Ibero-American News Digest

Merkel Makes Herself Persona Non Grata in Mexico

Were Angela "Locust" Merkel to ever became Chancellor, German-Mexican relations might collapse. At the initiative of PRI Senator Adrian Alanis Quinones, on Sept. 27, there was a discussion on the floor of the Mexican Senate of Merkel's remarkable suggestion, published in her book, My Path, that if the United States wishes to pressure Europe to permit Turkey to join the European Union, it should first admit Mexico "as one of the states of the U.S. federation."

Alanis initially proposed that the Mexican Senate pass a resolution calling upon the Mexican Foreign Ministry to send a diplomatic note to Germany protesting Merkel's statement. While that step was not taken, members of the PRI, the PRD, and even from the PAN, protested her remarks on the Senate floor. PRI heavyweight Dulce Maria Asuri, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the Mexican government should press German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for an explanation to Mexico of Merkel's remark. PRD Sen. Antonio Soto slyly suggested that in addition to any government protest, the PAN could use its excellent ties with right-wing parties and groups around the world to demand the neo-con Merkel explain herself. PAN Sen. Fernandez de Cevallos called her remarks crazy, saying no Mexican could accept such a barbarous proposal, but his fellow party member, Sen. Cesar Jauregui, defended Merkel on the revealing grounds what she really meant, was that the U.S. should permit Mexico to be an active member of the North American free-trade block!

La Cronica, in reporting the Merkel flak on Oct. 3, described Merkel's book, as "a kind of political testament which is reminiscent, at least in form, of Mein Kampf, which Adolf Hitler wrote in his day."

LYM to Mexico: Don't Tie Your Future to Cheney-Bush

In a mass leaflet calling on Mexicans to listen to Lyndon LaRouche's Oct. 12 webcast, the LaRouche Youth Movement suggests smart Mexicans take courage from the Cheney-Bush meltdown in Washington, and change course.

"These developments in Washington are of the utmost strategic importance for Mexico, and other nations of Ibero-America. They open the door to saving our nations from otherwise assured destruction under the collapsing IMF system," the LYM leaflet states.

"U.S. statesman and former Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche explained: 'With the global financial system in a state of terminal collapse, neither the United States nor the rest of the world can survive much more of this Bush-Cheney fiasco.... The time has come to tell the President and Vice-President to go quietly, for the sake of the nation, and also, like Nixon, to avoid the legal consequences of continuing to attempt to 'tough it out'....

"What does this mean for us in Mexico and for Ibero-America? One thing it means is that Bush machine operatives such as Carlos Salinas de Gortari—who are run by the same bankrupt and desperate international financiers who control the Cheney-Bush government—are living on borrowed political time. Those political candidates in the upcoming Mexican Presidential election who have struck a Faustian deal with Salinas and his masters—are there any who have not?—would be smart to look a little more closely at what is happening in Washington. Their masters' political machine is disintegrating.

"It also means that, if Mexico is to reverse more than two decades of economic devastation under the policies of IMF looting and free trade, we must ally with the bipartisan political forces headed by Democrat LaRouche in the United States, to replace the entire defunct international financial system with a New Bretton Woods. The Kirchner government in Argentina has just added its voice to those internationally—like the Italian Parliament—calling for a New Bretton Woods.

"As former Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo stated in 1998: 'It is now necessary for the world to listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche.' "

Rozental-Castaneda Duo Still Trying To Sell Out Mexico

Mexico's infamous step-brothers, Andres Rozental and Jorge Castaneda, both made pilgrimages to Washington in the last three weeks. Castaneda, the former Foreign Minister turned political wannabe (his Presidential bid having fallen flat, he's now set his sights on becoming Mayor of Mexico City), snuck in and out of Washington quietly around Sept. 23, to brief a dinner of Wall Street heavies organized by JP Morgan, on his view of the state of Mexico and Ibero-America today.

