From Volume 36, Issue 42 of EIR Online, Published Oct. 30, 2009

Ibero-American News Digest

Major Hit vs. Mexican Drug Cartel Announced in Washington

Oct. 22 (EIRNS)—Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart announced today that, over the past two days, more than 3,000 Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials operating in 19 U.S. states had moved in coordinated fashion to arrest over 300 people linked to the La Familia drug cartel based in Michoacan, Mexico. Weapons, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and two clandestine drug labs were seized.

The operation, described as the largest single strike yet against "Mexican" drug cartel operations inside the United States, demonstrates what serious people within the U.S. institutions, when permitted, are capable of doing against the global drug trade run, top-down, from Britain.

The busts were the culmination of a 3.5-year investigation named "Project Coronado," in which more than 1,100 people have been arrested, including the latest 303. Dallas, Atlanta, and Los Angeles were the centers of this cartel's operations in the United States, but Holder noted that operations of the bestial La Familia extend to nearly every state in the United States. Holder emphasized that he, and other senior Department of Justice officials, have been coordinating with their Mexican counterparts.

British Royals Claim Brazil's Lula as Their Own

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—Brazilian President Lula da Silva has been chosen as winner of the Chatham House Prize 2009, beating out Saudi Prince al-Faisal and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the other nominees. The prize is awarded to the statesman deemed by members of Britain's Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year. The winner is presented with "a crystal award and a scroll signed by our Patron, Her Majesty The Queen." Lula is to receive these awards from HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, at a banquet on Nov. 5.

Lula was deemed worthy of this imperial honor as a poor boy made good, a modern-day Sancho Panza good at negotiating "consensus" around oligarchical policies, in Brazil, in Ibero-America, and in "multilateral trade and economic forums." Lula, says Chatham House, adopted "innovative and responsible economic policies that have maintained fiscal balance and avoided an increase in inflation."

Lyndon LaRouche raised the question a few years ago: Is Lula da Silva a British agent? The British Empire would appear to view him so.

Brazil Pays for Letting Cartels Run Its Slums

Oct. 18—Brazilian narcos shot down a military police helicopter over Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 17, during a three-way battle among police and two drug gangs fighting for control of one of Rio de Janeiro's gigantic favelas (slums). The incident is being investigated, but the likelihood that the drug gangs which control the favelas in several Brazilian cities have anti-aircraft weapons is sending shock waves through the governing institutions—and among the wealthy who thought they were safe by traveling in helicopters above the misery that millions of Brazilians live in. Not to mention the Lula government's concern that its portrait of Rio as a "safe" city for the 2016 Olympics will be spoiled.

After the downing, police squads began an offensive in several slums around the city, killing certain drug lords and arresting others. Some bystanders were wounded, and slum residents were thrown into of panic at what took on the colors of a civil war.

Genocide in Mexico: Electricity Workers Told to 'Drop Dead'

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—Sixty-six thousand Mexican electricity workers, who just lost their jobs at the Central Light and Power Company (LFC) liquidated by the Calderón government, have now also been told to "drop dead"—literally!

The state-run Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), which provides medical care for its affiliates, is denying any coverage at all to these tens of thousands of workers and their family members, even those requiring dialysis, urgent surgery, treatment for life-threatening illnesses, or pre- or post-natal care. All scheduled surgeries have been cancelled.

In almost all cases, the workers, who belong to the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME), have paid into the IMSS monthly for years, to guarantee they would always have access to care. Now they're being told to fend for themselves—or just find a hole to crawl into and die.

Leaders of the SME are filing a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission, and will also sue the IMSS for having cut off medical care to union members—something the government promised would never happen. The SME is documenting hundreds of cases of serious illnesses which require immediate attention, not to mention now widespread depression among workers who were suddenly kicked out of their jobs and left with nothing.

Moreover, the IMSS daycare centers have kicked out the children of electricity workers, while IMSS clinics are throwing out SME workers who were being treated for on-the-job accidents. As an emergency measure, the National Autonomous University's (UNAM) Medical School is offering to provide SME members with what medical care it can, for the moment.

Also, although the government has said that the state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will take over LFC's operations, SME president Martin Esparza points out that the government has already called in small private companies to deal with electricity blackouts or problems with LFC's substations. The stench of privatization is in the air.

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