be the final straw for many already blown-out economies. The nation's capital, La Paz, and the neighboring poor city of El Alto were completely shut down on Aug. 25 by a 24-hour public-transport strike, where strikers demanded the government impose a one-year freeze on the price of diesel fuel, gasoline, and cooking gas. Strikers placed their busses and large trucks across the principal avenues and streets, making transit impossible. The government first agreed to freeze domestic prices for 60 days, effective Aug, 30, but the strikers refused to accept that, and extended the strike for another day, settling finally when the government agreed to freeze prices for 100 days. Bolivia produces oil and gas, but is not self-sufficient in oil. The government does not have the revenue to foot the bill for the difference between the world market price and the lower domestic price for long.
Chavez Victory Ratified; Violent Struggle Feared
The limited audit conducted of Venezuela's Aug. 15 Presidential recall referendum ratified Hugo Chavez's victory, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States announced on Aug. 20. The message Project Democracy is giving the opposition is, you have learn to live with Chavez.
The day after the Carter-OAS announcement, Chavez declared that he does not recognize the opposition umbrella organization, the Democratic Coordinator, and will not hold any dialogue with them. He suggested they become guerrillas, exclaiming, "Let them take to mountains!"exactly what some crazies intend to do.
On Aug. 23, Chavez boasted that he has powerful international friends: Why, just the other day, I spoke with [Venezuelan billionaire] Gustavo Cisneros, he said. We couldn't speak for long, as Cisneros was in Athens, with Bush, Sr.the father of the U.S. President, he notedbut he passed the phone to Bush so I could speak with him, too. We didn't discuss much, but they're following things, Chavez coyly remarked.
The Inter-American Dialogue's Michael Shifter recommends no one worry about Chavez. In an op-ed published in the Washington Post Aug. 23, Shifter explains: "Chavez, though hostile to the Venezuelan private sector, has vigorously and successfully courted foreign investment in petroleum. One does not hear strong complaints about Chavez from Wall Street." Shifter arguedwronglythat Chavez is no regional threat, either, even as the narcoterrorist FARC issued a statement congratulating Chavez for his "decisive" electoral victory, which it calls "the best incentive and stimulus to other brother countries and neighbors of Venezuela" to also fight the "oligarchy and U.S. imperialism."
As LaRouche warned after the referendum concluded: the vote changes nothing fundamental in the situation. Pointing to the danger which the synarchists on both "sides" of the Venezuelan divide represent, former President Carlos Andres Perez reiterated to Colombia's Radio Caracol on Aug. 22, that "Chavez should die like a dog.... A violent struggle is coming," said this man, as responsible as anyone for decades of destruction of his own country. "This is what lies ahead of us: violence. There is no peace. The doors have been closed to peace."
Colombia Reverses Opposition to Talks with FARC
Peace Negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo told reporters on Aug. 19 that Colombia's Uribe government has offered to "unilaterally" release 50 imprisoned, convicted FARC guerrillas, in exchange for a FARC promise to release a specified list of some 60 politicians and soldiers they are holding in jungle concentration camps. Among those the government wishes to see released, are three American military contractors, kidnapped by the FARC in 2003. The offer was transmitted to the FARC on July 23, through the Swiss Embassy. The government's condition is that the FARC convicts released would have to agree to either leave the country, or enter the government's Reinsertion Program for former guerrillas. The French government and the Catholic Church in Colombia would serve as guarantors of this aspect. No FARC ceasefire would be required.
Former Presidents Alfonso Lopez Michelsen (1974-78) and Ernesto Samper (1994-98) championed this so-called "humanitarian exchange," which President Alvaro Uribe had resisted for two years. Samper Pizano is owned by the drug cartels (who paid at least $6 million to put him in office in 1994), while Lopez Michelsen is the actual "godfather" of the drug trade in Colombia, as LaRouche's movement identified him to be two decades ago. Both are crowing that the offer could open the door to full-scale negotiations between the FARC drug cartel and the Uribe government.
U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli refused to oppose the proferred deal to exchange convicted narcoterrorists for the three U.S. hostages, when questioned at an Aug. 19 briefing, adding that "we are sparing no effort to achieve their release."
