In this issue:

Left-Synarchist Magazine in Brazil Trots Out Dennis King To Attack LaRouche

Israeli Arms Dealers Caught Arming Narco-Militias in Colombia, Laundering Money for al-Qaeda

Rocket Explosion a Blow to Brazil's Space Program

Brazilian Air Force Investigates Possible Sabotage as Cause of VLS Explosion

South American Infrastructure Requires Government Credit

Zacatecas, a Stunning Example of the Dislocation Wrought by NAFTA

Fraudulent Report by 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' Sets Peru Up for New War

Chavez Threatens To Bring Out the Guns, as Recall Referendum Moves Forward

From Volume 2, Issue Number 36 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Sept. 9, 2003

Ibero-American News Digest

Left-Synarchist Magazine in Brazil Trots Out Dennis King To Attack LaRouche

The August 2003 issue of A New Democracy, a monthly magazine describing itself as the voice of the class struggle in Brazil, sports a front-page article attacking Lyndon LaRouche as a fascist, under the title "Another CIA Group Infiltrates Brazil." The ostensible reason for the article, is that "the LaRouchist scheme ... today dominates a good part of the intellectual leaders of the national nuclear sector." To back up this (true) statement, however, New Democracy quotes from the article, "The LaRouche Organization and the Brazilian Nuclear Sector," which is hardly "new news," as it was written some time ago by long-time Brazilian "Get LaRouche" operative Mario Sergio Paranhos de Lima Porto. The publicity given in 2001 (by the Nuclear Energy Association of Brazil and in the Brazilian Senate), to EIR's book exposing the British Crown's Worldwide Fund for Nature is among the proofs of LaRouche's influence in Brazil cited by A New Democracy, as is maverick politician and now Congressman Dr. Eneas Carneiro's support for Lyndon LaRouche.

And who is the source for the oh-so-leftist A New Democracy's screeching that the influence of "fascist CIA agent" LaRouche must be taken seriously in Brazil? None other than the favorite pothead scribbler of the U.S. neo-conservative war-mongers, the Smith Richardson Foundation's Dennis King, and his 1989 book, Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism.

No one serious believes the crazy, lying inventions of Dennis King, but A New Democracy's decision to run a major attack on LaRouche, using King's lies, identifies the dirty U.S. connections which are behind King, as the source of this would-be slander. The U.S. intelligence networks behind King et al., would seem to be running amok in Brazil right now.

Israeli Arms Dealers Caught Arming Narco-Militias in Colombia, Laundering Money for al-Qaeda

The Organization of American States (OAS) issued a report in January of this year, detailing an Israeli gun-running scheme to the paramilitaries in Colombia, linked to the cocaine trade. The same Israeli ring, based in Guatemala, was also involved in diamond deals with al-Qaeda in Africa.

The whole sordid affair was scarcely noted until the Daily Star of Beirut ran an exposé on Aug. 15, after a Guatemalan court issued arrest warrants on Aug. 8 against three Israelis—Shimon Yelinek, Ori Zoller, and Uzi Kissilevich—accusing them of using phony Panama end-user certificates to ship enough weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to arm six battalions. The Daily Star noted, "An exhaustive report on the scandal ... by the General Secretariat of the OAS ... links the Israeli arms dealers with Lebanese arms brokers in West Africa allegedly involved in guns-for-diamonds deals that helped fund Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network." The links to al-Qaeda ran through Yelinek, who had dealings with Samih Osailly, a Lebanese arms dealer, arrested in Belgium in 2001, who was involved in gun-for-diamond deals with the Sierra Leone Revolutionary United Front (RUF) faction. Osailly is under investigation, as well, for diamond deals with al-Qaeda, via Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan linked to the 1998 Africa embassy bombings.

The Guatemalan arrest order came within days of the arrests in New York City of a ring of weapons smugglers, who were caught in an FBI sting when they tried to sell a Russian surface-to-air missile to an undercover operative. Among the men named in the Newark, N.J. indictment was a Brooklyn-based gem dealer, Yehuda Abraham, an Afghan Jew said by sources to be linked to Russian Mafiya gun traffickers, including Victor Bout.

Rocket Explosion a Blow to Brazil's Space Program

Brazil's efforts to develop an indigenous rocket launch capability hit a new setback on Aug. 22, when one of the four engines on the Brazilian-developed VLS rocket being readied for an upcoming launch, ignited unexpectedly. The resulting explosion and fire was so intense that it totally destroyed the rocket, the two research satellites which were to be its payload, and the launch pad. Brazil lost a fifth of its space program team, as well, in the fire: Eleven of the country's most qualified space engineers, and 10 technicians, were killed. Reconstituting a team of that quality will take three to four years, the director of Brazil's Aerospace Technical Center, Brig. Tiago Ribeiro, told Istoe magazine (Sept. 3 issue).

