From Volume 7, Issue 19 of EIR Online, Published May 6, 2008

Ibero-American News Digest

WWF Agents in Mexican Government Move Against PLHINO

April 28 (EIRNS)—Prince Philip's Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has placed key people in charge of water and fishing in the Federal government of Mexico, from which that Anglo-Dutch genocidal hit squad hopes to block implementation of the tri-state Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), whose construction U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche has identified as critical to the economic and political security of Mexico and the United States.

One WWF agent is José Luis Luege Tamargo, director of Mexico's Federal water agency, CONAGUA. When Luege Tamayo visited the state of Sonora April 22-23, he was pressed on where the Federal government stands on building the PLHINO. He replied that nothing would be done until a "profound" environmental impact study had been carried out on the PLHINO's alteration of river flows.

Before he was named head of CONAGUA in December 2006, Luege Tamargo served as President Vicente Fox's Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (2005-06), coordinating that ministry's actions closely with the WWF. That included pushing "ecotourism" as the only "sustainable" economic activity acceptable to these oligarchs, and championing the WWF's project to restrict human activity in and around the Gulf of California—along whose eastern coast the PLHINO would run.

The WWF also seized control of the Ministry of Agriculture's National Fishing Institute (INAPESCA) in December 2006, when WWF-Mexico official Miguél Angel Cisneros Mata was named to head the institute. Not surprisingly, in March 2008, Cisneros signed an agreement for the WWF and INAPESCA to officially collaborate on research into, and "sustainable" management and conservation of, Mexico's natural resources. Specified as a priority target under this accord, is the Gulf of California. Cisneros ran the WWF's project to restrict fishing in the Gulf before being named INAPESCA head, and now it appears he intends to eliminate fishing altogether. He told California's San Diego Union Tribune (Jan. 29, 2007) that "the biggest challenge is changing the fishermens' practices.... It would be difficult for them to stop fishing from one year to the next. It has to be a gradual process."

Mexicans Demand Return to National Food Security Policies

April 29 (EIRNS)—The food crisis is so severe, that Mexican politicians who have been dutifully playing the globalization game, are changing their tune, and speaking out against handing human lives over to "the markets."

Under the title of "Food, the Forgotten Priority," Beatriz Paredes, president of the PRI party, warned in El Universal April 28, that the strategy of recent years, of leaving food to the "laws" of supply and demand, and buying food wherever it was cheapest, has done "incalculable harm to Mexico's agricultural productive base." Now, with global food prices soaring, the State must step in with "massive purchases" and timely distribution of food, and adopt the necessary public policies—unspecified—to foster national production for strategic stockpiles of the basic foods in the Mexican diet. "It is time to rectify," she admits.

The National Peasant Federation (CNC), run by the PRI party, is slamming the Calderón government, whose cabinet ministers are repeating, "Don't worry; no problem," while the price of the basic monthly market basket has risen 42% since December 2006, and malnutrition, anemia, and obesity multiply, as people turn to junk food to survive. The CNC, with the ANEC food producers' sales association, and the Rural Legislators bloc in Congress, are demanding that the government immediately move to create a strategic food reserve, give incentives to agriculture, and curb the use of grains for biofuels.

Brazil's President Wants To Wage 'War' for Biofuels

April 30 (EIRNS)—Brazilian President Lula da Silva has insanely decided to wage an international campaign in defense of biofuels, calling it a "war" that "has only just begun," and that he intends to win.

In the midst of a horrific world food crisis, in which biofuels have been attacked as a "crime against humanity," the Brazilian President is taking his suicidal stand at every forum that will invite him, to insist that biofuels are "not the enemy." In an April 29 speech, he accused the developed nations of hypocrisy, by maintaining protectionist tariffs, "to keep the rich richer and the poor, poorer." He insisted that the World Trade Organization's Doha Round must succeed in lifting all such tariffs, so that poor countries can export food and biofuels to those markets. "Stop your hypocrisy and start buying biofuels!" he bellowed.

Brazil has signed agreements with African countries, such as Ghana and Mozambique, for biofuels development, but when Lula visited the region last week to attend the UNCTAD conference, he discovered that people are more interested in eating! Daniel Abaco Mario, of the General Union of Cooperatives of Nampula (Mozambique), told the Safras wire service, "They want to do business with us, but we first want to deal with our food security and sovereignty. That is our priority." Amade Suca of the Action Aid NGO added that this sentiment can be applied to all of Africa. "Right now, production of biofuels isn't the priority. It's food."

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