Ibero-American News Digest

Mexican Counties, States Bankrupt, Leaving Narcos in Charge

July 30 (EIRNS)—At least 70% of Mexico's 2,400 municipalities—a political unit similar to U.S. counties—are bankrupt, and if Federal emergency aid is not forthcoming, governability will be called into question, the head of the National Conference of Mexican Municipalities, José Luis Durán Reveles, warned in a press conference yesterday. Flanked by municipal officials from around the country, Durán said that governments will be forced to suspend salaries for public workers, including police, and shut down basic services.

A similar alarm was raised by the chairman of the Senate Municipal Development Committee, Sen. Ramón Galindo Noriega, from the governing PAN party, who reported that a 27% drop in Federal funding for states and municipalities over the first six months of the year, combined with a collapse of some 50% of the funds the states and municipalities receive from Federal oil revenue-sharing agreements, has created layoffs, salary cuts, electricity cutoffs, cancellation of basic services, and, in some cases, municipal governments simply closing their doors altogether.

On top of all that, remittances from Mexicans working abroad fell by 12% in the first six months of the year (over the same period in 2008), and non-oil exports fell by some 25-30%. The most devastating indicator of the degree of economic disintegration Mexico is undergoing, is the end-of-the month report that there was a 6% year-on-year fall in electricity use nationally, in the first five months of the year, with a 20% drop in electricity use by large companies.

Mexico is now fighting a brutal war against the narco-armies; where government shuts down, the drug cartels move in.

Drug Czar Affirms U.S. Backing for Mexico's War on Drugs

July 28 (EIRNS)—Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, met with Mexican President Felipe Calderón on July 27 to reaffirm the United States' strong backing for the Mexican President's war against the drug cartels, and its commitment to strengthening bilateral anti-drug cooperation between the two governments.

Kerlikowske is in Mexico for four days of working meetings with cabinet ministers and other officials involved with various aspects of the war against the drug trade.

While the Washington Post ran a front-page article July 28 claiming that Mexico's anti-drug war isn't working, and that a "new strategy" is needed, Kerlikowske indicated otherwise. In a press conference with Health Minister José Angel Cordova, he rejected any notion that the government's policy has been a failure, and praised Calderón's courage and leadership.

Moreover, he said, those who suggest that negotiating with drug kingpins is an option are wrong, as the cartel leaders are terrorists and criminals. He also repeated a point he made in the U.S. last week, that legalization is not the way to stop drug distribution.

Kerlikowske also heard blunt remarks from Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, who said, in a joint press conference, "We frequently find insufficient resources and infrastructure on the U.S. side, to prosecute those who carry out low-level marijuana trafficking" from Mexico to the United States. Mexico is concerned that the United States not give up in this battle, he said, and that it increase prosecutions of these trafficking crimes. This trade, he said, is the main source of income for Mexico's violent drug cartels.

Sonora Elections: No One Wants To Take on Dope, Inc.

Aug. 8 (EIRNS)—Mexico's highest electoral court, the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation, yesterday overturned the Sonora State Electoral Tribunal's July 30 decision that it did not have "jurisdiction" to issue a finding on the charges of vote fraud against PRI candidate for governor Alfonso Elías Serrano in the July 5 election. In addition to significant evidence of overt fraud, there are credible charges of millions of dollars in drug money flowing into the state in order to throw the election.

The families of at least two members of the State Tribunal received death threats immediately prior to their finding, according to reliable local sources. As a result, the State Tribunal tried—unsuccessfully—to pass the hot potato up to the national authorities.

The Federal Tribunal unanimously found that the State Tribunal's decision was "unacceptable and illegal," and ordered it to issue a full finding within nine days, as to the validity of each of the charges.

As with the nation of Colombia in the 1980s, where no judge dared rule on cases of extradition of drug-runners to the U.S., out of fear for their lives, judicial authorities in Mexico are now being put in a similar bind. London's Dope, Inc. is heavily committed to ensure that the state of Sonora, in particular, becomes theirs.

Chávez Caught Arming FARC

July 28 (EIRNS)—Britain's "Bolivarian" project in Venezuela is tripping over itself, after disclosure that Swedish-made anti-tank rocket launchers found in a camp of the Colombian drug-running terrorist FARC, were first sold to the Venezuelan military. Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesmen acknowledge that the Swedish government has demanded that Venezuela account for how and why AT4 anti-tank rocket-launchers sold by Bofors Dynamics to the Venezuelan Army years ago, ended up in FARC hands. The Swedish statements followed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's July 26 announcement that his government had filed complaints "through diplomatic channels to the respective countries" involved.

Apparently having difficulty finding any other way to squirm out of this one, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that he was freezing relations with Colombia, had ordered his ambassador and diplomatic personnel to withdraw, and would halt all trade agreements and search for new suppliers to replace imports from Colombia, in protest over the "suggestion" that his government was involved in arming the FARC.

Investigate FARC Ties to Soros's Zelaya Project

July 30 (EIRNS)—The Honduran prosecutor general's office has opened an investigation into charges by national police officials, that supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya are receiving monies from Colombia's narcoterrorist FARC, to finance protests against the de facto Micheletti government.

Given Zelaya's allegiance to the world's biggest drug-pusher, Nazi-trained George Soros, lobbying for both Soros's drug legalization drive and his International Criminal Court, the charges bear investigation. The FARC is the world's number one cocaine cartel, exposed as a tool of Britain's Opium War and its Wall Street agents, with the June 1999 release of the "Grasso Abrazo," a photograph of the FARC's number two comandante, Raúl Reyes, smiling as he embraced the beaming then-head of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, at the FARC compound in the Colombian jungle.

Discovery of receipts and a notebook listing payoffs ranging from $2,500 to $100,000 to 14 leaders of the "popular resistance" to the Micheletti government, triggered the investigation earlier this week.

National police official Danilo Orellano stated that some of the people involved "are directly involved with the FARC, and receive money from the FARC."

Zelaya, ousted from office over a month ago, is frustrated that his international sponsors have been unable to put him back in power, while protests on his behalf inside Honduras remain small, despite his repeated calls for "insurrection." After issuing "revolutionary" threats for a week, from a Nicaraguan town on the Honduras border, Zelaya returned to the comforts of Nicaragua's capital, Managua, and then back to his international travels.