The cause of the ignition of the rocket engine, as the VLS sat on its launch pad at Brazil's Alcantara Launch Center three days before its scheduled Aug. 25 lift-off, is still under investigation. All final pre-launch tests had just been concluded, without a single problem being detected.

The president of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), Luiz Bevilacqua, immediately pointed to budget cutbacks as one possible cause. The accident could have been avoided, if the Brazilian government had made greater investments in the space program over the last 15 years, he said. The space program must be treated as a priority. "Space technology is vital for Brazil. Either we master this technology ... or we are going to continue to depend on the good will of other countries to obtain data from space, or pay a fortune to those countries which have satellites in orbit." AEB's budget for this year—of which only a small percentage has been disbursed—is 35 million reals (around US$12 million), when what is needed is R$102 million, according to Bevilacqua.

Brazil has remained committed to developing an indigenous launch capability, despite years of intense international pressure to shut it down from the United States and other "advanced" nations dominated by the evil utopian nuts for the past two decades. This story is told in the cover story of the spring 2002 issue of LaRouche's 21st Century Science & Technology magazine, on "Boosting Ibero-America into Space."

Two previous attempts to launch the VLS failed, in 1997 and 1999, but the Aug. 22 explosion caused the first deaths in Brazil's effort to send a rocket into space.

The program will continue, an emotional President Lula da Silva emphasized at the ceremony on Aug. 26 honoring those killed in the explosion. Continuing their work "is the way to pay homage to them," he said. We will continue the mission, "so as to keep alive their memory."

Brazilian Air Force Investigates Possible Sabotage as Cause of VLS Explosion

Officially, the Brazilian government has said that the possibility of sabotage is remote, but according to the latest issue of one of Brazil's leading weeklies, Istoe, among Air Force officers, sabotage is considered as one of the most probable causes of the sudden, unexplained ignition of one of the VLS's four rockets as it sat on the launch pad on Aug. 22.

Military officers investigating the explosion were startled to find that there were a surprising number of foreigners, many of them Americans, checked into the hotels of Sao Luis, the city where the Alcantara space center is located, at the time of the explosion. At least eight of those foreigners are now under investigation.

The most plausible hypothesis, should sabotage have been the cause, say Istoe's sources, is the application of a foreign agent to the rocket, such as a microwave ray or electromagnetic waves. "An electromagnetic wave could be fired from a small apparatus, or even from space, from some satellite," suggests scientist Edison Bittencourt, a professor at Brazil's Aerospace Technical Center.

Russian specialists arrived in Brazil on Sept. 4, to help Brazil in its investigation of the explosion.

South American Infrastructure Requires Government Credit

Brazil's President Lula da Silva continued his South American "integration" diplomacy, with a visit to Peru on Aug. 24-25, followed by a visit to Venezuela. In his first eight months of office, the Brazilian President has met more South American heads of state, and signed more proposals for vital infrastructure projects and trade cooperation with Brazil's neighbors, than any of his predecessors, and this trip was no different.

Lula brought seven Cabinet ministers with him to Peru. A framework free-trade accord was signed between Peru and Mercosur, a step towards Peru gaining the status of associate member of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) which Bolivia and Chile already enjoy. Also discussed, was how to complete at least two of the cross-border Peru-Brazilian transport routes identified in the ambitious South American Regional Integration Initiative (IIRSA) for the physical integration of the South American continent.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the accord "opens a path to the real integration of South America." Peruvian Foreign Minister Allan Wagner called the accord "the most important event in the last 30 years of Peruvian foreign policy," ensuring Brazil and Peru would henceforth support each other, rather than always looking in opposite directions.

Despite the enthusiastic statements, however, President Lula maintains his delusion that private investors will put up the monies to finance the infrastructure projects, which are properly the job of governments to build. Should the infrastructure projects depend solely on public monies, Lula told the IVth Brazil-Peru Business Forum in Lima, during his visit, they would probably remain on paper forever. "We discovered that there is no [public] money for these projects, and we have tasks of even greater priority in social areas."

Zacatecas, a Stunning Example of the Dislocation Wrought by NAFTA

Half of the population of the Mexican state of Zacatecas now lives in the United States, according to the Governor of the state, Ricardo Monreal. The majority of the immigrants left because they could find no work at home. Today, they send back $2 million a day to Zacatecas, more than the funding the state receives from the federal government.

Zacatecas is one of the six Mexican states located in the Great American Desert whose economy would be transformed from a wasteland into a powerhouse, able to provide good quality jobs to its current population and more, should U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche's proposal to green this desert on both side of the borders be implemented (it was outlined in the May 9, 2003 EIR).

On top of this monstrous dislocation of human beings which the murderous policy of free trade has brought about, a potentially dangerous political instrument against Mexican sovereignty is now being constructed.

Governor Monreal has modified the state's Constitution, to allow Mexicans living in the U.S., including American-born children of those Mexicans who may never have even lived in Mexico, to run for local office in their once-home state. He projects that up to 30% of the state's mayoral candidates in next year's election could be candidates working in the United States.

