In this issue:

Mexico's Presidential System Under Attack

Powell Blocks Brazil-Bashing Over Nuclear Plan

Brazilians Rally in Defense of Uranium Technology

LaRouche: What Kerry's Policy Should Be Towards Cuba

Guatemala: Case Study in the Results of Rejecting LaRouche's Strategy

An al-Qaeda Link to Central America's Gangs?

From Volume 3, Issue Number 41 of EIR Online, Published Oct. 12, 2004

Ibero-American News Digest

Mexico's Presidential System Under Attack

Led by Congressman Manuel Camacho Solis—whom EIR exposed in 1994 and 1995 as a tool of George Soros against the Mexican Presidential system—and Soros's favorite Mexican Presidential candidate Jorge Castaneda, war has been launched on Mexico's Presidential system. From Sept. 27 to 30, Camacho Solis presided over a four-day seminar called "Democratic Governability: What Reform?", held in the Chamber of Deputies, and attended by politicians, businessmen, and religious leaders. Organizers of the seminar and the press report that consensus was reached that "major surgery" in needed on Mexico's political system, because the era of Presidential systems is over.

The real issue, as Castaneda has been screaming for the past year, is that under the existing system, nationalist forces have been able to block the IMF's final dismantling of the nation. Castaneda participated with gusto in Camacho's seminar.

Both "left" and "right" agreed on the alleged urgency of "refounding" the government, only disputing whether to go for a straight parliamentary system or a "semi-presidential" one. PRD honorary head Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a possible Presidential candidate for 2006, spoke up for a "semi-presidential" system, as did President Fox's Government Secretary Santiago Creel, a PAN party Presidential hopeful. Former Ambassador to the UN Adolfo Aguilar Zinser insisted that "the time has come for Mexico to shake off its presidentialist history, and that we move towards a parliamentary system."

Camacho Solis demanded that concrete reforms be drawn up before the first Congressional session of 2005 opens next February. Now on the agenda is everything from creating the post of Prime Minister, to instituting a second-round vote for the President, reducing the number of Congressmen, and rectifying the "hole" in the Constitution which does not permit action, should Congress fail to approve the government's economic package.

Powell Blocks Brazil-Bashing Over Nuclear Plan

Secretary of State Colin Powell repeatedly stated during his quick Oct. 4-6 visit to Brazil, that the issue of inspections of Brazil's new uranium-reprocessing facility is a matter between the IAEA and Brazil, and not with the United States. In his joint press conference with Foreign Minister Celso Amorim following their Oct. 5 meeting, Powell rejected a reporter's statement that Brazil refused to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into its plants, and stated: "We have no concerns about Brazil moving in a direction of anything but peaceful nuclear power, ... and in creating their own fuel for their power plants. There is no proliferation concern on our part." He did say that the U.S. would hope, that in due course, Brazil would sign the additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but he also insisted that Brazil's discussions with the IAEA have nothing to do with those of Iran or North Korea.

This is in sharp distinction to the hype from other circles, that the U.S. must make Brazil buckle to any and all demands on its nuclear program, in order to crack Iran.

Brazilians Rally in Defense of Uranium Technology

Brazilian scientists report that the new centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment, developed in Brazil, uses only 5% of the energy consumed by U.S. enrichment centrifuges, and is more durable. Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, one of the architects of Brazil's uranium enrichment program, told the Financial Times of Oct. 5, that "the Americans have much more sophisticated technology, but the simple design and low manufacturing cost make ours cheaper to produce and operate." Jornal do Brasil reported Oct. 6 that Brazilian scientists say their technology requires, only 530 Kwh to produce one kilo of 4% enrich uranium, while the U.S. gas diffusion process requires 13,250 Kwh to produce the same kilo.

Dismissing the rumors spread by anti-proliferation activists in Washington, that the IAEA believes that Brazil got its centrifuge-enrichment technology from Pakistan, Pinheiro pointed out that while European and Pakistani centrifuges "rotate on a mechanical device, ours are magnetically suspended ... an entirely different technology."

Brazil's reprocessing plant has been stalled due to its dispute with the IAEA over how—not if—inspections are to be carried out. Getting this program operational is an "economic necessity" for Brazil, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stated in his joint press conference with Colin Powell Oct. 5. "Brazil is a country of continental dimensions. We cannot relinquish any form of energy. Brazil has large uranium reserves, and it is natural that we don't want to send our uranium abroad to be enriched, to then return to Brazil. That is an absurdity." The next day, Tribuna da Imprensa reported Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos's assessment, that in 20 years, 25% of the world will be powered by nuclear energy, and Brazil could be one of only six countries which could supply the fuel for the reactors. "We cannot lose this opportunity."

Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association director Edson Kuramoto pointed out to Jornal do Brasil (Oct. 6) that a world fossil-fuel supply crisis looms. Rich countries are working on developing hydrogen vehicles, and nuclear energy is how hydrogen, and energy, will be produced. "We cannot remain behind."

