In this issue:

LaRouche Says: Rebuild Haiti!

Behind the News: Synarchist Dark Age Plot in Haiti

Is the Dominican Republic About To Default?

Recall Vote Against Chavez Is Stalled

Brawl Over Economic Policy Erupts in Brazil's Ruling Party

Lula Government Still Reeling from Corruption Scandal

From Volume 3, Issue Number 9 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Mar. 2, 2004

Ibero-American News Digest

LaRouche Says: Rebuild Haiti!

Another country where "democracy" was "restored" by a U.S. military invasion (in this case, in 1994, under President Clinton, with the restoration of the now-besieged Jean-Bertrand Aristide), is now disintegrating into an unimaginable bloodbath. Calls have begun internationally for a new international intervention force to be sent into Haiti, again, to restore "democracy," but no one outside of U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche has called for the one thing which Haiti must receive to stop the genocide underway—massive economic development.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For decades, its 8 million people have been treated as guinea pigs for experiments in genocidal Dark Ages policies by foreign interests, as typified by the infamous U.S.-backed, voodoo-based "Papa Doc" Duvalier dictatorship.

Haitians were simply written off. Average life expectancy is only 51.6 years, and that is dropping; Haiti has the highest AIDS infection rate in the Western Hemisphere. Child mortality is 13 times higher than that in the United States; 110 of every 1,000 children die, many of something as simple as dehydration. Even official statistics acknowledge that at least 60% of the population has no access to safe drinking water. And government officials say more than 90% of the people are illiterate.

Asked Feb. 14 what he would do about the genocide AIDS is wreaking in the Caribbean, LaRouche answered: "Let's take the worst case in the Caribbean, the worst big case, in terms of U.S. policy: Haiti. That's the worst crime, being committed by the United States, and it's a long-standing crime," which LaRouche called nothing short of "genocide."

"Our obligation, as the United States, is to rebuild Haiti," he said. "We say: We're going in there. We're going to help them. We're going to help them develop their economy. We're going to help them survive. We're determined to do that. And we ask the cooperation of other nations of the region, to participate with us, in bringing this to success.... This is to be emblematic of our policy toward the Caribbean as a whole," and toward people from the Caribbean, entering the United States.

Behind the News: Synarchist Dark Age Plot in Haiti

The debacle today in Haiti is the lawful result of the imposition, over decades, of one Dark Age government after another. In 1994, the Clinton Administration walked into a British-laid trap, and sent 20,000 U.S. troops to reinstall "left-wing" synarchist renegade priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President, even though the character of Aristide's Lavalas movement was well-known. They dealt with their opponents by "necklacing": throwing gas-soaked tires around their necks, and burning them to death as the mobs cheered. As in Iraq today, the military was disbanded in 1994.

Once reinstalled, however, Aristide was hung out to dry. Having only a small police force to rely on and with no economic aid, Aristide sustained his regime by recruiting thugs to build up his paramilitary special forces, and turning to contraband and the drug trade. Haiti's role as a major drug transshipment center exploded. Border traffic between Haiti and its neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, is today essentially all contraband. Everything crosses the border, from stereos to the heavy weaponry of the drug trade: Uzi machine guns, etc.

The countergang to Aristide's operation, is an opposition movement dominated by the neo-conservative International Republican Institute (IRI) of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy. The IRI's top operative for Haiti is the son of one of Haiti's largest landowners. The opposition's demand is that they be installed in power, by foreign troops if necessary.

The latter option was unthinkable, until a gang of criminals began seizing control of towns across Haiti on Feb. 5, demanding Aristide be ousted. Today, they are poised to enter the capital. The leading force within the gangs which are thus playing into the IRI's hands, is a group of former members of Aristide's Lavalas movement, who called themselves in those days "the Cannibal Army."

Is the Dominican Republic About To Default?

Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, is wracked by energy crises, national strikes, bank collapses, an exodus of starving citizens, and a general crisis of governability. This nation, too, is on the brink of default, since it failed to make a $27-million interest payment in January on some $1.8 billion in private foreign debt. Although that payment has since been made, as part of a new letter of intent with the IMF, Standard & Poors nonetheless on Feb. 11 lowered its ratings on the country to just shy of the "default" rating.

