From Volume 37, Issue 47 of EIR Online, Published Dec. 3, 2010

Ibero-American News Digest

Mexican Indigenous Conference Supports the PLHINO

Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Mexican indigenous organizations held a "Forum in Defense of Water" on Nov. 20, in Vicam, Sonora, which endorsed the proposed PLHINO (Northwest Hydraulic Plan). Organized by the Yaqui Communities of Sonora (which are part of the Pro-PLHINO alliance of that state), the event brought together 400 people, mainly from indigenous groups from the states of Jalisco, Durango, Chihuahua, Michoacan, the State of Mexico, and Chiapas, as well as international observers from Spain and France. Representatives of the embattled striking Cananea miners union were also present.

LaRouche movement and pro-PLHINO leader Alberto Vizcarra delivered a ten-minute speech to the gathering, in which he not only promoted the PLHINO and the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) projects, but also blasted British financial interests represented by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and their Mexican agents, including Carlos Slim (the world's richest man) and José Luis Luege Tamargo (the head of Mexico's National Water Commission). This triad, he said, wants to incarcerate us in the fatalist ideology that natural resources are running out, and that therefore, wars over their control are inevitable.

Vizcarra said it was not enough to complain about the "bad government"; we also have to organize for "good government" projects such as the PLHINO and NAWAPA. The most effective way to reverse the damage produced by the NAFTA free-trade accord, is by an alliance among Mexico, the United States, and Canada to build NAWAPA.

The inroads of LaRouche's ideas among indigenous activists and environmentalists—whom the British and their assets had previously considered their sole playground, has led to predictable hysteria on their part. The Nov. 22 Expreso newspaper, which circulates throughout the state of Sonora, for example, attacked the speech delivered at the event by Yaqui leader Juan Álvarez, with the silly slander that, because he had dared to argue that water should not be treated as a commodity to be speculated with, but rather as a productive economic input, it had to have been written for him by Alberto Vizcarra. The only thing missing from the speech, the Expreso article said sarcastically, was that "he didn't mention Lyndon LaRouche."

Argentina Sticks It to the Budget Cutters

Nov. 24 (EIRNS)—Argentina's 4.6 million retirees will receive a 500-peso bonus ($125) at the end of this year, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced today. "This is a very important effort," she said, "particularly if we see this in the context of a world in which we hear talk of adjustment and eliminating benefits"—a clear reference to the IMF's policy for Ireland and elsewhere.

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