LaRouche: What Kerry's Policy Should Be Towards Cuba

Interviewed by WPFW-PACIFICA's Ambrose Lane on Oct. 1, former Democratic Party Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche was asked by a caller what would be his position on Cuba, were he President. LaRouche referenced Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's discussion of war and peace in a Sept. 30 debate with George W. Bush, and concurred with Kerry that, "there is a better way to solve a problem, than going to war. There always is a better way. But you've got to get the other guy to go along with it, the opposition to go along with it, but that's the effort you have to make.

"I know a lot about Cuba, and I know a lot about Castro, things I probably won't bother going into now. But there's no reason that we should continue our present policy toward Cuba. We have in South and Central America—and Castro's a part of this process—we have relics of the left and right version of the fascist movement, which was then controlled by the Nazis, which was deployed against the United States from about 1935 into about 1944.

"For example, you had a threat of a Nazi-directed invasion of the United States by Mexico, which was prevented largely by the victory, naval victory, of the United States at Midway. But you have still to this day, right-wing Nazis, who are a very powerful force, although a minority force, in Mexico, and in other countries in South and Central America. Castro, like Chavez, represents the left wing of that kind of phenomenon. But if we, together with our friends in these countries, and other countries, decide that we're going to have a long-term peaceful resolution of the conflict with Castro, I think we can pull it off.

"I've studied Castro carefully over the years. I think we can pull it off. I think that Kerry, [potentially] as President, has at least the brains and the instinct to pull it off, if he doesn't get too much pressure from the wrong side in the Congress and the Republican Party," LaRouche said.

Guatemala: Case Study in the Results of Rejecting LaRouche's Strategy

U.S. officials identify Guatemala as the leading transshipment point for Colombian cocaine being sent to the United States, the Washington Post reported Oct. 6. The estimated 150-200 tons a year moving through the country, an estimated 10% of which stays there, have wreaked havoc on the country. Much of the drugs consumed domestically are distributed through the gangs—known as maras—who also are the assassins for the narcotraffickers. Local use of crack cocaine is soaring, providing a major source of income for the maras, and making their actions even more brutal. Guatemalan Attorney General Juan Luis Florido told the Post that the drug crisis is "a matter of national security for us and for the United States."

A retired U.S. Army colonel active in U.S. policy-making towards Ibero-America told EIR Oct. 7 that, in his view, "Guatemala is going down the tubes. It's almost a lawless territory in its entirety. You can't walk down the streets of Guatemala City. You can't drive anywhere and expect to be safe anywhere. There are millions and millions of people out on the streets trying to sell everything from Chiclets [chewing gum], to cars and refrigerators." And the Guatemalan government is "virtually ineffective.... The whole of Central America is in deep, deep, deep trouble, not just because of the drugs. But the drug thing is really fueling it," he said.

Had Lyndon LaRouche's 1985 proposed 15-point war plan against the drug trade been adopted, this crisis would not exist. In 1986, LaRouche, working with patriotic U.S. and Guatemalan military circles, designed a pilot project, called Operation Guatusa, to demonstrate how his war plan could work. Follow-up on LaRouche's plan was sunk by the Iran-Contra team of Lt. Col. Oliver North, then-Vice President George Bush, and Nestor Sanchez.

Now, Washington is "taking a fresh look" at the need to "put a modest amount of money" into spare parts and enhancing Guatemala's maintenance capabilities for its intercept aircraft, U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Hamilton told the Washington Post.

Attorney General Florido responded that more than spare parts are needed. Guatemalan anti-drug police have one army helicopter, and it's in poor shape. Police aircraft have such old windshields you can't see out of some of them! Guatemalan planning official Hugo Beteta warned that more than half the population is younger than 18, and most of them have no chance to get a job. Poor youths see two choices: migrate to the U.S., or join the drug trade, he said. "And if you get tough on migration, what is left for them?"

An al-Qaeda Link to Central America's Gangs?

U.S. intelligence is incapable of knowing whether or not there is a tie between Central America's gangs and al-Qaeda, a retired U.S. military source knowledgeable about Ibero-America told EIR on Oct. 7.

On Sept. 28, the Washington Times ran a lead story on how al-Qaeda is making contact with the maras, criminal gangs which began in El Salvador, but now operate throughout Central America, Mexico, and the United States. The story was based on reports from unnamed law enforcement officials, who say that al-Qaeda is seeking help from the maras in infiltrating the U.S.-Mexican border. Various news media have since picked up the story.

Asked what he thought about the story, the source was emphatic: "We don't have good enough intelligence to say definitively one thing or another about the situation. You can only guess, and the guess that you make, in some cases, is not even educated.... Our intelligence apparatus is just incapable of getting that kind of information." But the maras are "really, really scary," he said.

The maras initially developed as a highly-organized criminal structure in El Salvador, when Salvadoran youth, who had been recruited into gangs in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities during their exile from the civil war of the 1980s, were deported back to El Salvador after the 1989 "peace" accord arranged by the Bush I Administration. Because the Central American "peace" accords brought no economic development, but only more free trade, a giant black market in weapons, and thousands of unemployed former guerrillas and former soldiers, the drug trade has had a field day. Today, some estimate that there are 60,000 members of the maras in Central America. According to a study by the executive director of El Salvador's Anti-Drug Commission, 51.9% of them are between 11 and 15 years old! Another 46.1% are between 16 and 25 years old.

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