PRESS RELEASE
LaRouche In Hemispheric Webcast on Defeating Globalization with S. American Trade Union Leaders
June 14 (EIRNS)-Led by U.S. Democratic Party leader Lyndon LaRouche and Mexican trade union leader, Agustin Rodriguez, Secretary General of the Union of National Autonomous University of Mexico Workers (STUNAM), trade union leaders from Chile, Argentina, and Peru participated today in a profound dialogue via internet videoconference, on the subject "Globalization Is Equal to Fascism. We Need A New Bretton Woods, Now" (see complete webcast record in PDF). Organizers from around the world —from Bolivia and Colombia to Russia and cities across the United States— were listening as it occurred.
Some 35 individual Spanish sites were logged on as the dialogue took place, the highest number yet reached for a LaRouche webcast.
This was no academic discussion. The STUNAM is in the midst of organizing a labor rebellion against the Calderon government, demanding the government revoke the March 30 law privatizating public workers pensions and health care, as unconstitutional and a step towards plans to eliminate all workers' rights, in the name of "structural reforms" and "globalization." Attempting to pick off weaker-kneed labor leaders by talk of possible concessions, the government delivered a formal "offer" to labor leaders, right before the "II LaRouche-Rodriguez International Dialogue" on Globalization was scheduled to begin. And, while 60 people, including various other trade union leaders and more than two dozen youth, were at that dialogue at the STUNAM headquarters, five other meetings mapping out local details of the fight were taking place at the same time in other parts of the building.
LaRouche and Rodriguez opened the dialogue, and fielded questions (see transcript). The other speakers then addressed the essential nature of the battle to reestablish State-run social security systems which can defend the public welfare. Most noted how important it was to participate in a continental discusssion of this type, which gave them hope that misery can be overcome.
From Santiago, Chile, Yasmir Farina, Vice President of the National Federation of Workers of the University of Chile (FENAFUCH), spoke with passion of the destruction which the so-called "Chile model," imposed under the Pinochet dictatorship but not yet overturned, has wrecked upon her country. From Lima, Peru, Carlos Gallardo, dean of the Association of Professors of Peru, reported that the teachers and professors in his country are on strike now, because, while the government claims it has no money for education, it is paying off the foreign debt even before it comes due.
Hugo Moyano, Secretary General of the Argentine Labor Federation (CGT), spoke by cellphone from the city of Mar del Plata where he was attending a meeting. He delivered a message of optimism, that Argentine workers had fought without success for years against the privatization of social security, but under the Kirchner government, that privatization is finally being reversed. And, he emphatically agreed with Mr. LaRouche, that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had been an agent of Margaret Thatcher!
Moyano's participation is notable, given that he is the Argentine equivalent, post-wise, of John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO.
Moyano's message of optimism was also supported by Salvador Fernandez, Adjunct Secretary General of the Argentine social security workers union, APOPS.
The motivation to fight driving all those participating in the discussion was brought home in answer to the last question, sent in from Germany. The question was: if it was not too harsh to compare globalization with fascism, which conjures up images of the Third Reich? Erik de Leon of the LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico answered that they are asked the same question often on the streets in Mexico, by people who make the mistake of equating fascism with a person, Hitler, rather than facing the fact that it is a system, which has historical roots, and which kills people, by taking away even their means to eat.
Rodriguez added that the system of globalization "exterminates the weakest," and therefore it is, indeed, similar to fascism. In closing the dialogue, he said, we await our III Dialogue with Mr. LaRouche.
The first two hours of the dialogue in which Mr. LaRouche participated in now archived in English at www.larouchepub.com, as is the full three hour discussion in Spanish.
