IBERO-AMERICAN NEWS DIGEST
Rumsfeld Calls for Supranational Military Force for Western Hemisphere
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proposed the creation of a supranational military force for the Western Hemisphere, at the 5th Defense Ministerial Meeting of the Americas, held in Santiago, Chile Nov. 18-22. The utopians have been trying to create a regional military force for decades, but Ibero-American nationalists always blocked it. Senior Defense Department officials accompanying Rumsfeld in Santiago told reporters that this time, "We have done a lot of homework ahead of time"; have "put some serious thought into it, and looked into some serious resourcing issues"; and have had extensive inter-agency discussions to come up with "real substantive proposals" on how to set up "broader regional capabilities."
Rumsfeld flew down to deliver the message personally, before leaving for the NATO summit in Prague. "Narco-terrorists, hostage takers, and arms smugglers operate in ungoverned areas, using them as bases from which to destabilize democratic governments," he said in his speech opening the Ministerial. He put two initiatives on the table: one for regional naval cooperation that "could potentially include cooperation among coast guards, customs, and police force"; and a second, to integrate the hemisphere's specialized peacekeeping capabilities "into larger regional capabilitiesso that we can participate as a region in peacekeeping and stability operations." He specified in an interview with the Chilean daily El Mecurio, that the latter initiative would target the "unoccupied parts of countries" where terrorists and the like operate, specifically mentioning Colombia, and linking the proposal to similar efforts for Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines.
Comments by Rumsfeld and other U.S. briefers made clear that the Caribbean, Central America, and the Triple Border area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil would, along with Colombia, also be immediate targets for the "stability force."
Brazil Justice Minister: Moon Cult Still Under Investigation
On Nov. 12, Brazilian Justice Minister Paulo de Tarso Ribeiro informed the Senate Parliamentary Investigatory Committee (CPI), which is looking into possible illegal activities by NGOs operating in Brazil, that the Federal Police are investigating charges against a number of NGOs, such as the Canadian-based FOCUS, which is trying to block Brazilian soy farming. "There are other cases," the Minister added, "such as that of Rev. Moon's cult, which was acquiring land in an irregular fashion in [the state of] Mato Grosso, which are being investigated.... If there are illegal acts, they will be punished under the law."
Brazilian authorities began a full-fledged inquiry into Moon's operation to establish a giant no-man's-land straddling the Brazilian-Paraguayan border in Mato Grosso, in 2001. The Justice Minister's statement makes clear the investigation is live, and at the highest levels of the government. The Justice Ministry in Brazil functions as an Interior Ministry, with overlapping functions with those carried out in the United States by the Attorney General's office.
The first witness called to testify on NGOs before the Senate CPI in May 2001, was EIR correspondent Lorenzo Carrasco. In his testimony. Carrasco detailed the activities of Prince Philip's Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in attempting to thwart Brazil's development, as exemplary of the danger to the nation from unregulated NGOs.
The Justice Minister's statements were reported in the Senate Journal of Nov. 13.
CFT Man Smears LaRouche with Menges Brush; Demands Establishment 'Work with' Lula
In a recent New York Review of Books article, Kenneth Maxwell, the British Brazil "expert" who heads up the Council on Foreign Relations' Latin American Program, insisted fervently that the United States can, and must, work with Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, because Lula can be roped into staying with the system. Those who argue that the "red tide" swept Brazil in this past election are wrongjust as it is, also, "an exaggeration to call this vote a rejection of the Washington Consensus and neoliberalism," Maxwell asserted wishfully. Maxwell goes so far in his promotion of Lula, as to compare him to "another ex-union man" of simple tastes with popular ties, elected with a huge number of votes: Ronald Reagan!
Maxwell savages the idiotic line coming from the Moonie nut Constantine Menges, that Lula's election as President brings to power the narcoterrorist Sao Paulo Forum and sets up a new "axis of evil" in the hemisphere among Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Lula. Maxwell cites the Oct. 27 letter sent by House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde to President Bush (see USA DIGEST), raving about the danger that Lula could create a nuclear-armed "axis of evil," as exemplary of how far this line has gone. He also reports that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (owned by Richard Mellon Scaife) recently attacked CIA head George Tenet as "Lula's greatest benefactor," because he allegedly failed to recognize the danger of a Lula Presidency, and to head it off.
