Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 6, Number 34, August 28, 1979 A 'high command' for latin energy RecerfOy, two private agencies which on energy matters created an Inter-American Energy Development Bank front for the New York Council on Foreign Relations (Spanish acronym BIDE) with a seed-capital of $20 moved into the offices of the Organization of American million to be contributed by private investors, corpo­ States (OAS) and the Inter-American Development rations, and multilateral institutions: Bank. The result is likely to be a wave of proiests from The Westetn Hemisphere Energy Workshop is bare­ all parts of Latin America. ly a distinct body. It was creat�d by the New York­ The two agencies, the Forum of the Americas and based Council of the Americas, the. spook "consulting the Western Hemisphere Energy Workship seek a mo­ firm" of Panero Associates and the MITRE Corpora­ nopoly on energy-related dicision-making in Latin. tion. The Council of the Americas was created out of America, according to their spokesmen, and the new the New York Council on Foreign Relations. In turn, relationships established are admittedly directed at that it was an initiating force in the creation of the Forum goal. Both the OAS and IADB have significantchannels on the Americas. The Forum's ':Notables" then overlap of access to almost every government in Latin America. with various branches of the Council on the Americas, The moves were taken withouHlJe consent of mem­ the OAS bureaucracy and the IADB._ ber countries. At a July 30 Washington, D.C. meeting, The now-formal marriage of these various agencies Alejandro Orfila, the playboy Secretary-General of the touches upon the Anglo-American proposal for a OAS, unilaterally put the full resources of that organi­ "Hemispheric Strategic Reserve" covering all energy zation's bureaucracy at the disposal of the "Committee resources. For example, Mexico's massive oil reserves, of 15 Notables," executive body of the Forum of the which that country seeks to use for her own industrial Americas. In a concurrent Washington meeting, An­ development and as a precedent in oil-for-technology tonio Ortiz Mena, President of the Inter-American transfer to Third World countries generally, would Development Bank, made the IADB the official "co­ instead be at the disposal of "supra-national" forces sponsor and coordinator" of the activities of the West­ that would rather not see Mexico or any other nation ern Hemisphere Energy Workshop. undergo industrial revolutions. Because both private agencies significantly overlap As Guillermo Zuburban-an IADB executive direc­ in personnel and enjoy a common source of control, tor and one of the principal matchmakers-put it, the the result of the "nestings" is a "hemispheric high Workshop. is moving with all· possible haste to command," as one Latin American watcher put it, with "preempt" approaches to energy programs "inconven­ the political and financial clout of the OAS and IADB ient to our proposaL" In part, this will be accomplished now behind whatever energy policies they would like to in the way described by Charles Zraket, Executive Vice­ impose on more official Latin government policymak- President of the MITRE Corporation. The IADB' is ers. now going to translate and distribute all Workshop Indicative of the "high command" nature was the materials and "pick up the tab" for its propaganda presence of IADB's Ortiz Mena at the Forum of the . work, he says. "We hadn't realized the IADB would Americas meeting which saw the OAS Secretary-Gen­ move so fast.. ."But just as important, the full financial eral tum over OAS resources. leverage of the IADB will be behind Workshop and The Forum of the Americas was only established Forum energy proposals, with the threat of financial this past June in Brazil. It is representative of reaction­ cutoffs-and not. just in energy matters-as a potent ary oligarchist interests, whose purposes now focus on "stick." "getting the privat� s�tor m9re involved" in economic The combined agencies have devised proposals that policymaking in Latin America. The Forum looks address the full array of energy �esources and energy kindly on the economic policies of Chilean dictator technologies; but not one points to the actual economic Augusto Pinochet, for example. The "Committee of 15 development of the continent" They instead seek to Notables" leading the forum include the U.S.A.'s Wil­ blanket the energy field such that no coherent inde­ liam Simon, and C. Fred Bergsten of the Brookings pendent options are available to individual Latin Amer- Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the ican governments. Trilateral Commission, who is a current U.S. Treasury Thus, privately, hostile hands are being laid on the , Undersecretary. It also includes Mario Enrique Simon­ energy "choke point j of the Latin American economies. sen, Brazil's Economics Minister from 