From Volume 4, Issue Number 32 of EIR Online, Published Aug. 9, 2005

Ibero-American News Digest

Cheney's War Plans Exposed on Bolivian TV

EIR Ibero-American Editor Dennis Small was interviewed on La Paz's Channel 13 television on Aug. 2, for a special 90-minute edition of the weekly program, "Bolivia Is Viable," celebrating the country's Aug. 6 Independence Day. Bolivian military historian Col. Edwin de la Fuente, who, on the air, endorsed Lyndon LaRouche's proposals to industrialize the interior of South America, joined Small and host Anibal Aguilar on the program. The intent of the show was to use the lessons of history to organize against the financiers' current plans to chop Bolivia into warring pieces—and for that, they turned to LaRouche.

Small was given ample time to develop LaRouche's "Guns of August" warning, and throughout the show repeatedly told people that they had to understand that global battle, to understand their situation in Bolivia. He was also able to give people a sense of optimism, of how small, land-locked, and desperately poor Bolivia could and should play a leading international role in organizing for the next stage of human civilization: developing the interior of the Earth's continents.

In a polemical intervention into the growing tensions between Bolivia and Chile, Small explained how the War of the Pacific in the 1880s was not a war between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, but a British war against the American System and the Lincoln legacy, fought out as surrogate warfare in South America.

Aguilar's first interview of Small, on June 14, right before LaRouche's historic June 16 webcast, had already set off waves throughout Bolivia. (Copies were circulated nationally by various contacts). Following the second show, EIR's contacts in La Paz reported that the second interview was being hotly discussed, with great surprise being expressed at the discussion of an optimistic mission for Bolivia, and the news that an American—LaRouche—supports Bolivia, and is fighting to return the U.S. to a "Good Neighbor" policy.

U.S. LaRouche Movement Leaders Tour Mexico

Midwest LaRouche movement spokesman Bob Bowen and UAW leader Mark Sweazy have just concluded a 10-day visit to Mexico, where Lyndon LaRouche's program to save the North American auto industry, and its economically critical machine-tool component, are finding an extremely positive reception.

Bowen and Sweazy, who is the president of Columbus, Ohio UAW local 969, visited Mexico City, Monterrey, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon, where they were interviewed by press, and addressed numerous trade unions, an industry group, and university students, among others.

The two U.S. leaders were bombarded with questions about the GM crisis, NAFTA, globalization, outsourcing, immigration, and LaRouche's proposal to revive NAWAPA—the North American water and power project. Bowen and Sweazy also reported on the adoption by a growing number of state legislatures and city councils in the U.S., of LaRouche-inspired resolutions to convert the auto industry for production of machinery for construction, railroads, aerospace, etc.

Bankers Send in Snow To Bolster Brazil's Monetarists

Arriving in Brazil for a three-day visit on Aug. 1, Treasury Secretary John Snow demanded Brazil open up its financial sector to foreign interests. "Brazil has room to modernize, liberalize, open the financial sector," he told the Aug. 1 Valor daily.

Brazil still maintains a strong national banking sector, and the Banco Santanders and other vultures want to get their hands on both huge government banks such as the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), and the private banks still under Brazilian control.

The financiers are not so confident that all is under control in Brazil. Indicative were the over-enthusiastic assurances to a Sao Paulo seminar on Aug. 1 by Congressman Antonio Delfim Netto that "there isn't the slightest risk" that Lula, "in a moment of desperation," would change economic course, and adopt a "populist" policy, i.e., break with IMF axioms. Netto is the "Chicago boy" who has been telling the Lula government that its only chance to survive the still-escalating corruption scandal overtaking his government, is to ram through a broad fiscal "shock."

Snow oozed confidence that Brazil will stick to the "right" policies, promising in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 2 that "whenever I meet with economic leaders from around the globe, my message will be clear: Those who question the benefits of market-oriented reforms should come to Brazil."

