Ibero-American News Digest
Falangist Bank Makes Takeover Bid for Mexican Universities
Even as Mexican universities launch a battle to force the government of Vicente Fox to increase its pitiful levels of investment in higher education (a miniscule 0.35% of GNP is allocated to science and technology, for example), Spain's Grupo Santander, whose flagship bank BSCH, together with the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, has already taken over vast portions of Ibero-America's banking systems, moved to buy up Mexico's universities. La Razon of Spain reported on Oct. 27 that representatives of Grupo Santander had met with President Fox and more than 220 university deans from across Mexico, to present their plan to invest $43 million over the next three years in Mexican university programs. Santander's plans include an "initiative" to tighten "business-university" ties, and provide 3,000 scholarships for Mexican students of their choice.
Santander already has established 71 bilateral cooperation agreements with Mexican universities, and it intends to sign more over the next three years.
Still another Santander initiative, known as "Portal Universaria," involves giving select students greater training and access to the Internet as part of its "creative business training" approach. Santander sponsors the same kind of initiative at 781 universities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, as well as Spain and Portugal.
The political implications of this move are serious. As EIR exposed in a June 2004 study by Dennis Small, Grupo Santander is the front end of Synarchist efforts to reconquer Ibero-America, on behalf of London and Venetian oligarchic interests. BSCH's owner, Emilio Botin-Sanz de Sautuola y Garcia de los Rios, is a major backer of Spain's Francoist party, the Partido Popular (PP), and its former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. (See "The Empire Strikes Back: Spanish Banks Recolonize Ibero-America," EIW #26.)
Reconstruction Aid Lacking, Haiti Disintegrates
Haitian rebel leader Winter Etienne, whose forces played a role in the February 2004 ousting of ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, warned Oct. 26 that if the Haitian government doesn't quickly begin rebuilding the city of Gonaives, there will be new insurrections.
Hurricane Jeanne, which hit in September, left 1,900 dead nationwide, with another 900 missing, and probably dead. Some 200,000 are without homes or protection in Gonaives, Haiti's third largest city.
Etienne demanded the government build at least 200,000 houses, rebuild the roads and canals, and give students money for shoes, uniforms, and tuition. If the government won't do it, it should step aside for someone who will, warned Etienne. We will be forced to take action, "As we did before to rid ourselves of Aristide."
While the U.S. State Department and other international forces insist that holding "free elections" next year is the key issue, the government is under tremendous domestic pressure to deal with a starving nation, with little funds, and while facing roving armed bands of supporters and opponents of Aristide, each as violent as the other. Only 3,200 soldiers of a promised 8,000 UN peacekeeping force are in Haiti, and the logistical capability to distribute food and other aid is lacking. Violence, particularly in the capital city of Port au Prince, is worsening, with over 60 dead in the past weeks.
Brazil heads up the UN peacekeeping force on the island, largely made up of Ibero-American soldiers, while Chile heads the civilian side of the UN operation. Haiti was a leading topic on the agenda when Chilean Foreign Minister Walker visited Brazil this past week. Following their discussions, Walker announced that 160 more army engineersmostly Chilean and Ecuadoreanwill be deployed to help in the reconstruction process.
Argentine Bill Declares Junta Debt Null and Void
Congressman Mario Cafiero has authored a bill demanding that the foreign debt contracted under the 1976-83 military junta be declared null and void, as it is "odious" and "illegitimate ... under international law." The bill also calls for the International Monetary Fund and foreign banks that lent money to Argentina during this period, to compensate the state for the economic damages resulting from the sevenfold increase of the foreign debt between 1976 and 1983from $5.6 billion to $46 billion. Cafiero and a group of like-minded legislators are demanding a special session of Congress Nov. 16 to debate the bill, as well as the issue of the illegitimacy of the foreign debt.
Cafiero presented his bill officially on Oct. 21, during an event held to honor Argentine lawyer and journalist Alejandro Olmos. In the mid-1980s, after exhaustive research, Olmos filed a suit in federal court charging that Argentina's foreign debt was illegitimate. It took until July 2000, two months after Olmos's death, for federal judge Jorge Ballesteros to rule that Olmos had proven beyond a doubt that "the highest political and economic authorities of the nation" had acted illegally in contracting the debt. He also pointed to the IMF's responsibility in the case.
Although Ballesteros's ruling found no specific individual or financial entity guilty of these crimes, he delivered copies of his ruling to "the Honorable Congress of the Nation," and charged it with "determining the eventual political responsibility that might be ascribed to each of the actors in the events that provoked Argentina's phenomenal foreign indebtedness." By calling for a special session, Cafiero and his group are attempting to force Congress to act on Ballesteros's request. "To fight against the debt is to fight for Argentina," Cafiero said in his Oct. 21 speech. He and his fellow legislators are also demanding that the International Court at The Hague take up the issue, and rule on the legitimacy of Argentina's debt.