Inflation is currently running at about 45%, and unemployment is officially at 17%. The Mejia government is desperately trying to stave off a crisis of confidence among its creditors, by renegotiating its debt with the Paris Club, but Presidential elections in May put the survival of the current pro-IMF and pro-Bush government in some doubt. Among the conditions the Mejia government committed itself to under the new IMF agreement, are a fiscal reform which would impose new taxes on the already ravaged population, elimination of energy subsidies, and more privatizations—the standard IMF "cure" that kills.

Recall Vote Against Chavez Is Stalled

Venezuela, too, is heading into a new crisis, as the national authorities appear set to reject the opposition's petitions for a referendum to oust President Hugo Chavez. At least 2.4 million signatures must be valid for the referendum to go through. Instead of a final decision on Feb. 13, the deadline by which the National Electoral Council (CNE) was to issue a decision on the validity of the 3.4 million signatures submitted, suddenly it was announced that over a million of the petitions were filled in "improperly," because the addresses and dates of birth of those signing, were written in a different handwriting than the signatures. The million-plus signatures in question were set aside for a second review, which is still underway.

The opposition charges that the CNE decision constitutes an arbitrary, ex post facto change in the rules governing how the signatures were to be collected, as the CNE had never stipulated that only the voter could fill out his or her personal data.

Observers from the Carter Center in Atlanta and from the OAS—in Venezuela to oversee the petition verification process—have been holding closed-door meetings with Venezuela's election officials, out of concern that the whole process could blow up and lead to street violence, strike actions, and possibly even another coup attempt against Chavez.

Chavez claimed from the outset that the recall petition process was riddled with "mega-fraud," and would never go through.

Brawl Over Economic Policy Erupts in Brazil's Ruling Party

Congressmen from Brazil's ruling Workers Party (PT), present at a dinner held by President Lula da Silva during the week of Feb. 9-13, told reporters later that the President was hammered during the dinner, on the need to change economic policy. The leader of the PT in the Chamber of Deputies, Arnildo Chinaglia, is reported to have interrupted the President's speech at the dinner, telling him the Congressmen want more debate, and not unilateral government decisions on economic policy. Congressman Ivan Valente, who was present, told Bloomberg wire service later that one-third of the PT's 90 Congressmen are arguing: "No more market-friendly policies."

Lula delivered his answer on Feb. 12, telling journalists that nothing will change the government's economic policy direction. He specifically stated that the primary budget surplus—the IMF conditionality which requires the government run a surplus of revenues, minus all expenditures except debt service—would remain at 4.25% of Gross National Product. "The surplus is necessary to maintain the credibility of the country ... and to pay a third of the interest on the debt," Lula intoned. "I have to have the surplus to be able to go to my creditor, and say that I am able to pay at least a part of what I owe.... I have no Plan B."

He added that Treasury Minister Antonio Palocci, one of the strongest voices for Wall Street policies within the Cabinet, had his total confidence.

Lula's statement did not deter the President of the Chamber of Deputies, PT member Joao Paulo Cunha, who denounced the 4.25% primary budget surplus in his opening statement to the 2004 session of Congress on Feb. 16. "It is not reasonable to implement the primary surplus that we are implementing, and pay the interest that we are paying, and have the debt-GNP ratio stay the same. Something needs to be done," Cunha stated.

Lula Government Still Reeling from Corruption Scandal

The Lula government in Brazil has yet to squelch the scandal which erupted on Feb. 13, when one of the country's leading magazines, Epoca, revealed that Wladimiro Diniz—a top assistant to President Lula da Silva's civilian Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu, who served as Dirceu's liaison to Parliament—had taken money from a top Rio de Janeiro numbers-racket mafioso, to finance some Workers Party campaigns in 2002. Diniz was abruptly fired on Feb. 13.

The government's attempts to downplay the scandal—with arguments such as "Hey, we fired him right away. Besides, it all happened in 2002, before Lula took office, so it doesn't touch the government. Really, it's not necessary for Congress to investigate; we'll do it ourselves," etc.—have flopped. The immediate issue on the table is whether the scandal topples Jose Dirceu, the most powerful of the Cabinet ministers and considered by many to be Lula's "controller." In January, Dirceu's role in the Cabinet had been upgraded to unofficial Prime Minister, when Lula announced that Dirceu would serve as coordinator with the other ministries.

There is a brawl within the government over how to handle the scandal. Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos is urging that the investigation be extended into all of Diniz's activities, including those of 2003, when he was Dirceu's aide. The president of the Supreme Federal Court, Mauricio Correa (no friend of Dirceu's) told a Congressional committee that Dirceu should step aside until he is cleared by an investigation.

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