Ibero-American News Digest

Spain's Cheneyac in Mexico to Campaign for the PAN

George Shultz's buddy, the former Prime Minister of Spain and leading Synarchist mouthpiece Jose Maria Aznar, arrived in Mexico last week to campaign for the candidate of the ruling PAN Party, Felipe Calderon, and to rail against the "evils of populism" fermenting in Ibero-America. In an explicit violation of the Mexican Constitution, which prohibits foreigners from involving themselves in the internal affairs of Mexico, Aznar attended a PAN political event on Feb. 21, and called on Mexicans to vote for Calderon in this year's July 2 Presidential elections, because the PAN represented the hope for change in Mexico. He was giving a speech at the PAN national headquarters at the time.

The opposition PRD Party immediately denounced Aznar's comments as an unacceptable violation of Mexican law, and the political coordinating council of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies met Feb. 22 and voted, despite PAN opposition, to call on Government Secretary Carlos Abascal to expel Aznar from the country for violating the constitution. Eduardo Andrade, spokesman for the opposition PRI Party, drew an important historical parallel between the PAN's turning for support to representatives of those who would return Mexico to control of its former colonial rulers, with its predecessors, "who offered the throne to Maximilian" in the 1860s.

All the PAN government did, in the end, was to "inform" Aznar—as he was leaving the country—that he shouldn't intervene in Mexican political affairs.

Security Crisis Escalates in Northern Mexico

On a single day, Feb. 13, three police chiefs were assassinated in the state of Nuevo Leon—all in broad daylight, in very public areas. This was one day before Mexican President Vicente Fox visited Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, and fulminated impotently about how "indignant" and "angry" he was at the crimes.

One of those murdered was from the municipality of San Pedro Garza Garcia, a wealthy suburb of Monterrey where many oligarchs, bankers, and drug capos live, and where ex-Mossad private security companies have numerous clients. A second was killed in Sabinas, Hidalgo, which is very close to Nuevo Laredo, the scene of a tremendous amount of drug violence: 30 killings so far this year.

The general sense in media accounts is that this is drug-related violence, but there are no specific leads. The government line is that this is gang warfare, because of the expanding domestic market for drugs, a shocking 20% increase nationally in the last year. Other states similarly hit include Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora, Guerrero and Michoacan.

Argentine-Uruguay Dispute Targets 'Presidents' Club,' Mercusor

The South American "Presidents' Club" and Mercosur are the real targets of the Argentina-Uruguay "environmental" dispute. As the dispute has escalated over the issue of Uruguay's building of two cellulose plants across the Uruguay River from Argentina's Entre Rios province, a growing chorus of unsavory individuals in both countries is using the real problems in Mercosur (Common Market of the South), to suggest that the customs union, an important element in the integration initiatives now under discussion in the region, is no longer viable.

There are calls inside Uruguay for the Tabare Vasquez government to pull out of Mercosur altogether, or alternatively, to become an associate member, like Chile and Bolivia, in order to have "more rights and fewer obligations." Uruguay's former neoliberal President Jorge Batlle argued recently that the problem is that Mercosur members haven't accepted globalization and opened the customs union to the world economy. A free-trade agreement with the U.S. is posed as Uruguay's best option, and there are indications that the Vasquez government has already initiated talks with the Bush Administration in this regard. Finance Minister Danilo Astori is a firm proponent of this option.

On Feb. 24, the Organization of American States' Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza agreed to mediate between the two governments. But the situation remains tense. President Nestor Kirchner wants to take the dispute to the International Court at The Hague, for which he has received Congressional backing. Protests on the Argentine side have shut down two binational bridges into Uruguay, and caused economic hardship to that country. Uruguay's PIT-CNT labor federation warned Feb. 23 that diplomatic relations between the two nations could be broken at any moment, and called for labor leaders of both countries to meet to try to resolve the situation. More evidence is surfacing also on Greenpeace's role in provoking violence and hyping unfounded fears of environmental pollution.

Synarchist Pawprints All Over 'Environmental' Clash

There is a huge stink of manipulation behind the Argentine-Uruguayan border conflict. Greenpeace is one of the key organizers of environmental protest inside Argentina against Uruguay's plans to build paper pulp plants in Fray Bentos, across the Uruguay River from Argentina. Its major argument is that the two foreign companies involved, Spain's Ence and Finland's Botnia, will use Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) technology, and pollute the river and the environment, and pose health risks to the population on both sides of the river.

But note: The Uruguayan daily La Republica points out Feb. 22, that in Australia, Greenpeace has awarded ECF technology its "silver medal" as the second least-polluting option for cellulose production after TCF, or Totally Chlorine Free. Several environmentalist websites point to Greenpeace's role in encouraging the use of ECF in Australia and Indonesia. So what's the problem in Uruguay?

Synarchist pawprints are all over this conflict. Playing into Greenpeace's antics are the foreign promoters of monoculture tree production (such as the U.S. forestry giant Weyerhauser), whose expansion has degraded soil quality and displaced traditional Uruguayan crops in recent years. Uruguayan authorities appear to have bought into these globalizers' promises of great economic benefit from the plants' construction, such as jobs. But said "benefits" for the quiet town of Fray Bentos include major real estate projects such as luxury hotels, three shopping malls, two superstores, and a privately owned casino to service the company executives and foreign officials who are expected to frequent the area once the plants are completed.