Discussion of the urgency of reimposing capital controls, however, reached the point that Finance Minister Antonio Palocci felt obliged to publicly reject any such idea. With Snow at his side, Palocci babbled that the free float of the real has brought "extraordinary" results to Brazil.

In an Aug. 3 discussion, Lyndon LaRouche reiterated his warning that the financiers are out to break up Brazil, and capital controls are precisely the kind of measure they "kill" over.

The discussion of capital controls surfaced in a big way at an Aug. 1 seminar in Sao Paulo. The "heavyweight" cited calling for controls was Mr. "Fiscal Shock" Netto himself, but his proposal was for minimal Chilean-style controls, only requiring speculative capital to stay in the country for some designated period of time, or pay a penalty. Other economists of national stature, including Luiz Gonzaga Belluzo, proposed more comprehensive controls which would give the government a basis to control all capital entering or leaving the country, and thus the capability of carrying out an autonomous economic policy.

Neo-Con Hatchetman Noriega Ousted

Neo-conservative hachetman Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, announced on July 29 that he will be leaving his office come September. The immediate reason for his resignation, purportedly, was the appointment of GOP Congressional staffer Caleb McCarry as "transition coordinator" for Cuba, taking a favorite issue away from Noriega. The New York Times July 30 implied that the McCarry appointment was just a way of forcing Noriega out, after "senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said that they have been upset by Mr. Noriega's outspoken attacks on Mr. Chavez even while others in the department have been trying to reduce tensions between the United States and Venezuela."

Noriega's head was on the chopping block after the U.S. was unable, for the first time ever, to get its first two choices for Organization of American State (OAS) General Secretary approved by the rest of the region. Noriega had played the issue, in great part, as a fight against Venezuela, too.

Right-Wing Cardinal Pushes Civil War in Venezuela

Venezuela's Rosalio Cardinal Castillo Lara predicted a "bloodbath" in Venezuela, in his latest media appearance, on Miami's Channel 41. Castillo, who is now retired, said, "I'm not forecasting, I say that it will be a bloodbath and I pray everyday to avoid it." A month ago, in an interview with the Caracas paper El Universal, he stated that the only way out of President Hugo Chavez's "communism" was to apply Article 350 from Chavez's Bolivarian Constitution, which mandates any citizen to overthrow any government which violates said Constitution. Since then, Chavez has attacked him savagely, in a way that caused the whole Venezuelan Catholic Church gather in his defense.

Castillo's El Universal call was issued, as avowed synarchist Alejandro Pena Esclusa, a supporter of Spaniard Blas Pinar's new fascist international, was releasing his book, titled "350: How to Stop Castro-Communism in Venezuela." In it, Pena Esclusa explains how to organize general civil disobedience, promoting Franco's uprising against the "communist" republic in Spain as the model for Venezuela today. No major paper from Caracas paid attention to Pena, but now he is taking Castillo's statement to organize events around his theme, advertising, "Cardinal Castillo said he's not the one to explain how to implement Article 350, so I'm telling you how."

The radical opposition is calling for a massive abstention from municipal elections Aug. 7, to call international attention to what they claim is not an impartial electoral institution. In his last interview, Castillo endorsed that view, repeating that this is the reason why he foresees a bloodbath.

Chavez Tries to Change the Agenda

While Argentina is fighting to include reform of the "international financial architecture," on the agenda of the Nov. 3-4 Summit of the Americas, which Argentina is hosting, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez suddenly declared that the real issue over which to fight, is whether or not Cuba's Fidel Castro is invited to attend. Cuba has been excluded from the Summits of the Americas, held every four years since 1994, on grounds that only "democratic" governments can participate. "If Cuba doesn't go ... no one should go," Chavez told Uruguayan and Venezuelan businessmen in Caracas on July 26.

Nothing could suit the Bush Administration neo-cons more than to have Cuba and Castro become the center of distraction.

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