In this issue:

After 20 Years, LaRouche 'Returns' to Argentina

LaRouche to U.S.: 'Have Some Fun'; Build New Panama Canal

Colombian Daily Breaks Blackout of LaRouche

Chinese President Begins Visit to Ibero-America

China, South Korea To Invest in Argentina

Peru Terrorist Leader May Be Released from Prison

From Volume 3, Issue Number 46 of EIR Online, Published Nov. 16, 2004

Ibero-American News Digest

After 20 Years, LaRouche 'Returns' to Argentina

This is how the LaRouche Youth Movement in Argentina characterized former U.S. Democratic Party Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche's live video-conference with two Argentine university campuses on Nov. 11, on the subject of "The Sovereign States of the Americas." Almost exactly 20 years ago, in 1984, LaRouche visited Argentina, to meet with then President Raul Alfonsin and top political circles in the country.

The main event was held at the Rosario campus of the National Technological University (UTN), where participants, along with another group at the UTN campus in Buenos Aires, were able to ask questions directly. The conference was broadcast on the worldwide web by www.larouchepub.com in English and Spanish, and was projected on large screens for meetings held simultaneously at three other Argentine universities, plus a university in Callao, Peru, and a pre-university vocational school in Mexico City, Mexico.

The archive of the two-hour event is now available on the LaRouchepub website, and next week, EIR Online will provide the transcript.

LaRouche to U.S.: 'Have Some Fun'; Build New Panama Canal

Before going on air on Nov. 2 on Betty "Imani" Jones' "Eight Flight" program on Cleveland's WJMO radio station, Lyndon LaRouche, Jones, and co-host Richard Thompson discussed how to secure Panama's sovereignty and the well-being of its people, after Jones asked LaRouche, on behalf of an earlier caller, about reports of Chinese military troops being in the Panama Canal area. LaRouche said he had no knowledge of that, but added: "Of course, there's a longstanding Panama-China relationship, which involved a plan from an old friend of mine in 1984, a Japanese figure, to build a new canal there. That has always been a point of interest for the Chinese, as well.

"China is investing heavily in raw materials from Brazil ... and so forth," LaRouche said. "So China has an interest in getting a direct shipment from China to Brazil, and the direct route would be to go by way of the Panama Canal, if that thing were functioning properly."

China would put "a tremendous amount into a thing like that." It would be a great benefit to both Brazil and China, because they'd be using it to get raw materials out of Brazil, for the long-term interests of China, and they would probably would even invest in building the thing, he emphasized.

Having noted that Panama "is supposed to have" sovereignty over the entirety of its territory, LaRouche answered his radio hosts concern that Panamanians enjoy the benefits of such projects, by proposing the United States "have some fun," and join these nations in building what everyone needs:

"The point is, that the U.S. has a long-standing interest in [the Panama Canal] ... and our control over the Panama Canal Authority, and the issue has long been—this used to be the old Panamanian issue—to get Panama to have its sovereignty over that entire territory. So that's still kicking around, and, therefore, if the U.S. wants to have some fun, it can always cooperate with the Panamanian people, on the idea of having their sovereignty affirmed, for a new canal. It would be an interesting idea."

Colombian Daily Breaks Blackout of LaRouche

The Colombian newspaper El Espectador published an exclusive interview in its Nov. 3 online edition with Lyndon LaRouche, as part of its overview of the U.S. elections. This was the first time in two decades, at least, that any Colombian print media has been willing to publish LaRouche, and is sure to make waves. For decades, El Espectador was the number two printed daily in the country, and its most outspoken anti-drug voice; however, financial retributions for its courageous stand have reduced it in recent years to an online daily Internet publication, with one printed edition a week.

El Espectator introduced LaRouche as "one of the most controversial political figures in the United States," nothing that "he is known for his accurate forecasts regarding policy in his country. In his time, he opposed the political models which in economics and related matters were followed by the governments of Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Bush."

LaRouche provided a general review of the global strategic situation, from the danger the Bush-Cheney candidacy could plunge global humanity into Hell, to the role of the Synarchist financial networks in setting into motion "the long-term trend among the international financier oligarchy ... [for] a 'physiocratic' strategy of illegal traffic in drugs and attempted monopolies in raw materials, notably minerals such as petroleum and metals," since the Bretton Woods system was destroyed in 1971-1972.

Asked specifically about how Operation 'Plan Patriota'—the U.S.-directed anti-narcoterrorist strategy of the Uribe government—affects the perspective for the Colombian conflict, LaRouche was blunt: "Plan Patriotica" was a token project which falls far short of the means required to deal with the menace there. I have always insisted that the U.S. should not fight on the ground in these threatened nations, but should provide the support which patriotic national forces require to reestablish true national sovereignty by the forces of the nation itself."

He also rejected the idea that the proposed free-trade accord between the United States and the Andean countries would bring any benefits to Colombia, or its neighbors. "Free trade must be uprooted, in favor of a return to the protectionist forms under the 1944-1964 terms of the Bretton Woods system," he said.