The FARC only responded after the government had publicly admitted it had proposed negotiating with them. On Aug. 20, the FARC issued a communique rejecting the terms of the government's offer as "unrealistic and unserious," but welcoming the change in the government's tune. The communique laid out the FARC's counter-offer: They, not the Uribe government, are to decide who and how many of the FARC prisoners it wishes to release; no conditions can be imposed upon the FARC guerrillas released; nor can guerrillas already charged with certain crimessuch as kidnapping, murder, genocidebe excluded from the swap, because these crimes derive "from the right to rebellion." And, an agreement requires face-to-face talks. Our negotiators are ready. What guarantees will the government give them? Who are the government's negotiators? Ever cynical, the FARC adds: What guarantees will the government give the prisoners, that the FARC will not have to kill them, should the government try to rescue them?
Rio Group Discusses South American Infrastructure Plans
The establishment of a "South American Infrastructure Authority," raised by the Presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru when they met on Aug. 11 (see last week's Ibero Digest), was discussed as a way to get around the IMF'S fiscal restraints, at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Ibero-America's Rio Group, in Brasilia Aug. 19 & 20, Argentina's Clarin daily reported.
The Foreign Ministers met to prepare the agenda for the Rio Group Heads of State summit which is scheduled for November. Nineteen countries are now part of the Rio Group, including all of the Ibero-American countries, with Guyana representing the Caribbean Community.
Argentina went into the meeting seeking to generate a debate over relations with the IMF, as a way of securing a "political accompaniment" for Argentina in its discussions with that body, Argentine Foreign Ministry sources told Clarin. The sources emphasized they would be careful to not put Brazilwhich fears being associated with anything smacking of a fight with the IMFon the spot, but they wanted to come up with "innovative forms of financing" for economic development, which would allow the region to get around the "corset" which the IMF's fiscal "adjustment" policies force upon them.
The principal innovation discussed was a South American Infrastructure Authority, as an multinational body which would centralize loans from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other foreign agencies, and then use the resources to finance great projects of physical infrastructure in the region. The authority would be responsible for repaying these credits. In this way, the individual nations would get around the IMF's requirement that long-term capital expenditures be counted as a current expenditure in their budgets, thus making it impossible for any to afford them.
So far, the discussion is still confined to asking the IMF for permission to carry out the initiative, however, as the governments still refuses to admit that there are no reforms possible within the current, dying international monetary system.
Brazil's Labor Protections on the Chopping Block
Were former Brazilian President Getulio Vargas alive today, and witnessed the dismantling of the labor legislation he promulgated, he would have "more than sufficient reasons to commit suicide." These were the remarks made by Vantuil Abdala, head of Brazil's Superior Labor Tribunal (TST), on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Getulio Vargas, who committed suicide on Aug. 24, 1954. During his two periods of government (1930-45; 1951-54), nationalist Vargas aggressively promoted Brazil's industrialization, as well as labor laws that offered comprehensive protection and benefits to the country's workers. Franklin Delano Roosevelt considered him a friend and close ally, with whom he frequently consulted on matters of strategic importance. FDR and Vargas had two personal meetings, in 1936 and 1943.
Ceremonies were held at various locations throughout Brazil on Aug. 24, commemorating Vargas' achievements, which included the creation of the state-owned National Steel Company and the Petrobras oil firm. Both the Senate and Lower House of Congress held special sessions to pay homage to him.
Vargas is especially revered by the labor movement as "a father to the poor," because of the legislation that guaranteed a minimum wage, paid vacations, maternity leave, bonuses, and other benefits. Today, the Lula da Silva government is embarked on a campaign to "flexibilize" Vargas' Consolidated Labor Laws (CLT)i.e., eliminate themas demanded by the IMF and World Bank. Under the guise of reducing labor costs and creating more jobs, Lula's proposed labor reform will actually cause job losses, and force more workers into the "informal" sector, Abdala warned, citing Spain, Chile, and Uruguay as examples of countries where "flexibilization" of labor laws has had disastrous results. "Instead of increasing jobs, work conditions became worse." It would be far better, to bring those now in the informal sector, where there are no benefits, under the protection of the CLT, he said.
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