Maxwell attempts to drag Lyndon LaRouche into Menges's Moonatic campaignwhich LaRouche's publications denounced from the outsetwith the clear desire to cut off LaRouche's growing influence within Brazil, and within Lula's Workers Party. Maxwell protests that no one in Brazil even knew what the Sao Paulo Forum was, but when he went to track back "the origins of this anti-Lula campaign, I find it begins with no less an 'authority' than Lyndon LaRouche, whose webpage asserts: 'The Sao Paulo Forum has very high-level sponsors inside the financial and political establishment of the Americas, in the form of a Washington-based think-tank founded in 1982 by David Rockefeller, McGeorge Bundy, and others, known as the Inter-American Dialogue.'"
Maxwell footnotes this most interesting of quotes to chose, to the Nov. 10, 1995 EIR article by Valerie Rush on the ties between the Sao Paulo Forum and the Dialogue, directing people to the LaRouche website where it is available.
Lula To Visit Argentina, Chile; Then on to Washington
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva has announced he will visit Argentina on Dec. 2, and continue on to Chile for a brief visit. On Dec. 10, he will meet with President George W. Bush in Washington. Lula's spokesman, Andre Singer, said the President-elect had decided to accept Bush's invitation, when the U.S. President phoned to congratulate Lula on his election victory on Oct. 27. Other members of Lula's team pointed out that Argentina, considered "a strategic partner" for Brazil, was chosen by the incoming President as the first foreign country he will visit, in order to signal the foreign policy priorities of his Administration.
Chavez Move vs. Police Drives Caracas Toward Armed Conflict
On Nov. 16, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the 8,000-strong police force of the nation's capital Caracas placed under direct control of the national government, and out of the hands of the city, whose government is controlled by an outspoken leader of the opposition, Mayor Alfredo Pena. To enforce the order, Army and National Guards units were deployed in and around police stations, some of which have refused to accept their new command. Opposition protesters immediately surrounded the heavily armed troops which were, in turn, surrounding these police stations.
The city police force is now split, creating the live possibility of shooting between the divided security forces, in the context of the escalating clash between the forces supporting the Chavez regime and those supporting the opposition.
The first person Chavez named to head up the revamped police force refused the post, saying he remained loyal to the police chief appointed by the Mayor. The second, Gonzalo Sanchez Delgado, is a leader of one of the Bolivarian Circles, the squadristi mobs being organized and armed by the Chavez regime, according to the reports of two Venezuelan dailies. Fire-bomb and grenade attacks were carried out Nov. 17-18 on the headquarters of the Globovision television station and union, business and Church buildings associated with the opposition.
As the situation spiralled out of control, the drug-tainted, globalist Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Cesar Gaviriaproud recipient of the Moonie Washington Times' "International Leadership Award" in May 2002continued his vain efforts in Caracas to get government and the opposition to settle their differences through some unprincipled "consensus," satisfactory to "the international community," but without relevance to the nation itself, the latter equally ignored by both Chavistas and opposition.
Meanwhile, indicating the underlying economic disaster in the country, food sales in Venezuela are projected to have fallen by a whopping 13% over the course of 2002, according to the Venezuelan Chamber of Food Industries. Food sales dropped by 6.2% in the first half of 2002. Food prices rose 34% from January to October 2002.
Ecuador Presidential Candidate Promises To Continue Dollarization; Bring in Blue Helmets
Former Lt. Col. Lucio Gutierrez, leading in the polls for the Nov. 24 run-off Presidential election in Ecuador, travelled to Miami, Washington, and New York in the first week of November, to sell his services to "the powers that be." Gutierrez led a military/Indian coup in January 2000, which was reported by U.S. intelligence services to have received funding from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, and is active in Teddy Goldsmith's World Social Forum's fraudulent "anti-globalization" movement. His main pitch while in the United States was that he would not buck Wall Street.
Shedding his military uniform, he argued his coup was different from Chavez's, because his was bloodless. He promised that he would continue the dollarization program imposed upon Ecuador under the Clinton Administration; that he would negotiate a new accord with the IMF; and, that he would invite in United Nations "blue helmets" to police the Colombian-Ecuador border, and help "mediate" with Colombia's narcoterrorists. In short, Lucio Gutierrez put himself forward as the man who could implement Wall Street's "Grasso Abrazo" in Ecuador, with dangerous consequences for the entire Andean region. Lyndon LaRouche, upon hearing this report, reiterated his warnings that dollarization and Blue Helmets are the death of a nation.
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