Chinese President Begins Visit to Ibero-America

President Hu Jintao began a five-day official visit to Brazil on Nov. 11, the first stop on a two week Ibero-American trip that will take him also to Argentina, Chile and Cuba. Jintao is accompanied by 10 Chinese officials, and more than 400 businessmen, and is returning Brazilian President Lula da Silva's visit—also accompanied by hundreds of Brazilian businessmen—to China last May.

At the center of the agenda, are trade-for-infrastructure agreements and industrial investments said to be worth between $5 and $6 billion. Brazilian Development Minister Luiz Fernando Furlan has visited China nine times in the last 18 months, and rail, waterways, steel, and energy cooperation projects are expected to be announced. In a Nov. 10 statement, Itamaraty (Brazil's Foreign Ministry) noted the strength of the "strategic partnership between Brazil and China," demonstrated in two State visits within one year.

Hu Jintao's trip begins in Brasilia, where the Chinese President is to meet privately, and then in a larger working meeting with President Lula da Silva, among other events. He will then visit Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, before arriving in Argentina on Nov. 16.

China, South Korea To Invest in Argentina

China and South Korea will make investments in Argentina for development of "basic infrastructure for integration," Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa announced Nov. 6. Bielsa said that South Korea would be lending money that would be directed into "productive purposes," although he offered no further details. Because this is the first credit line offered to Argentina since its December 2001 default, it is seen as extremely important, as the government moves to conclude its restructuring of $100 billion in defaulted debt, while under constant fire from the IMF and allied financial vultures.

Bielsa told media that if all goes well, the anticipated agreements will not only aid "Argentina's sustained growth, but also the commitments we have with Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, and Venezuela." He cautioned, however, that President Nestor Kirchner will be the one to announce the full details of agreements with China and South Korea that have been in the works since the Argentine President visited China in June of this year. Taking advantage of the attention focussed on U.S. elections internationally, the Argentine and Chinese governments have been working intensively, but quietly, to finalize details over the past couple of weeks. China is reported to be planning investments in Argentina's railroads, transportation and energy sectors; one project under discussion is the reopening of the Hipasam iron mine in Rio Negro province.

Talk has centered on long-term agreements with China: 30-50 years, according to La Nacion. With $420 billion in international reserves, China has the ability to purchase raw materials as well as food from Argentina. Nuclear energy cooperation is also one of the points that has been discussed in the period leading up to the state visit by China's President Hu Jintao, who arrives in Buenos Aires on Nov. 16.

Peru Terrorist Leader May Be Released from Prison

After 12 years in a Peruvian naval prison, Abimael Guzman (a.k.a. President Gonzalo), the 69-year-old leader of Peru's bloody Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) narco-terrorists, is the star of a new series of civilian trials that—according to terrorism experts in that country—offer him a chance at release from prison and a comeback for his terrorist organization, remnants of which are already allied to their Colombian FARC brethren.

Guzman was arrested by the Alberto Fujimori government in 1992, and sentenced in a military trial to life in prison. In 2003, the Constitutional Court under President Alejandro Toledo annulled his sentence as "unconstitutional," and ordered a new set of civilian trials for Guzman and 17 of his cohorts.

The first trial, begun on Nov. 5, was aborted shortly after it began when Guzman entered the court shouting "Long Live Marxism-Leninism!" and other "revolutionary" harangues, which the domestic and international press duly covered. The judge postponed the trial for a week after he was sharply criticized for having allowed the trial to become a show.

Incredibly, the first of Guzman's civil trials is not for any of the bloody terrorism he inspired, but rather for "using a college prep institution to finance his insurgency"! Former judge Marcos Ibazeta said that starting the first trial on a charge for a non-violent crime will give Guzman an opportunity to discredit Peru's anti-terrorist legislation and win support from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for an appeal, which could result in his eventual release under international pressure. That court, based in Costa Rica, does not recognize the crime of terrorism under which Guzman was originally sentenced, and is demanding that Peru's (Fujimori-enforced) anti-terrorist legislation be rewritten to "conform to international law."

Retired Col. Benedicto Jimenez, who led the unit that captured Guzman, warned that Guzman's intent is to use the trial as a political forum for his movement, that the prosecutors are ill-informed about Sendero's inner workings, and that Guzman is "no political corpse. Guzman is alive and kicking more than ever." Both Ibazeta and Jimenez told reporters that Sendero's goal is to win the release of hundreds of terrorists under a general amnesty or ruling from the Inter-American Court, and to relaunch their insurgency in the coming years.

Exiled former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori strongly denounced the new trial for Guzman as "the height of stupidity," and said that Peru was retreating just as the rest of the world was advancing in the war against terrorism. "Something the Peruvian people thought impossible until recently, is now becoming a reality, thanks to the good auspices of the Peruvian political class," he charged.

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