In this issue:

Mad-Dog Vultures: Get Rid of Argentina's Kirchner

Neo-Con State Department Official Targets Kirchner

National Banking Discussed in Argentina

Bankers Attempt To Sink Brazil Development Bank Flops

Plans for 'Northern Bi-Oceanic Corridor' Move Forward

From Volume 3, Issue Number 27 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published July 6, 2004

Ibero-American News Digest

Mad-Dog Vultures: Get Rid of Argentina's Kirchner

The synarchists' Atlas Foundation, representing the worst of the Mont Pelerinite looters, joined with the Friedrich Neumann Foundation to sponsor a conference June 23-24 in Buenos Aires, dedicated entirely to attacking President Nestor Kirchner's "populism." The conference demanded Kirchner's ouster, while extolling the virtues of the free market and insisting that the debt be paid. The Atlas conference follows one held June 16, by the co-thinker Cato Institute in Buenos Aires, which put out the same line.

The conference, which attracted a 1,000-person audience for each of the two days, accused Kirchner of organizing "street militias"—a reference to the so-called piqueteros Jacobin movement, which has mobilized the unemployed in shutting down highways, seizing buildings, etc.—of imposing state control over previously privatized companies and services, and ruining relations with the United States. Former Presidential candidate Ricardo Lopez Murphy, from the University of Chicago-backed FIEL foundation, was one of the most vitriolic speakers, implying that Kirchner was behind the "piquetero" takeovers of several McDonald's branches and a Sheraton Hotel hall a week earlier. Julio Ramos, director of the neoliberal financial daily Ambito Financiero, which has slandered Lyndon LaRouche, warned listeners to "watch out," because Kirchner has his militias in the streets, and is threatening democracy.

Former Argentine Ambassador to Washington Diego Guelar yearned for the days of "carnal relations" with the United States—the phrase used by Guido di Tella, former President Carlos Menem's Ambassador in Washington, to describe Argentina's very warm and close alliance with the United States.

Neo-Con State Department Official Targets Kirchner

In an "off-the-record" briefing given to two Argentine newspapers on June 28, the neo-con Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, hinted that the neo-conservatives in the Bush-Cheney Administration are considering going after Argentine President Nestor Kirchner as a new "Hugo Chavez," that is, as an anti-American leftist. Noriega he declared that "there are still doubts" as to the political direction of the Kirchner government, and told Clarin and La Nacion June 29, that "we're very worried" about Argentina's domestic violence. He went on to fume about the fact that Kirchner hasn't used his popularity to take "the tough measures" needed to resolve the economic crisis. He referred specifically to the debt restructuring, charging that the government "hasn't yet moved to resolve any of these problems." In contrast to Kirchner, he praised the behavior of Brazilian President Lula da Silva.

Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa blasted Noriega, and was so angry that Secretary of State Colin Powell had to call him up to try to calm the situation down. From China, Bielsa charged that Noriega had a "loose" mouth. "His opinion is inappropriate, provocative, and out of place, and shows no respect for the self-determination of peoples. It's not the first time he's spoken this way," Bielsa said. Frankly, he added, "I'm fed up with that gentleman's declarations." Bielsa said it is striking that Noriega "always uses informal settings to launch attacks on our government's functioning, which, notably, always are aligned with attacks of the same tone from the Argentine opposition."

Cabinet Chief of Staff Alberto Fernandez added that Noriega's remarks were outrageous, but said that since this wasn't the first time that Noriega had done this, "we have to consider the source" from which such remarks come, in evaluating them. That is, Noriega is a known entity.

National Banking Discussed in Argentina

A discussion of national banking is emerging in Argentina, looking at the example of Brazil's BNDES, as well as the country's own tradition of national banking. Hector Massuh, an officer of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), writes in an op-ed published in the June 18 daily La Nacion, that Argentina needs a bank like the National Development Bank (BANADE) that existed between 1967 and 1973, whose origins actually go back to the founding of the Industrial Credit Bank established in 1944. Massuh also points to the role that Brazil's Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) is playing in that country, financing infrastructure and other development projects, crucial to Brazil's future.

Most interesting, is Massuh's report that two months prior to the May 2003 election of Nestor Kirchner as Argentina's President, Kirchner met with the UIA's executive committee to discuss the issue of strategic planning for development. A particular focus of the discussion was on how to ensure that sufficient funds were made available to finance development projects, for which, Kirchner said, it would be necessary to create a development bank.

