LaRouche Addresses Mexico-Brazil-Argentina Integration Conference

Lyndon LaRouche addressed a packed auditorium in Guadalara, Mexico by telephone (see press release on his being denied the security necessary to attend in person by the Mexican government). The seminar was attended by political leaders and citizens from many nations in South America. We have also posted the remarks to the conference made by Col.(Ret) Mohammed Ali Seineldin, political prisoner and presidential candidate of Argentina, and Former President of Mexico Lopez Portillo, who met with Lyndon LaRouche in 1982, and attempted to implement LaRouche's plan for debt reorganization called "Operation Juarez."
The question and answer period with Mr. LaRouche is also available.

To understand the situation in the world today, go back, in one sense, to 20 years ago, when the great crisis, the first great crisis in the relations between the United States and the other states of the Americas, erupted with the Malvinas War, and the subsequent crushing of Mexico, in the period beginning August of that year.

Now, to understand the situation, then and now, to understand the significance of what happened 20 years ago, look at the relationships between the United States and the other states of the Americas, especially Mexico, over the previous two centuries, approximately: The United States was the first republic, of a modern form, established in Europe following the great period of religious wars, from 1511 to 1648. The United States was not founded by indigenous people, in a sense. It was founded by leaders from Europe, who saw in the North Americans, and especially in English-speaking North America, the opportunity--a unique opportunity--to establish a true republic, based on the principles of agape, as it's called in Greek, or the principles of the “common good."

We were successful in the United States. But then, the troubles began, with the Bastille affair in France on July 14, 1789--the hope that the great power of France would, itself, conduct a reform, consistent with the principles of the American Revolution, was lost. The defeat of the great Bailly and Lafayette, in their effort at a constitutional reform, led to the opening of a period of chaos in France, which led to the first modern fascist dictatorship: that of Napoleon Bonaparte--first as First Consul, and later as Emperor.

At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the aspirations of Europeans, such as the German reformers, the Prussian reformers, for establishing republics in Europe, was lost. All of Europe was dominated by a pair of rival, but allied powers: the British monarchy and the Hapsburgs. They both hated each other; they both used each other. And both were determined to destroy the United States, and prevent the eruption of anything in the Americas, or even in Europe, itself, which would reflect the success of the American republic.

Over the period since that time, the fate of all of the states of the Americas has depended upon their relationship with the Big Brother in the Americas--the United States--or what became the Big Brother. Unfortunately, following the Napoleonic Wars, with the British puppet, the Bourbon restoration monarchy in France, with the Holy Alliance under Metternich's leadership, and with the British monarchy, under the leadership of people like Jeremy Bentham, and later, Lord Palmerston, the United States was isolated in the world, and threatened with extinction. A similar fate befell the states of Central and South America, in their aspirations for true republics in those parts of the world.

That changed, with the victory of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's government, in the Civil War within the United States. During this period, prior to the Civil War, the European powers, the Spanish monarchy, which was a slave-trading British puppet, the Hapsburgs' interests in general throughout Europe, the British and a fascist ruler, Napoleon III, the Emperor of France, combined forces to invade and crush Mexico, crushing the legitimate President of Mexico, Benito Juarez. At the close of that period, after the fascist tyranny of Maximilian, the Emperor Maximilian, who was essentially a Hapsburg puppet, a British puppet, or abandoned at that time by the British who had given up the cause; the French who were kicked out of the Americas by the United States at the end of the U.S. Civil War; and the Spanish, who were no longer significant, the United States expelled the British, and Juarez, after a series of events, reestablished the Republic of Mexico.

Since that time, the ebb and flow within the United States, has determined U.S. relations with Mexico. They were better under Franklin Roosevelt; terrible under his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt; in the post-Roosevelt period, immediately, up through the middle of the 1950s, it was better, as the Rio Treaty suggested. But then came 1982: A new monetary system had been put into place, in 1971. Actually, a literally fascist tendency in the United States, of sympathizers of the former Confederacy, around the Nixon Administration, was in power. They were determined to eliminate all traces of, not only the Franklin Roosevelt legacy, but the legacy of Lincoln and all other great founding figures of the United States.

