Ibero-American News Digest

LaRouche on Haiti: 'We Are in a Global Dark Age, Right Now'

Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—"We are in a global dark age, right now. This is not a dark age in some places; this is planetary dark age."

This was Lyndon LaRouche's response to a Nov. 17 briefing on the ever-worsening situation in Haiti, which in addition to the cholera epidemic—now confirmed to have spread to the neighboring Dominican Republic—includes violent protests in which three people have died.

"Look at the characteristics," LaRouche said. "We're not calling it a dark age, because we don't want to upset the bastards who are responsible for this! Remember what happened with the initial Dark Age, in the 14th Century—what they did to pass the blame on this, on that, and so forth. Same thing now. They are doing something which is criminally insane in respect to its consequences." That's what we're seeing today. It's happening now. It's not something that's going to happen in the future; it's happening now. It's not maybe; it's happening.

Because of the Obama Administration's criminal negligence, the situation in some parts of Haiti has devolved into chaos and panic. On Nov. 16-17, the northern city of Cap Haitien was engulfed in riots, in which crowds attacked UN peacekeepers, and blamed the UN's Nepalese contingent for the cholera outbreak. The protests prevented aid workers from reaching areas where cholera patients were being treated, and also hindered transport of urgently needed medical supplies. Reflecting growing panic, in Port-au-Prince, after Médecins sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) set up a makeshift cholera clinic near the airport, local residents began to protest, charging that the clinic's presence would spread cholera in the surrounding area.

In this midst of this chaos, however, Charles Luckson of Haiti's Corejene youth movement, is a voice of sanity, speaking passionately in a Nov. 15 interview with LPAC-TV about what the United States must do to help Haiti.

People are acting as if Haiti were already dead, he said, and that's not true! We are asking people listening, to act to implement LaRouche's policies now. Lukson was speaking from Cap Haitien as the riots were occurring.

He asked: Couldn't this situation have been foreseen? LaRouche warned after the earthquake that there would be social unrest, if nothing were done. If people had listened to LaRouche, we wouldn't be in this situation now. Who is to blame for the cholera epidemic? It is because nothing has been done, ten months after the earthquake. President Obama had many opportunities to act. But he stayed with his arms crossed and his ears blocked, and has done nothing to help Haiti, Luckson said. We need action now from the Obama Administration. Are we going to wait here to die, or is there going to be help to allow Haiti to rise again as a sovereign nation?

Luckson reported that the number circulating in the population is around 2,200 dead, but that it is more likely around 3,000, since people travelling outside the cities report seeing corpses lying by the road. As of Nov. 22, the official death toll stands at 1,344, with 56,901 infected.

Argentine President Honors Patriots Who Fought Against Free Trade

Nov. 21 (EIRNS)—In her Nov. 20 speech to celebrate National Sovereignty Day, and honor the heroes who fought an invading Anglo-French force at the Nov. 20, 1845 battle of Vuelta de Obligado on the Paraná River, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner stated that she had established this new holiday in order to repay a "historic debt" to Argentines, and to the history of the country's fight against British-inspired free trade which has been "premeditatedly hidden" from the population by "official" historians.

President Fernández de Kirchner emphasized that the invasion was an attempt by foreign powers to break apart the Argentine Confederation governed by nationalist Juan Manuel de Rosas, by splitting off three provinces to create a new, pro-British country. Moreover, the Anglo-French warships were accompanied by 90 merchant vessels, "because the truth is, they came in the name of free trade, to transform this river, our Paraná River, into an international one, rather than what it is, and always will be, a river of the Argentine Nation."

Why is it, she asked, that in school, we're taught in great detail about all our battles against Spain, but the history of "those battles that took place against other colonialisms [e.g., British—ed.] which still exist, for example, on our Malvinas Islands, has been deliberately hidden?" This is no accident, she said. "I think it is to convince us many times that it's impossible to fight and maintain our national dignity."

Although the Argentines were technically "defeated" in the battle, outmanned and outgunned by sophisticated British rocketry and armored vessels, they put up a ferocious resistance, setting up large chains across the Paraná River at its narrowest point to slow down the invading force, and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy after running out of ammunition. The resistance from the population all along the river was so fierce, that the invaders were forced to make a 21-gun salute to the patriots before leaving the area as fast as they could, in their badly damaged ships.

The best way to honor those who fought 165 years ago, President Fernández underscored, is to "understand today the need for national unity as our declared goal, and as an instrument to build the great nation" of which Rosas and others dreamed.

The monument commemorating the battle "is for all Argentines and belongs to all Argentines," Fernández concluded. "From here, I want to greet those more than 40 million compatriots and call on them [to be part of] new epics, in which cannons and chains won't be necessary; but it will be necessary to remove from our minds those cultural chains that they have placed there. These are stronger, more invisible, more damaging, and deeper than cannon shots, and many times cause us to see things, not through the prism of our Fatherland, but through the prism of others' interests." Let Nov. 20 be a symbol of national unity, she said, "but also of dignity and sovereignty to defend the Fatherland. Viva la Patria!"

Speculators Shriek, Argentina 'Is Not Playing by the Rules'

Nov. 21 (EIRNS)—The American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), speaking for a group of predatory vulture funds, has launched an hysterical offensive to get Argentina expelled from the G-20, alleging that it "doesn't play by the rules" and doesn't show proper respect for the international financial community.

Vulture funds are professional speculators. Anticipating that a country is about to default on its debt, they buy up the country's depreciated bonds at pennies on the dollar, and then demand payment for the full face value of the bonds, once default has occurred.

The Fernández de Kirchner government has just successfully concluded a renegotiation with the "holdout" creditors who didn't participate in the 2005 debt restructuring, and reached an agreement with the Paris Club of creditors to negotiate repayment of $6.7 billion it owes.

But ATFA executives Robert Shapiro, Nancy Soderberg, and Robert Raben, who speak for the City of London, use videos they've produced to fulminate against Argentina for being a "rogue state," and "outlaw," which, they say, must still pay $21 billion to U.S. creditors. Its behavior is "unbefitting of a G-20" member, and "demeaning to the capital markets," Raben snarled, while Soderberg charged that the current government is attacking freedom of the press and trying to "bludgeon its opponents into submission." Shapiro, a former Commerce Department official, asserts that the two Kirchner governments have been totally mismanaged and corrupt. Just use the government's $51 billion in reserves to pay off the speculators, Shapiro demanded.