Argentina had a development bank, Massuh said, which financed thousands of projects built by small, medium, and large companies, in sectors such as petrochemical, steel, cellulose, paper, energy, cement, and aluminium, to name a few. Eventually, corruption and abuses crept into its functioning. But instead of correcting those mistakes, the bank was shut down. That, he said, was "an historic error." It would be like "abolishing medicine because of the malpractice of a few doctors ... or shutting down the Senate because there were bribes."

In Brazil, the scale of financing now being offered by BNDES is "astonishing," Massuh says. "There is not a productive project in Brazil that hasn't been financed to some degree by BNDES.... And, our great nation, large, rich in natural resources and overflowing with opportunities for progress, requires an energy similar to that which BNDES provides for Brazil's development."

Massuh said that the tone of the UIA's conversation held with Kirchner, reminded him of the remarks made by former President Arturo Frondizi (1958-1962) many years ago: "Either we continue tired and impoverished, or we stand up and defend what is ours," Frondizi had said. "We have to wage a battle against backwardness, stagnation, ... and desperation. We must root out ignorance, misery, disease and fear of the future. We have to build bridges, dams, roads, pipelines, energy plants, and factories throughout the Republic.... Argentina's wings will fly in all the heavens, and the Nation's flag will wave above all the seas, as a messenger of progress."

Bankers Attempt To Sink Brazil Development Bank Flops

Brazil's National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) announced on June 3, that the bank had decided to return to a policy of "strategic planning," and would immediately initiate a six-month project to map out which areas of the economy required government support, in order to maximize the national development which the "invisible hand" of the market had so royally failed to achieve. Public reaction to this decisive move against the "Zeitgeist" was almost nil—until last week. Wall Street used the occasion of President Lula da Silva's June 23-24 visit to Wall Street to woo investments, to attempt to force Lula to dump the head of BNDES, Carlos Lessa.

While Lula was in New York City, accompanied by eight cabinet ministers, including his Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan, Sao Paulo's right-wing establishment daily, O Estado de Sao Paulo, leaked a report that Development Minister Furlan had fired off an angry letter to Lessa, protesting that BNDES had not consulted with Furlan on the return to "strategic planning." BNDES formally functions under the Ministry of Development, Furlan reminded Lessa, and so he was required to consult. O Estado's top U.S. reporter then asked President Lula, in New York, if BNDES was not, indeed, subordinate to the Development Ministry. And, when Lula replied that indeed it is, officially, O Estado published a lengthy editorial calling for Lessa to resign.

Lula promised in New York he'd look into the reported fight between Furlan and Lessa, but said nary a word upon his return. A confident Lessa reported on June 28 that he had received no rebukes from anyone; his relationship with Furlan and the President were just fine; and "the press has resigned me more than 70 times," over the past year and a half.

In a June 29 article titled "A Lobby Against the Nationalists," Rio de Janeiro daily Tribuna da Imprensa charged that this latest attempt to oust Lessa was a move by the financiers, to knock out the nationalist faction from the government. Tribuna reports that the center of the anti-nationalist operation is the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban), working with Central Bank head Henrique Meirelles [a former Fleet Boston bank executive], with Furlan merely used as their instrument. Tribuna's view, is that the neoliberal financier faction, which so has benefitted under the last nine and half years of "market" policies, fear that BNDES's strategic planning will build up national industry, at the expense of the multinationals and financiers.

Plans for 'Northern Bi-Oceanic Corridor' Move Forward

Plans are moving forward for creation of a "northern bi-oceanic corridor" in Ibero-America, under discussion by the governments of the Central-West South American Integration Zone (Zicosur), El Tribuno reported June 25. In the Argentine city of Resistencia, governors from northern Argentina, southern Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia, met June 24 at the "Integration and Development Bi-Oceanic Railroad Corridor" conference, and signed the "Resistencia Accord," which lays out plans for the physical integration of this mid-section of South America. Zicosur includes northwestern Argentina, northern Chile, western and southern Bolivia, Paraguay, and western and southern Brazil.

The Zicosur is seeking financing from the Inter-American Development Bank, the Andean Development Corporation, and the Fonplata, for a number of infrastructural projects it has identified as vital to the region's development. The group is looking at the 4,300 km of transportation links existing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, improvement and building of railroads, roads, highways, waterways, and energy projects, as among the priorities to be financed, if real physical integration is to occur. Zicosur Vice President Walter Wayar, noted that the group is committed to moving forward on "a regional project, which not only brings us closer to Asian markets, but will also allow for the internal development of the countries making up Zicosur."

The governors agreed they would present their proposals to the heads of state of the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and associate members Bolivia and Chile), who will be meeting in the Argentine province of Misiones in July. A completed document of proposed projects will also be presented to the next Zicosur meeting in September, to be held in Tarija, Bolivia.

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