LaRouche: Duhalde Is the Sancho Panza
of the Southern Cone
This statement was issued by the LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico and the Ibero-American Labor Committees on Oct. 5, 2005.
Argentine President Néstor Kirchner's government has just called for a New Bretton Woods to replace the IMF system—and guess who is attacking him in response? It's a situation that the great Miguel de Cervantes would have understood perfectly.
In mid-September, President Kirchner opened a new flank in his government's battle against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the speculative vulture funds, the same global financial oligarchs that have brought the world financial system into the active phase of a hyperinflationary blowout of that entire system. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 14, Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa not only criticized the functioning of the IMF, but argued for "promoting a new call for an international conference of heads of state, similar to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, to rebuild a more just global monetary and financial architecture which eliminates financial bubbles and concentrates on supporting the real economy."
The idea of a New Bretton Woods is most widely associated with U.S. economist and former Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. It is also supported by numerous international forces, including the Italian Parliament and numbers of congressmen and other political leaders here in Mexico. But in Mexico, these nationalist forces have thus far only waged a rearguard battle to stall the worst policies of privatization and looting that the Synarchist bankers are trying to impose through their puppet Fox government. They have not yet taken up the urgent necessity of allying with the political forces headed by LaRouche in the U.S., nor of replacing the entire defunct global system, as Argentina's Kirchner has done.
It is reliably reported that Kirchner not only was involved in writing the speech delivered by his Foreign Minister at the UN, but that the President had originally planned to deliver it himself, but that scheduling problems made that impossible. Argentine media also report that Kirchner is actively considering declaring a sovereign and unilateral write-down of the enormous debt which Argentina owes to the IMF, similar to the 65% "haircut" delivered to public bondholders in 2004. Such a step could produce a domino-effect collapse of the IMF itself, given the instability of the entire global financial system.
"That would be a positive step for Argentina to take," Lyndon LaRouche remarked. "Virtually the entire Argentine foreign debt—including that 'owed' to the IMF—is illegitimate in any event, and has been paid off the backs of the Argentine people many times over. It's time to put an end to the game."
LaRouche also took note of those forces inside and outside Argentina who are attacking the Kirchner government. In addition to the international financial oligarchy speaking in their own name, there are the local Synarchists, of both the left and right variety, that hyperventilate daily against the Kirchner government—the kind of Synarchists who identify politically and psychologically with Cervantes's mad feudalist Don Quijote, and even with the pathetic tavern whore, Maritornes.
Many of these forces are today rallying behind the figure of Eduardo Duhalde, the former Argentine President who is locked in factional battle against Kirchner, within the Justicialista (Peronist) Party.
"Duhalde is the Sancho Panza of the Southern Cone," LaRouche commented, "although there is stiff competition from Brazilian President Lula."
Students of Cervantes will recall what happened when Sancho Panza was given the opportunity to govern the Island Barataria. It is a lesson which Mexico—like the rest of Ibero-America—must quickly master.