There are even bigger plans afoot, raising the question: Are the U.S. Republican Party and Mexico's Vicente Fox government cooking up a NAFTA government? The Washington Post, in covering this story on Aug. 26, featured as an advocate for the Monreal policy Carlos Olamendi, a California businessman influential in the Mexican migrant community in the U.S.—who is a Republican working on the Schwarzenegger campaign. Olamendi, who was among a group of Mexican-Americans who met with Fox's Interior Minister Santiago Creel in mid-August to discuss migrant issues, told the Post that because Mexicans abroad "keep the Mexican economy afloat," it is only a matter of fairness that they should determine its political direction, too.

Fraudulent Report by 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' Sets Peru Up for New War

Peru's so-called "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (CVR), set up at the beginning of the administration of Alejandro Toledo purportedly to investigate the terrorist violence which tore Peru apart for 20 years, beginning in 1980, issued its final report on Aug. 28. Generously financed, to the tune of $13 million, by such foreign NGOs as George Soros's Open Society, the MacArthur Foundation, various UN agencies, as well as the U.S. State Department through AID, the report is a gross cover-up of the evil Synarchist project for which Peru was a test-tube case. While it is forced to admit that the savage Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists were the "immediate and fundamental cause" of the violence unleashed beginning in the early 1980s, attributing to Sendero blame for 54% of the 69,000 deaths the report claims took place over 20 years, the report hastens to add that the "institutions of the state," (the Armed Forces and police) were responsible for 44% of deaths, and therefore as guilty as Sendero.

The Truth Commission, whose members toured the U.S. earlier this year, thanks to Soros's Open Society, has never been anything but an apologist for the narcoterrorist slaughter in Peru, and a vehicle to facilitate the revival of Sendero, promoting now-"repentant" terrorist leaders who say they want to return to society and form political parties. The report's special animus for security forces is undisguised, claiming that the military and the police engaged in "systematic or generalized practice of human rights violations," and displayed "authoritarian" tendencies. Not surprisingly, what the CVR report chooses to emphasize about former President Alberto Fujimori, is not his successful war against Sendero, but the "criminal responsibility" it claims he and his intelligence advisers bear, for "murders, forced disappearances, and massacres perpetrated by the so-called 'Colina' death squad."

Nowhere in the nine-volume report, which took two years to produce and includes 171 conclusions, is there even any mention of Sendero Luminoso as a "terrorist" organization! The report's conclusions, including the 69,000 figure, have provoked astonishment, and protest, by sectors of Congress, political leaders, media, and business leaders, among others. However, Soros's Human Rights Watch, the Argentine Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and Jesuit Gustavo Gutierrez, founder of Liberation Theology, warmly praised the report's findings.

Chavez Threatens To Bring Out the Guns, as Recall Referendum Moves Forward

The newly chosen Venezuelan electoral council, appointed by the Constitutional Committee of the country's Supreme Court, is in the process of examining the text of the recall referendum petition which was submitted, along with 2,700 signatures, last February, at the end of the national civic strike against the Hugo Chavez government. The text is being challenged by the Chavez government, because the signers call directly for the referendum, instead of appealing to the Electoral Council, as the proper legal entity to convoke the referendum.

The opposition insists the text is in "the spirit of the law," but the Chavistas are fighting tooth and claw against anything that might allow the recall referendum to proceed.

The new five-person electoral council, installed along with 10 alternates on Aug. 26, includes two for Chavez, two for the opposition, and a supposedly neutral fifth man who is said to be linked to the head of the Supreme Court Ivan Rincon, whose power Chavez unwisely threatened in the past. It is, in fact, rumored that the Electoral Council will rule this week in favor of the referendum, which will then give it 30 days to examine the signatures for legitimacy, and to set a date for the referendum.

Both the Carter Center and the OAS rushed to send their congratulations to the new Electoral Council, and are offering money and assistance in carrying out the referendum, prompting an enraged Chavez to warn that he will "not accept an imposed referendum."

Indeed, Chavez has been appearing at military and Armed Forces reserves events around the country, outfitted in his Lt. Colonel's camouflage uniform, warning that the "oligarchy" is still threatening his revolution, and calling on the Armed Forces to choose whether to side "against the representatives of the oligarchy, or against the representatives of the people." One month ago, in an assembly of his political movement, Chavez repeated the same threat from his speech last year at the World Social Forum event in Porto Alegre, Brazil, that if the oligarchy threatens his revolution, "the machine guns will sound."

Chavez is readying his Jacobin hordes for just such a possibility, organizing the First World Meeting of Indigenist-Peasant Peoples and Movements, to be held in Venezuela on Oct. 12-13. Representative of the characters he has invited is Evo Morales, the Jacobin head of the coca-farmers of Bolivia who came close to seizing the Presidency of that country earlier this year.

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