This article appears in the March 11, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this article]

Iberoamerica Briefs

Former Brazilian President Rousseff: NATO Expansion Left Russia No Choice

In a lively, wide-ranging Feb. 26 interview with Brazil247 TV, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff—ousted in August of 2016 by a color-revolution coup organized by London and Wall Street bankers—gave an historical tour de force, explaining the West’s betrayal of Russia. She spoke of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, leading to the expansion of NATO right to Russia’s borders and the U.S.-orchestrated 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine. The interview appeared under the headline, “Coup in Ukraine and NATO Expansion Explain the War.” She documented the promises made to Russia by former Secretary of State James Baker III, among others, that NATO would not move “one inch” to the East. At the end of the Cold War, she said, the policy in terms of NATO was, “the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.”

Rousseff asserted that in the years following1999, it was clear that NATO went from being a “defensive to an offensive organization.” She pointed to the role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, which she said were “backed by the U.S. and the NSA,” repeating clearly, “the National Security Agency,” which she described as an agency that “complements the CIA in destabilizing nations.” When Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych made the decision to drop an association agreement with the EU, he became the victim of what Rousseff called a “hybrid war,” including the Maidan coup, responsibility for which, she said, rests with former U.S. President Barack Obama.

Rousseff detailed the West’s ignoring President Putin’s recent demands for legally binding security guarantees from the U.S. and NATO. Russia then found no other way to make itself heard than to deploy troops into Ukraine. But now would be the time, she said, to go back to the negotiating table. “The solution must be multilateral,” she insisted. “War won’t resolve the conflict. Why? Because it’s a political conflict.” What’s good about diplomacy is that it can create a solution “in which neither side loses.” Any solution must be multipolar, she repeated, “because the unipolar world is finished.” The interview in Portuguese can be seen here.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro Met with Putin: Economic Cooperation on the Agenda

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro began his Feb. 16 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow by announcing that Brazil feels “a sense of solidarity with Russia. We have good prospects for cooperation in various areas, specifically defense, oil and gas, and agriculture. Our government ministers are also holding meetings. I am confident that my visit to Moscow is a signal to the whole world that our bilateral relations have good prospects for growth…. We are ready for cooperation, and I would like to express confidence that this visit and our meeting will be quite productive.”

Putin said the two countries, both members of the BRICS economic bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are “working proactively at international venues. [Brazil] is the leading trade and economic partner of Russia in Latin America.”

The U.S. State Department was not amused. It had tried to get Bolsonaro, an economic liberal, to cancel the planned trip to Russia. When that didn’t work, it instructed him to focus on confronting Russia on Ukraine. An unnamed State Department official told the Miami Herald prior to the trip:

“The U.S. and many other nations are deeply concerned about the destabilizing role that Russia is playing and its ongoing threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. As democratic leaders, the United States and Brazil have a responsibility to stand up for democratic principles and the rules-based order. We hope Brazil will take this opportunity to reinforce this message in their conversations in Moscow.”

Since Bolsonaro ignored these instructions, State Department mouthpieces like Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, historic bastion of Rockefeller business interests in the Americas, have warned there will be “consequences” for such disobedience. He told the Miami Herald, “It’s not helpful to the international community to go over and lend at least rhetorical support to a dictator who’s threatening his neighbors.”

Brazil’s Monitor Mercantil Reports on Schiller Institute’s Call

One of Brazil’s most respected financial and political newsletters, Monitor Mercantil, reported March 2 on the Schiller Institute’s call for a new security architecture, under the headline, “Danger of War and an Explosion of the Speculative Bubble; Institute Defends a New Treaty of Westphalia.” It concludes by telling readers that the Schiller Institute is asking for support for its petition, and provides the link to the Portuguese-language version of the call.

The article quotes key sections of “the manifesto published by the Institute founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche,” including this:

“The City of London and Wall Street, the owners of that bankrupt system, are desperate to destroy any functioning alternative to their system—such as Russia’s and China’s alliance around the Belt and Road Initiative, which now incorporates nearly 150 nations—and the financial Establishment has openly stated that this is what is at stake.... [The Schiller Institute] calls for establishing an entirely new paradigm that would guarantee the security and economic development of all nations on the planet…. The economic system has to be completely reorganized in order to ensure that result.”

Schiller Institute Petition Featured in Mexican Alt-Media Interview

“El Mercurio, Now or Never,” an alternative media YouTube channel with a subscriber base of 132,000 extending across the Spanish-speaking world, promoted its Feb. 28 interview with the Schiller Institute’s spokesman Dennis Small, under the title, “The Nuclear Button Has Been Activated, It Is Time to Negotiate New Rules.” Over 1,000 people were watching the 54-minute interview by the end of the live broadcast, and over 10,000 views were registered by evening.

Host Antonio Valdez urged his listeners to read and sign the Schiller Institute petition, which he has done. In the three hours after the broadcast, more people had signed the petition, from Spain, Mexico, and other Ibero-American countries. Valdez posted a link to it in the “Description” section of the video, which included this characterization:

“Dennis Small asserts that, behind the very real danger of global war is the explosion of the trans-Atlantic financial system. A speculative bubble of nearly $2 quadrillion in financial derivatives and debts that is already exploding. A world-wide hyperinflationary process has been unleashed, along with a collapse of the physical economies of the Western nations. London and Wall Street, the owners of the bankrupt system, are desperate to destroy any functioning alternative to their system, such as the alliance of Russia and China around the Belt and Road Initiative, which now includes almost 150 nations, and the trans-Atlantic financial Establishment has already openly stated that that is what is at stake.”

IMF Deal Goes to Argentine Congress for OK, Gov’t Coalition Divided

Argentina has signed a $45 billion, 30-month Extended Fund Facility agreement with the IMF, to roll over the $57 billion standby agreement signed by neoliberal President Mauricio Macri in 2018. It must now be approved by Congress to become law, but there is no guarantee this will happen, given divisions within President Alberto Fernández’s ruling Front for All (FdT) coalition. Facilitated by Macri’s close friend and then IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, the 2018 agreement was a political loan granted solely to prop up Macri’s neoliberal economic policy and ensure his reelection. The loan violated the IMF’s own internal regulations, and is widely considered illegal. It is currently under investigation in the Argentine justice system.

But President Fernández and the IMF insist this agreement is different from the country’s previous 22 IMF bailouts, as it is “pragmatic” with “realistic” goals and doesn’t impose austerity or demand pension or labor reforms. It is needed, Fernández says, to stabilize the economy and create some breathing room so the economy can grow.

In Argentina, the IMF is hated, rightly so, and under current conditions of global economic disintegration, no IMF loan can be considered good. That’s why President Fernández’s recent agreement to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is so important. It offers an opportunity for Argentina to not only build its own urgently needed infrastructure and develop economically, but also to focus on what the BRI can mean for all of Ibero-America. This is particularly so, if Mexico and Brazil join with it to focus on regional economic, political, and scientific cooperation with China.

Critics of the IMF deal are missing this crucial point. As the agreement’s most vocal opponent, Maximo Kirchner—son of former President and current Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner—resigned his position as head of the FdT bloc in Congress in late January, because he disagreed with the terms of the agreement being negotiated. In a March 4 video he argued that Macri’s $57 billion loan immiserated the Argentine people and should not be repaid. All true, but Kirchner forgets that this is not a local problem. Argentina’s economic disasters were caused by the henchmen for a global parasitical casino economy. They will be resolved only by creating a global new economic architecture that values human life.