1974-79, and the 'v Chilean Pinochet regime's Finance Minister, Jose de A program against development Castro. Latin American nationalists are bound to raise an As its first order of business July 30, the "Notables" outcry as soon as the' new "nested" arrangements 44 Latin America EXECUTIVE INTELLIGENCE REVIEW August 28-September 3, 1979 © 1979 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. become more widely known and understood. The OAS and IADB involvement is a product of executive fiat, and MITRE's Zraket admits that already the Workshop program is causing questions to be raised like: "What kind of Trojan Horse is this?" Who's who on Moreover, U.S. businessmen, promised the run of the continent for lucrative energy and minerals projects, the 'Committee of 15' have just as much to lose if they go along. The kind of "soft technology" approaches for which the Forum and Mario Garnero (Brazil): Garnero is a major figure in Workshop are noted would mean forfeit of crucial the campaign to put private enterprise in the lead of markets for U.S. high-technology goods. Since only the new hemispheric order. His entrepreneurial base is strong state-sector programs have been able to match his presidency of Brazilinvest, a multinational holding the will with the financial resources required to lead in­ company with hundreds of millions invested in Brazil. depth industrialization strategies, the "private sector Garnero is reportedly responsible for the "Commit-' crusade" behind the "hemispheric reserve" policy tee of IS" and Inter-American Energy Bank (BIDE) means scrapping industrial development. Jose Represas, conceptions. Garnero's intentions for this bank may be a member of the Forum's "Committee of Notables" judged by his conduct as private sector representative who heads the Inter-American Council for Trade and on Brazil's new National Energy Commission. Garnero Commerce, demands that "new private investments" demanded radical measures for reducing oil consump­ go solely to "those key sectors of the economy which tion, including converting the cement industry from oil absorb greatest labor," that is, use the least technology. to charcoal. Cement plant owner Ermirio de Moraes, The Forum and the Workshop both emphasize high­ however, pointed out that this would require burning ' cost synthetic or ,,soft" fuels, and oil and gas to a 41 acres of eucaliptus forests for each ton of cement. limited extent. Nuclear energy forms no part of their William Simon (U.S.A.): Simon made his name and current proposals. a small fortune as a Wall Street bond speculator for Salomon Bros. Under Richard Nixon Simon was put in The Mexican alternative charge of the Federal Energy Office, which he built into The example of Mexico proves conclusively that the a thousand-man bureaucracy. Simon became Treasury hemispheric "private sector" approach to energy policy Secretary from April, 1974 until Gerald Ford left office is indeed bad for business. Mexico, pouring revenues in 1977. Simon's tight money policies, insistence that from nationalized oil industry back into ambitious joint gold be removed from the international monetary sys­ public/private development projects, guided by the tem and his ganging up with the British against Japa­ National Industrial Development Plan, has the largest nese efforts to expand world trade prepared the way for growth rate on the continent-7.S percent this year­ the current international economic crisis. and provides the premier market for advanced sector While Tn,asury Secretary, Simon energetically pro­ capital goods in the Third World. moted Brazil as an ideal place for foreign investments, At the same time, Mexico's world energy develop­ leading to the establishment of Brazilinvest. Earlier this ment proposal, to be presented by President Jose Lopez year, Simon proposed that the United States adopt the Portillo to the U.N. Sept. 27, envisions 1) better world "Argentine Model" of fighting inflation through tight production and distribution arrangements, to avoid credit policies which the Argentines tab "industricide." manipulation by the oil multinationals and 2) new Argentina's inflation last year was 162 percent. financing and transfer of technology to ensure rapid C. Fred Bergsten (U.S.A.): Bergsten is a founding energy development in deficit Third World areas. It is member of the Trilateral Commission and a fellow of an approach diametrically opposite to that of the hem­ the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Henry Kis­ ispheric reserve "high command." singer's economic advisor on the National Security The coming fight against the hemispheric reserve Council, 1969-71. Then, as the dollar crisis hit, the approach will inevitably coalesce around the Mexican joined the Brookings Institution becoming.a spokesman alternative. Nor is the "high command" hiding. its for the IMF's "Special Drawing Rights" as a means of hostility to Mexico.