Rozental, wearing his current cap as the head of the Mexican Council of Foreign Relations, was in town Oct. 6 and 7, to promote a new report, "The United States and Mexico: Forging a Strategic Partnership," co-authored by the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations and the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center. The report was presented officially to the U.S. Congress on Oct. 6, at an event held in a small conference room in the Capitol's basement, secured by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas). Reyes, however, did not even stay for the presentation.

The report may be new, but the "strategic partnership" they are proposing is not: It comes down to Kissinger's old idea, which Mexico has resisted since President Jose Lopez Portillo, of handing Mexico's oil over to the oil cartels, under the cover of a free-market oil and gas alliance among the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Rozental cited the high price of oil as the latest motivation for this old policy. "The idea is to use the resource oil today, rather than keep it underground, because these high prices probably will not occur again," said Rozental. The Heritage Foundation's Stephen Johnson, invited to comment, was supportive of the initiative, but the other invited commentator, Peter Smith, professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego, noted that the proposal was part of the reforms imposed on Mexico "on the insistence of the international organizations," whose promises for solving poverty and backwardness have yet to fulfilled after two decades. The proponents of this latest scheme have yet to show people how their "oil partnership" would be any different, Smith remarked.

EIR Again Heard on La Paz Television

EIR's Dennis Small was on television in La Paz, Bolivia on Oct. 4 for over 90 minutes, on the "Bolivia Is Viable" show, hosted by Anibal Aguilar, and broadcast on University TV Channel 13. This was Small's third interview on that polemical program in the last few months. This latest program focussed on Lyndon LaRouche's analysis of the post-Katrina economic and political effects in the U.S. and globally, and the hope which Cheney and Bush's potential political demise opens up for Bolivia, and its desire to develop, finally, into an industrial state.

Small and Aguilar discussed the role of technology, President Franklin Roosevelt's successes, and the concepts underlying the American System of economics, in how to bring this about.

Bolivians, who got a taste of hyperinflation in the early 1980s, are frightened by LaRouche's shock-wave analysis of the hyperinflationary explosion underway globally. To provide the conceptual tools to understand LaRouche's analysis, "Bolivia Is Viable" showed EIR's now-famous schematic graphic of the plane breaking the sound barrier, as well as a brief video-clip of an actual supersonic jet which is visibly producing a conical shock front in the clouds it is moving through. In this context, the ongoing disintegration of the Bush-Cheney Administration in Washington, and what this means for nations such as Bolivia, and for avoiding the oligarchy's plan for permanent war in South America, were discussed.

Aguilar showed EIR's "Moon over Parana" map (see EIR Online #36, Sept. 6), and asked about the U.S. military base in Paraguay and the role of the Moonies in particular. He explained to his audience that Rev. Moon was anything but a Christian, showed a picture of Moon being crowned at some ceremony, noted that Moon had been involved with the Garcia Meza "cocaine colonels" coup in Bolivia in the early 1980s, and added that the Moonies were involved in various strategic ports in Chile. Small used the opportunity to review the role of Prince Philip's Worldwide Fund for Nature, along with the Moonies, in targetting the nation-state and deploying against development.

LaRouche's upcoming Oct. 12 webcast was repeatedly announced on the air, while the website address was shown on the screen.

Chile Defends Itself with Speculation's Proceeds

Chile is using the funds from its exports of copper, whose price has increased due to wild hedge-fund speculation, to offset increases in gasoline, kerosene, and benzine prices—also due to hedge-fund speculation! On Sept. 29, Chile's state oil company ENAP announced that, as previously indicated by President Ricardo Lagos, price increases for gasoline and other fuels wouldn't be as high as originally anticipated, thanks to the "stabilization fund" built up by revenues from Chile's large copper exports. Beginning Oct. 3, the prices for gasoline and other petroleum derivatives will increase by "only" between 19 and 25 pesos. The percentage increase for the cheapest kind of gasoline is 3.6% (or 19 pesos).

A Chilean trade union source commented to EIR on Sept. 30, that since the majority of Chileans are poor, any price increase will cause hardship.