Mexico began to feel the pressure. In 1982, at the point that the Brzezinski Administration--the Brzezinski who actually controlled the Carter Administration, who dictated most of his polices, including those toward Mexico--Mexico came under tremendous pressure, as did Argentina, and Brazil, and other states. The determination was, then, to destroy the independence of all of the states of Central and South America. That was the intention; I knew it.

I was involved, at the point, in mobilizing a defense of Argentina, against British imperialism, in the case of the so-called “Malvinas War." Unfortunately, even though many people in the Reagan Administration, who were friendly to me, were sympathetic to my defense of the Rio Treaty, defense of Argentina under the title of the Rio Treaty, Caspar Weinberger and others in the administration managed to push full U.S. support of the British toward the crushing of Argentina in the Malvinas War.

In that period, I met briefly with President Lopez Portillo, in his office, and we discussed the matter. And he asked me: What is the fate of Mexico, in this situation? And I said, “Well, the intention in Washington and New York, is to crush you, with a blow to come down no later than September of this year." And from that discussion, and discussion with others in the Americas, there came my determination to set forth a policy, as an economist, which would be adequate to deal with the crisis, which was then, at that time, coming down on all of the states of the Americas: Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, foremost.

For a brief period of time, my proposal, which was called Operation Juarez, seemed to hold the line, for a while. But then, under tremendous pressure from U.S. and other forces, the President of Brazil and the government of Argentina abandoned Mexico and President Lopez Portillo to their own fate. Under these circumstances, Mexico was forced to capitulate, in large degree. However, in the meantime, President Lopez Portillo had taken measures, together with his supporters in Mexico, to try to make reforms, which would have worked. My proposal, Operation Juarez, would have provided the framework, in which a united group of the states of Central and South America, would have been able to defend themselves, and also to win the United States government to cooperation with them.

Unfortunately, that did not occur. Henry Kissinger went to Mexico in October, for example; other pressures came down; U.S. State Department officials, from that point on, said, “This guy LaRouche will never be allowed in Mexico, again." I was considered too dangerous to be turned loose. So, that what it was.

Now, look at the situation from that vantage point, today. We are now in the tail-end of a 1966-2002 international monetary system. This started about the period of the U.S. war in Indochina. It was consolidated in the first level, by Nixon's destruction of the old Bretton Woods system on Aug. 15, 1971, replacing a sound, fixed-exchange-rate system by a floating-exchange-rate system. This particular reform, by Nixon, of the international monetary system, is the principal cause, of all of the economic and financial ruin, which has struck Central and South America, from that time to the present. And, many other parts of the world, as well.

That system is now finished. The present world financial-monetary system is dying, and could not be saved in its present form. The only alternative before us, is the alternative to absolute chaos and incalculable wars, and riots and revolution--the only alternative is to return, to a kind of system, which is equitable for all, and which echoes all the best features of the reforms made by Franklin Roosevelt, and the reforms embodied in the 1946-1964 phase of the International Monetary Fund. That would work.

That will not, however, work by itself. A financial-monetary system is merely a framework, within which actual economic policy operates, politically. Therefore, other things are needed, as well as simply going back to a gold-reserve-based, fixed-exchange-rate, protectionist system, away from the so-called “wildly free-market system," that is disintegrating today.

All nations have to face that fact. There is no possible way, under which the present IMF system, can continue to exist. The likelihood is, that unless we eliminate that system by a reform, made by an influential group of nation-states, that this planet will be plunged into war and chaos, resembling the condition of Europe, during the 14th Century, following the collapse of the Lombard banking system. So, we must make that reform. We must find the political forces, which have the insight and the courage, as representative of nations, to meet as nations; and to institute that reform, immediately, on an emergency basis.

Now, what I proposed in Operation Juarez has several implications, especially when we're talking about the relationship between the United States and Mexico, and the other states of the Americas. Now, as I said, the problems of both Mexico and the United States, during the early part of the 19th Century, and later on, too; but, during that period, up to Lincoln's victory, was that European forces, hateful of the very idea of a true republic, were determined to destroy the United States. These were the slave-holding interests: the British monarchy and the Spanish monarchy puppet, who were the chief slave-traders, sending slaves into the United States, in this period. The Hapsburg interests in general, who were determined to destroy the United States, and to destroy any similar influence, from a pro-latifundista standpoint, in the Americas. And also other forces. So, the Civil War, in the United States, was run with Napoleonic influences--the Napoleonic group, like Barras and so forth, were very influential in the forming of the Confederacy. The slave-holder faction, which was tied to international finance, in New York, in London, and elsewhere, were part of the plan to destroy the United States, and to crush the Americas, as filibusterers and so forth had attempted to do earlier.