Cartels' 'Sustainable Soy' Model Pushed in Argentina
The British Crown's World Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, and the multinational food cartels have foisted a "sustainable soy" model on Argentina, Brazil, and other nations. Farm and producer activists reported details to EIRNS of the synarchist commodity grab which is wiping out food production in Argentina. The Agriculture Ministry and various scientific institutes have also been roped into this monoculture effort, which, according to the Rural Reflection Group (GRR), has "produced an agriculture without farmers" in Argentina. Food cartels and NGOs have colluded to "convert us to a soy republic."
The WWF is up to its eyeballs in this genocide. In September, it issued the report "Two Scenarios of Soy Production Expansion in South America," supporting the so-called "sustainable soy" model. This justifies the expansion of soy production, while demanding establishment of ecological parks and other pristine areas, to be kept safe from "contamination"and agricultural production.
In an e-mail circulated internationally, the GRR demands an end to the IMF's neoliberal model, and a return to state intervention to defend living standards and national interests. "The expansion of monocultures has wiped out the green belts of large and small cities, composed of dairy units, poultry farms and family farms," the GRR states. It warns that the food cartels intend to increase production of exportable soy from 60 to 100 million tons per annum, which for Argentina would mean adding 10 or more million hectares of genetically modified soy, to the 15 million hectares already cultivated this year.
Brazil Defends Its Right To Develop Nuclear Technology
The U.S. magazine Science published an attack on Brazil's uranium enrichment program in its Oct. 22 issue, which called for an international mobilization to "help the United States" give the "Iran treatment" to Brazil, too. Science's attack coincided with a crucial International Atomic Energy Agency visit to Brazil.
A three-man IAEA team spent more than six and a half hours in Brazil's uranium enrichment plant in Resende on Oct. 19, examining onsite the government's proposed visual limitations on international inspections of their uranium enrichment centrifuges. Brazil has placed a metal panel in front of the centrifuges, so that inspectors cannot see their shape, height, orientation, or number. The inspectors have returned to their Geneva headquarters, to make a recommendation to IAEA superiors as to whether the Brazilian conditions allow sufficient proof that no uranium is being diverted, or being produced at greater levels of enrichment than permitted. A decision from the IAEA is expected within 30 days.
The Science article, written by rabid anti-nuclear spooks Gary Milhollin and Liz Palmer from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, raves that Brazil could be producing enough enriched uranium to make five to six nuclear warheads a year in its first year of operation, and enough to produce 53 to 63 warheads annually by 2014. Brazil's insistence on protecting its intellectual property rights is "a serious challenge to the IAEA's authority," the authors assert.
Brazil's Science and Technology Ministry responded that the scientifically incompetent article stemmed from either "great disinformation or hidden interests," but either way it was "incompatible with a scientific journal of the prestige and tradition of Science." The authors' assertion that Brazil's program should be stopped, because were it to decide to build a bomb, its stockpile of 3.5% or 5% enriched uranium would have accomplished "more than half the work needed to bring it to weapons grade" [90% enriched!], is, the Sci-Tech Ministry charged, "the equivalent of saying that no country could have access to nuclear technology."
Uruguay Holds Presidential Elections Oct. 31
Uruguay held Presidential elections Oct. 31, against a backdrop of economic stagnation and deepening poverty. The frontrunner in the race is Tabare Vasquez, candidate of the leftist EP-Frente Amplio coalition, who is expected to garner more than 50% of the vote. Should this not occur, a second round of elections will be hold Nov. 28. This is Vasquez's third run for the Presidency.
This small country has never recovered from the devastating crisis of 2001-02. Dependent on Argentina and Brazil for trade, when Argentina's debt crisis exploded in December 2001, Uruguay's financial system almost collapsed, too. Today, 31% of the population lives in poverty. During the 2001-02 crisis, unemployment reached 25% and salaries contracted by 20%. President Jorge Batlle has imposed harsh IMF-dictated austerity since then, claiming that things are greatly improved today. But unemployment remains close to 20%, reflected in the dozens of new slums have sprung up on the outskirts of the capital of Montevideo.
Vasquez defines himself as a "moderate" leftist, and has the backing of Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner and Brazil's Lula da Silva. However, he denies he will adopt "radical" economic policies, and has sought to reassure the IMF and World Bank that he will be financially responsible. Senator Daniel Astori, rumored to become Vasquez's Finance Minister, promised in a recent interview, that he would adopt "orthodox solutions," and praised the economic policies of Lula da Silva.
Gen. Harold Bedoya Speaks to EIR On Colombia-U.S. Relations
I had hoped LaRouche would be the U.S. President come Nov. 2, but even so, we must get the U.S. and Colombia to fight narco-terrorism together, Colombia's Gen. (ret.) Harold Bedoya said, in an Oct. 27 interview with EIR, in which the former Commander of the Colombian Army attacked Wall Street's alliance with the drug trade. and went after the IMF policies of debt collection, which destroy economies. The interview will appear in an upcoming EIR On-Line.
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