Ibero-American News Digest

LaRouche To Address Mexico's STUNAM Nov. 9

EIR News Service has issued an open invitation to join in a dialogue that members of the Workers Union of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM) will be holding with international economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche on Nov. 9, in an audio-video hookup between the United States and Mexico City. This meeting will be co-sponsored by EIR and by Federal deputy and engineer Agustin Rodriguez Fuentes—STUNAM General Secretary—for the purpose of putting urgent political and programmatic solutions for Mexico, Ibero-America, and the world, on the table for discussion.

LaRouche will present his strategic evaluation on "The Significance of the U.S. Situation for Mexico," and his live intervention will take place in the STUNAM auditorium in Mexico City, at 10:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in the United States. The dialogue will be broadcast worldwide in both English and Spanish (www.larouchepub.com and www.larouchepub.com/spanish).

Kirchner To American Heads of State: 'Neoliberalism Has Failed'

At the opening session of the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata Nov. 4, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner issued a biting denunciation of the "Washington Consensus," the neoliberal policies that the financial oligarchy imposed on Ibero-America in the 1990s. "Today, there is empirical evidence of the failure of these theories; our region is evidence of that failure.... [T]he horrific consequences of the policies of structural adjustment, tragically, outline the map of Latin American instability." It is time, he said, for the Presidents of the region "to stop speaking in a soft voice and speak loudly."

"Trickle-down economics" has demonstrably failed, Kirchner said. As a nation, Argentina must take responsibility for having adopted those economic policies, "but we want the international lending agencies to also do so." At this point, the Hemisphere's heads of state applauded—even George Bush politely did so. Kirchner denounced the IMF, not for refusing loans to Argentina, which the country doesn't want; but for refusing to refinance its debt unless it accepts the conditionalities "which are none other than those which lead to our [debt] default."

The Argentine President then pointedly addressed the United States, whose governments, he said, had in the past allowed policies which caused "misery, poverty, and democratic instability" in the region. Echoing the point that Lyndon LaRouche has made repeatedly, he called on the United States, as the world's only superpower, to exercise "responsible leadership" in Ibero-America. "The market alone cannot reduce existing levels of poverty.... We must create, produce, and export goods and services, and leave behind blind and exclusive faith in the market." What is needed is "a new strategy of sustainable growth and development for the region," Kirchner emphasized.

Kirchner never mentioned the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by name, but warned that "just any kind of integration is of no use to us, but only that which recognizes diversities and asymmetries among the region's economies."

LaRouche Youth Bring Cheney Campaign to Americas Summit

"I still can't believe that these ideas have made it all the way here," said one astonished reporter as he encountered the LaRouche Youth Movement contingent, which arrived in Mar del Plata, Argentina on the morning of Nov. 3 for the Summit of the Americas, and immediately began distributing the "LaRouche to Cheney: Get Out Now!" press release to everyone they could find at the International Press Center: the international press, Argentine government officials, Presidents and Foreign Ministers of the rest of the Americas.

As accredited EIR correspondents at the summit, the three LYM members had a focussed message: "Our organization is working hard to oust Dick Cheney from the Vice Presidency in the United States, because this is necessary in order to create a New Bretton Woods system, and develop the nations of the Americas."

Argentina Repudiates Bush, Free Trade

Much of Argentina shut down in protest over President George Bush's presence in the country. and in repudiation of free trade, paralleling the rejection of free trade in the summit negotiations themselves. The decision on the text of the final declaration had to be left in the hands of the Presidents who met in plenary Nov. 4, because none of the other negotiators who've been meeting during the week, including Foreign Ministers, could come up with a consensus document.

Given the post-Cheney era, Lyndon LaRouche recommended that the Ibero-American leaders simply repeat to Bush, Dick Cheney's infamous statement to Sen. Patrick Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate: "Go f*** yourself!"

EIR's contacts in outlying provinces report that the scope of the protest in Argentina is unprecedented in recent Argentine history, and in no way is limited to the usual crew of Jacobin "globalizers" who gathered in Mar del Plata. Several cities in the interior of the country had held "pots-and-pans" demonstrations, and other forms of protest Nov. 4. In both the capital city and province of Buenos Aires, and the provinces of Entre Rios and Rio Negro, teachers engaged in a work stoppage. The Argentine Workers Federation (CTA) called a national day of protest which was backed by state sector workers in the courts and many government offices. At 11:00 a.m., those who went to work protested by draping Argentine flags on state-run offices and buildings, and showering one section of downtown Buenos Aires with confetti.

Brazil Keeps Paying and Paying, and Owing and Owing

During the first three quarters of 2005, the Lula da Silva government of Brazil extracted a whopping 86.5 billion reals—some US$38.7 billion, and the equivalent of 6.1% of Brazil's GNP—through its "primary budget surplus" imposed upon the Federal and state governments and state sector companies. This far surpasses the "savings" they were supposed to extract over the entire year, to meet the official goal of a primary budget surplus of 4.25%.

"Primary budget surplus," calculated as government revenues minus all expenditures except for debt payments, is IMF's currently favored conditionality to force governments to guarantee ever-increasing flows of government revenues are skimmed off the top for debt payments, before anything else gets paid.

Yet, despite the record gouging of the economy, it was not sufficient to meet the government's interest payments over the same period, which totalled 120 billion reals—US$53.7 billion!—26% more than in the same period the year before. That increase came almost entirely due to interest rates, because 54% of the debt is tied to the SELIC (benchmark interest rate). The Brazilian government paid a record 14.4 billion reals—over US$6 billion—in interest in September, alone.

Peruvian 'Nazi-Communist' Humala Endorses Morales for Bolivian President

Retired Peruvian Lt. Col. Ollanta Humala, a former military attache in South Korea, Presidential candidate of the ethno-fascist Peruvian National Party, and brother of jailed insurgent Antauro Humala, gave an interview to the foreign press corps in Lima last week, endorsing fellow cocalero/candidate Evo Morales for the Presidency of neighboring Bolivia.

The synarchist Humala movement in Peru has been exposed by EIR as supported by Spain's Franco-ite fascists, and modelled on the Italian Fascisti; its collaborators have been directly linked to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's infamous Operation Condor death squads. The movement calls for drug legalization, and poses as an "indigenist/nationalist" alternative to "corrupt government."

In his interview, carried by international wires Nov. 2, Ollanta Humala says that Latin America as a whole "is undergoing a crisis of its political systems," and that Bolivia, teetering on the edge of total political and social chaos, "has not escaped that reality." While avoiding direct comparisons between Morales' political campaign and his own, Humala acknowledged meeting with Morales earlier this year, and that they share opposition to coca eradication.

One of the effects of the Humala movement in Peru is to feed into U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's pretext of regional "ungovernability" to justify multinational intervention, and analysts are already commenting that a Morales victory in Bolivia could fuel greater indigenous backing for Humala in Peru in next year's elections.