In this issue:

LaRouche Comments on South American Community of Nations

Is Bush Pushing for a Return to Rightwing Military Regimes In Ibero-America?

Opposing Rumsfeld, Brazil Insists Security Requires Social Justice

Synarchists Prepare Humala To Be a New Hitler for Peru

Bolivia Blows Up Again, After Gas Price Hike

First FARC Leader Extradited to the United States

Who's Trying to Set Off Religious War in Argentina?

Ibero-American News Digest

LaRouche Comments on South American Community of Nations

Interviewed by Argentina's Radio Nacional Cordoba on Dec. 30 on its "Proyecto Nacional" program, hosted by Hector Gomez, American statesman Lyndon LaRouche was asked how he viewed the South American Community of Nations, which was founded this past Dec. 9 in Lima, Peru.

"This was an interesting idea, to have a federation, that is, a confederation of sovereign nation-states of the southern part of the hemisphere," LaRouche responded. "This is the sort of thing that I proposed years ago, back in the time of the Malvinas War [1982], when I thought that such a proposal for reform, an economic, monetary reform, was necessary, and that the future of this part of the hemisphere would depend upon that.

"The idea is a good one." He cautioned, however, "The question is, is the design of the idea effective? Secondly, is there going to be a break and a change in the international monetary system? — because under the present monetary system, this kind of thing will not work."

Gomez requested a "message for the people of Argentina, and to the people of Cordoba, because I know you are a friend of the people of Argentina."

"Well, I am," LaRouche replied. "And I'm very much concerned for our friends in Argentina and for the country as a whole. Remember, this was once a great nation in terms of prosperity for its people. It was a leader in scientific and technological progress in the region. In Patagonia and so forth, there are tremendous resources for development. And therefore, Argentina's cooperation ... with other nations in the region could in a sense organize again a great nation emerging over a period, let's say, of a quarter-century, a period of one generation. And that's what I would hope we were able to do.

"If we can win a change in the international monetary system, along the lines I'm pushing, that will be possible. If I'm still in a position of influence in the United States, that will happen."

Is Bush Pushing for a Return to Rightwing Military Regimes In Ibero-America?

A well-informed professor at a U.S. military academy told EIR in mid-December that what he had heard about the discussions at the Nov. 17 VI Defense Ministerial of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador, indicated to him that there would be a move by the Bush Administration to back a series of rightwing military coups in the region. Consulted on this evaluation, a South American military officer based in Washington, D.C., but with access to the discussions in Quito, responded adamantly: "That's right."

Most of the discussion was behind closed doors, but U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's carefully worded public stance reveals the intention. Under the banner of "fighting terrorism," Rumsfeld marched in with two demands:

1. The military in the region must play a role in domestic law enforcement, and police forces deployed with them. Several South American countries banned any such domestic military role in the aftermath of the 1970s military governments. The Bush team argues that the time has come to reverse this. Nor is the United States excluded from this dictatorship drive: In his public address to the summit, Rumsfeld cited the United States's own "reexamination of the relationships between our military and our law enforcement responsibilities" in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, as exemplary of what is needed.

2. A standing, inter-American military force must be created to police the region. Rumsfeld cited as important steps forward the recent PANAMAX exercises, in which nine nations of the Americas held joint naval "anti-terror" exercises around the Panama Canal, and the Ibero-American forces making up the UN peacekeeping force operating in Haiti. Colombia officially proposed the Rumsfeld plan at the meeting.

That the policy is to create a force of jackals to level the ground for the economic hitmen, was essentially admitted by a senior U.S. defense official travelling with Rumsfeld, who briefed reporters on Nov. 17: "This bodes well for a free-trade agreement.... Security is what creates the conditions for investment."

Opposing Rumsfeld, Brazil Insists Security Requires Social Justice

South American military sources report that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ultimatums were shot down at the Quito Defense Ministerial, as Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, and Venezuela lined up behind Brazil's opposition to him. Brazilian Vice President Jose Alencar, nine days after also becoming Minister of Defense, delivered a point-by-point answer at Quito to Rumsfeld's demand that the Ibero-American military and police be turned into domestic and regional strike forces against "terrorism." Alencar declared:

*Brazil is opposed to expanding the powers of the Inter-American Defense Board beyond the role for which it was originally designated: "a technical-military advisory body to the Organization of American States, without operational functions."

*Nations must respect the principles of international law; Brazil condemns any unilateral use of force internationally.

*Each state has the sovereign right to set its own national priorities of security and defense.

*The battle against terrorism must be carried out within the framework of "strict observance of international law, especially humanitarian law and the universally recognized basic freedoms. The fight against terrorism, to be effective, must transcend merely repressive aspects, driving against certain situations of exclusion and injustice which feed—but in no way justify—extremist attitudes. There is no political security without economic security, and there is no sustainable economic security without social justice."

Synarchists Prepare Humala To Be a New Hitler for Peru

What lay behind the decision of former Peruvian Army Major Antauro Humala to lead a force of 160 reservists in seizing a police station in the remote town of Andahuylas, Apurimac in Peru on New Year's Day? Humala, who, along with his brother Ollanta, heads up the "ultranationalist" Ethnocacerist Movement, proclaimed that they would not capitulate, until President Alejandro Toledo, whom they denounced as corrupt and a sell-out to Chile, resigned. By Jan. 4, the uprising, in which four policemen were killed, had been crushed, and its perpetrators arrested.

Humala's terrorist action was no silly suicidal act, however, but a well-prepared propaganda coup. Since Jan. 1, the Synarchists of right and left in Peru have launched a concerted campaign to transform this overt fascist into the national savior who can save Peru from the manifest incompetence of the Toledo government. Leading the campaign, are the Mont Pelerin Society's friends of Spanish Franco-ite Blas Piñar in Peru, who control the national daily, La Razon. These are the interests which EIR Online documented as leading the Humala Hitler project, in the article on "The Friends of Blas Piñar Send the Andes Up in Flames," in July 2004, issue #27.