So, the situation in 1859 to 1865 was, that Mexico was crushed, by the intervention of the combined forces of British, France, and Spain, and put under the fascist dictatorship of Maximilian and the latifundista interest that was rallied to his support, inside Mexico. Mexico, while it fought against this occupation, was in danger of being totally crushed, by the combination, particularly, of French occupying troops and Maximilian's fascist-like dictatorship--a tradition which still exists, of course; we know it today.

It was at the conclusion of the Civil War, the victory of the United States over the Confederacy, that the United States emerged as the greatest military land power in the world, and an emerging naval power. With that power, the United States ordered the French out of Mexico, and they left. Maximilian refused to leave, and conducted an evil slaughter. And he died as a result. And Mexico got its freedom back, under Benito Juarez.

Thus, for me, when I labelled my report in 1982, Operation Juarez, I was referring, not merely to some memorable event in the past, but a question of policy, of relations among the states of the Americas. As John Quincy Adams defined it, in his draft, issued as the Monroe Doctrine of President Monroe in 1823, the interests and policy of the United States, is to have the states of the Americas, free, free republics, forming together a community of respectively perfecting sovereign nation-states, with a common interest. In the case of the Operation Juarez I referred to, that of Lincoln's successors after his assassination, this is John Quincy Adams' policy; it's my policy; it should be the policy of the United States. The United States, as the leading power in the hemisphere, must assume the role of a leading force to guarantee the perfect sovereignty of each state of the Americas, as a sovereign state; and, to cooperate in ways which will foster the development of all of these states.

That was my objective with Operation Juarez, where I set for a design, for a regional monetary system, within the Americas--North and South--especially for Central and South America, but with U.S. cooperation, under which we can set up a new monetary arrangement, new financial arrangements, under which the development of these states could continue. And, under which, the kind of reforms, which President Lopez Portillo attempted in the period of August through October of 1982, would prosper.

We've now come to a similar situation--a worse situation. I can assure you, that within the coming period, a short time ahead, this present international monetary-financial system will die. It will either be replaced, by a reform, in the direction of the old Bretton Woods system; or else, the nations will begin to die.

At this moment, the sovereignty of no state, of Central and South America is secure. There's not a single nation, even one as powerful as Brazil or Mexico, which could resist the crushing force which is being unleashed by this condition. Only to the extent, that we can mobilize a general monetary reform, away from the present IMF system, to one of the type which I specified in Operation Juarez, can that occur. And, for the states of Central and South America, the only hope at the moment, for a rational solution, without a period of great chaos, is that the United States would be induced, in its own interest, to support that policy, as I tried to get the Reagan Administration, with whom I had friendly relations on certain strategic matters back in 1982, should have done then.

There is no hope, as we know, for the freedom of the states of the Americas now, from the Rio Grande south, without a change in the policy of the United States. I am working to bring about that policy. I believe we can win. During the past two months, there's been a phase-change, in the thinking of the people of the United States and the institutions of the United States. The possibility of victory exists, as it existed for Lincoln, in the period of the Civil War in the United States: Only if we can win that fight, will we have the correlation of forces, to give the Americas as a whole, the justice which they are presently being denied.

And thus, the tradition of Lincoln's implicit alliance, with Benito Juarez, and the struggle for the development of a true Mexican Republic, is the precedent to which we must turn today. The same is true for our relations with Brazil; for rescuing Argentina from chaos; for rescuing the nations of the Caribbean, generally. Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, are all presently in danger of being crushed. We must defend them. We must mobilize the United States behind that policy: the policy of John Quincy Adams, the policy of President Abraham Lincoln, and the policy of the implicit alliance between Benito Juarez and President Lincoln and his government, at that time.

Thank you.

Return to the Home Page
Top