Ibero-American News Digest

Mexico's PAN Party Says No to Drug Legalization

Feb. 23 (EIRNS)—The leadership of the ruling Mexican National Action Party (PAN) has decided, that if it wants to win next July's mid-term elections, it will have to make a clean break with George Soros's policy of capitulation to the drug mafias. Featured on the PAN website's homepage since Feb. 21, is a campaign video message by Secretary General Germán Martínez Cázares, titled simply: "No to the Legalization of Drugs. We will not put Mexican families at risk."

Martínez's message is a direct answer to the legalization drive launched on Feb. 11 by the Soros-sponsored and -financed Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD), whose three co-chairs are former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI); former Colombian President César Gaviria; and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It also closes the door on the pro-legalization faction within the PAN itself, which had presented decrim legislation of its own.

The PAN stands with President Felipe Calderón in his decision to "defeat the criminals ... who want to sell drugs to your children," Martínez declared. In a clear reference to Zedillo, who lives in the United States and is an official advisor to the British government, Martínez slammed people from previous PRI governments who "suggested surrender in this fight. Others from abroad recommend drugs be legalized. We in the PAN government are not going to experiment nor put the health and security of Mexican families at risk."

Mexico Prepares To Expropriate Narco Properties

Feb. 24 (EIRNS)—Mexico's Senate will begin discussing Feb. 25 a law authorizing government expropriation of drug-traffickers' property and monies, regardless of the traffickers' nationality, with provisions for coordinating with foreign governments to expropriate any properties held abroad.

This law, five months in the making, is used around the world as a basic tool for going after the drug trade, a tool which international advisors to the Mexican government have been pressing the government to adopt. The only shocking thing here, in fact, is that no such law is on the books already.

Now, the cartels' grip on the nation's economy and institutions is such, that the bill mandates the creation of special courts to oversee the expropriations, conjuring up images of the secret courts which Peru and Colombia set up at the height of their wars against narcoterrorism, to protect the identities of judges who would otherwise be assassinated by the cartels.

Whole portions of Mexico are already controlled by the drug trade. According to today's La Jornada, government intelligence services estimate that 60% of the nation's municipal jails are run by people bought off by the drug mob. El Universal reports that at least 80 mayors in four states—undoubtedly a vast understatement—admit they have been victims of cartel extortion.

The disintegration of Mexico's economy under the free-trade regime imposed by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has facilitated the drug cartels's advance.

Representatives of rice, milk, and pork producers warned a Senate hearing Feb. 23 that should the government fail to reimpose tariffs, and stop wiping out national producers by opening the floodgates to cheap imports, hundreds of thousands more farmers will lose their jobs, while Mexicans starve. Spokesmen for the rice producers association pointed out that if the 380,000 idled hectares in just three states were put into production, 80% of national consumption could be provided for, and 3 million jobs created.

Dope Pushers Swarm Out of Soros's Sewer, the New SS

Feb. 24 (EIRNS)—The legalization call issued Feb. 11 by George Soros's Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD) was, as planned, the signal to corrupted elites across the Americas to endorse surrender to the drug mob.

In the U.S. capital today, former U.S. ambassadors Harriet Babbit and James Jones endorsed the LACDD's call to debate legalization, at a discussion on "U.S. Policy Towards Mexico: Opportunities and Challenges," held on the premises of Congress. The Mexican Ambassador had been scheduled to speak, but cancelled, because Mexico's Attorney General came into town to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Eric Holder.

The show was organized by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a quasi-governmental institution whose just-released report on U.S.-Mexican Relations ("Towards a Strategic Partnership") calls for studying decriminalization of drugs.

The Dallas Morning News today ran an op-ed by Soros agent Andrés Rozental, and Stanley Weiss, founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, in which they call for legalization, not just of marijuana, but of methamphetamines also.

Further south, Paraguay's major daily ABC endorsed the LACDD report in an editorial demanding that the government legalize marijuana, and give up "Puritan" values.

The Brazilian weekly Epoca, hit the stands this weekend with a blazing cover story: "Marijuana. Why it is necessary to debate the legalization of the drug," an eight-page drug promo based on the LACDD report. Epoca admits that marijuana is harmful, and that users have difficultly putting ideas into words. It nonetheless defends drugging people on grounds of free trade. "The Commission's conclusions follow the cold logic of numbers and the market," Epoca admits, citing one of the fathers of evil British utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, as the philosophical underpinning of this project.

But then, Epoca is part of the O Globo media empire, whose vice president, João Roberto Marinho, is not only a member of George Soros's drug commission, but was the head of the Brazilian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for many years.

Soros-Run Argentine Daily Welcomes British G20 Agenda

Feb. 24 (EIRNS)—The Argentine daily Página 12, whose editor is longtime George Soros agent and LaRouche-hater Horacio Verbitsky, today opened its pages to British Ambassador Shan Morgan, to expound on how Argentina and the U.K. "share a vision" for the G20 summit in London, on April 1-2.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his point man for the summit, Lord Malloch-Brown, have invested much time recently making sure that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is on board with the British Empire's plans to focus the summit on nothing more substantial than "reforming the IMF." Kirchner has lent herself to London's manipulation on this issue by putting herself forward as the radical reformer of existing lending institutions, rather than taking up Lyndon LaRouche's proposal to put the world system through bankruptcy reorganization.

On Feb. 13, Malloch-Brown popped into Buenos Aires for four hours to discuss these matters with Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana and Finance Minister Carlos Fernández. Then, last week, a delegation led by Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the British Treasury, followed up, meeting again with Taiana and other ministry officials to "coordinate" on the policies to be discussed at the London summit.

On April 2, the anniversary of Argentina's 1982 retaking of the Malvinas Islands, which led to NATO's declaring war against that nation, the Argentine delegation will be in London promoting the British agenda.