On Jan. 2, under the dramatic headline, "I'm Prepared to Die, Says Autauro Humala," La Razon published an exclusive, front-page interview which Humala had given the daily before setting off to seize the police station. After his arrest, the daily ran page after page of articles building up Humala, under such headlines as "They Betrayed Humala," "They Want Him To Die in Jail!," "Antauro Mistreated," etc.

The danger represented by this new Hitler project was seen in the protests held in support of Humala's armed action in the cities of Puno, Cusco, Arequipa, and Tacna; the largest rally occurring in the latter city, which borders on Chile, where 1,500 military reservists turned out. In recent months, the Humala movement has begun recruiting in the universities of Peru. Actively participating in this latter endeavor has been Fernan Altuve, one of La Razon's leading commentators, a Mont Pelerinite and member of the board of Blas Piñar's Argentine magazine, Maritornes.

The fascist Humala reiterated his ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's project, in an interview with EFE news service just prior to his surrender. Humala compared himself to Chavez and to Ecuador's Lucio Gutierrez, both of whom used coup attempts to garner popular support, upon which they rode into the Presidency. Chavez and Gutierrez "represent a generation of officers who seek to extirpate the corruption of the military class that has come out of the School of the Americas in Panama, run by the U.S.," he said, calling himself and his fellow insurgents "middle-level officers who want to put an end to the moral collapse of the old generation of Latin American military officers who are linked to the drug trade and other war crimes."

Bolivia Blows Up Again, After Gas Price Hike

Raising the gasoline price by 10% and fuel oil price by 23% in Bolivia at the end of 2004, under current circumstances of deep poverty, was guaranteed to provoke a reaction. Radical Jacobins in the leadership of the labor movement, as well as oligarchical separatist forces in Santa Cruz and Tarija, are taking advantage of the situation, demanding the immediate resignation of President Carlos Mesa, and nationalization of the country's oil and energy resources. A major upheaval is threatened for early next week.

On Jan. 4, transportation workers went out on a 24-hour strike in most parts of the country, blockading some primary access routes as well as the country's major east-west highway. The head of the Bolivian Labor Federation (COB), Jaime Solares, has called for another strike for Jan. 10, which has been backed by other civic organizations, as well as by indigenous terrorist Felipe Quispe, whose links to Peruvian fascist Antauro Humala are currently under investigation.

Bolivia's Interior Minister Saul Lara was correct in charging Jan. 4 that those demanding Mesa's resignation are out to destabilize the government. The MNR Party of deposed President Sanchez de Lozada is one element in a political grouping that is conspiring to oust President Mesa, he said. The heads of civic associations in the southeastern cities of Tarija and Santa Cruz, as well as the Eastern Agricultural Chamber (CAO), are also loudly demanding the President's resignation. Notably, this more prosperous region of Bolivia, where oil resources are located, is a hotbed of separatism.

First FARC Leader Extradited to the United States

Oligarch Ricardo Palmera (alias Simon Trinidad), the Harvard grad who worked as a banker before joining the Colombian FARC terrorists, became the first FARC leader to be extradited, on Jan. 1, 2005. He faces charges of drug trafficking, kidnapping, and supporting terrorists.

Nayibe Rojas Valderrama, alias "Sonia," is the next likely candidate. The U.S. has requested her extradition, based on intelligence gathered by a DEA official who infiltrated the FARC and documented her coordination of drug-trafficking activities and cocaine sales to prominent international traffickers. Captured last February, "Sonia" is currently jailed in Bogota, and awaits a Supreme Court decision regarding the U.S. extradition request. The U.S. is also seeking several other FARC leaders.

Who's Trying to Set Off Religious War in Argentina?

An orchestrated conflict has been set off in Argentina between synarchists of the left and right, sparked by graphic public pornographic displays defending homosexuality and abortion, and denigrating Pope Paul II and the figures of the Virgin Mary and Christ. At a time when Argentina is struggling with its own existential crisis, caused by the IMF's looting and illegal foreign debt, these incidents have provoked violence and stirred up a dangerous passions nationwide.

Neofascist Antonio Caponnetto, a board member of Spanish fascist Blas Piñar's Argentina magazine, Maritornes, and Gustavo Breide-Obeid of the Popular Reconstruction Party (PPR), the leading member of Blas Piñar's revived Fascist International, are in the thick of this conflict. Posing as defenders of "family values" and the true Catholic faith, they charge that the government of Nestor Kirchner, whom they accuse of being a godless Marxist, has made such obscenity a "policy of state." This echoes the same charges synarchists used to help overthrow Juan Peron in 1955.

Typical of the set-up, is an "art" exhibit by one Leon Ferrari on display in Buenos Aires, which includes statutes of the Pope and Virgin Mary performing sexual acts, holding condoms, etc. The display is so offensive that the Cardinal Primate of Argentina, Msgr. Jorge Bergoglio, called for a day of prayer to be held Dec. 8 against it. Although the exhibit was temporarily shut down, a judge ruled Jan. 2 that it can reopen. A right-wing group linked to Caponnetto has already sent in goons to smash some of the statues.

Caponnetto wants blood; he denounced Cardinal Bergoglio for calling on Catholics to "turn the other cheek" in response to the sculpture. Msgr. Bergoglio "confuses the asceticism of the cheek with the legitimate asceticism of the whip," whose use is justified against "the most nefarious adversaries of Christianity," he raves. Bergoglio suffers from a "Gandhian" complex, Caponnetto charges, and has thus become cowardly. Instead he should submit to the "robust semantics of Christian militancy...."