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Date Posted: 20:01:08 11/11/07 Sun
Author: part 4
Subject: Re: November 11, 2007
In reply to: part 3 's message, "Re: November 11, 2007" on 19:58:05 11/11/07 Sun

**************************************************************
- MEXICO OPERATIONS REPORT -
- NOVEMBER 10, 2007 -
**************************************************************


REPORT ON NOV. 9 FORUM OF THE 21ST CENTURY PRO-PLHINO COMMITTEE
(AV/drr)

In an auditorium made to hold 500 people but filled to capacity,
and overflowing into the hallways, the audience was held rapt and
filled with optimism for five exciting hours. Among those
attending were 50 students from the Navojoa chapter of the
University of Sonora; Petra Santos, a federal deputy representing
the National Congress' Committee on Rural Development; Jesus
Patron Montalvo, the president of the Congress' Committee on
Water Resources, and other congressmen from those comittees as
well as from the Congress' Committe on Agriculture; Sonora
Senator Alfonso Elias Serrano; Sinaloa Senator Marco Lopez
Valdez; deputies from the Sonora Congress; Alejandro Elias
Calles, Agriculture Secretary for the State of Sonora; Ernesto
Vargas, Finance Secretary for the State of Sonora; municipal
presidents from across southern Sonora, and more. The closing
speech of the event was given by Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours,
who listened to a reading of the resolution adopted by
participants, and by a presentation given by Senator Elias
Serrano, which was very optimistic and motivating.
Due to technical problems Dennis Small's presentation was
interrrupted early on, and so we proceeded immediately with the
speech by Alberto Vizcarra, who picked up aspects of the
strategic international situation. During this lapse, the
technical problem was solved, and all of Dennis's speech was able
to be transmitted after Vizcarra, and was excellent, with a very
good technical quality and tremendous reception.
After presenting the strategic, financial and global
economic situation, Dennis presented LaRouche's evaluation and
the solutions around which he is heading the fight in the United
States. Within that framework of reference, Dennis presented the
water project of the North American Water and Power Alliance
(Nawapa), to carry water from the U.S. northwest to the border of
the Mexican northwest.
Engineer Frias then presented the design of the PLHINO
(Northwest Water Plan) from the engineering viewpoint, with a
physical outline of the tunnels through the skirts of the western
Sierra Madre, to bring water from the Nayarit and Sinaloa rivers,
by gravity, that is, without the expenditure of energy to elevate
the water, given that the 152 kilometers of tunnels begin at 500
meters above sea level, and end at 350 meters above sea level.
From Nayarit to Culiacan, Frias explained, some 450
kilometers of canals would be saved through this new design,
while opening up 700,000 new hectares to cultivation in the three
states it would cover--some 200,000 hectares in southern Sonora
(equal to the total under current cultivaton in the Yaqui
Valley), a similar amount in northern Sinaloa, and the rest
shared between Nayarit and southern Sinaloa.
People were very excited, and some said that this was
nothing compared to the NAWAPA project, and how easily it could
be done.
At the end of the event, a resolution was adopted, entitled
"Agreement of the Northwest," which was read by Alberto Vizcarra
and which picked up on the evaluation presented by Dennis. The
Resolution posed Mexico's vulnerability in the face of the coming
fiinancial Tsunami, and therefore why it was necessary to take
the necessary protective measures, beginning with the principle
that the State should assume responsibility for rebuilding the
economy and the population.

- The State and the General Welfare Principle -

The microphone was then taken up by Senator Elias Serrano, who
stressed that in his conversations with members of the 21st
Century Pro-PLHINO Committee, one of these had noted that people
today are not like they were before. That previously, people had
been normal, in the sense that they thought about the future.
Today, they don't. In particular, in the decade of the 90s, there
was a complete paradigm shift, and in 1994, the free-trade treaty
was signed that condemned Mexico to becoming a net importer of
food, which created a very dangerous dependency which, today,
under current circumstances, makes Mexico very vulnerable to
crisis. Elias Serrano recalled that society constituted itself as
a State to guarantee the welfare of the people, to give them
food, housing, and work. Therefore, the issue of the PLHINO is a
matter of State, and a matter of national security. Therefore, he
said, projects like the PLHINO cannot be delayed.
In closing the event, Governor Eduardo Bours picked up on
this idea of normal people, and indicated that in that sense, to
be normal is to THINK LARGE, and that this means decisive support
for the PLHINO. Bours emphasized that he had told this to
President Calderon and to his Agriculture Secretary, that these
projects could not be measured in a cost-benefit sense, because
if that were the proper criteria, then Sonora would never have
built a single dam and the Yaqui Valley would not today exist. He
said that our forefathers who built these works, did so despite
having many fewer technological resources than we have today.
Bours argued that the PLHINO is viable, that it is not a
mere dream, but rather something that is absolutely necessary. He
stressed that just as Vizcarra had pointed out with regard to the
international situation, the turn to ethanol is going to continue
causing increases in food prices, and that it is a long-term
tendency, and not a temporary one. Emerging economies like China
and India are demanding food, cereals, and it should be obvious
that we are going to face a long period of high prices.
This presents us, said Bours, with the responsibility of
becoming the PLHINO generation. We must build the PLHINO. We know
that it is a challenge, but we cannot leave it to the coming
generations. It is our task. Only in this way will be do homage
to our forefathers, to the Sonorans who thought in terms of the
future.

- The Tragedy of Tabasco Was the Backdrop -

It is necessary to mention that in the minds of all those present
at the forum was the catastrophe that is currently going on in
the states of, principally Tabasco, but also in Chiapas and
Oaxaca, a disgrace resulting precisely from this lack of a vision
of the future and from the neo-liberal ideology that substituted
for that vision of the future. This was emphasized by Eng. Frias
during his presentation.
It is also necessary to contrast the response of the
national government, where on the one side Calderon actually
claimed that the disaster was a product of global warming, and on
the other, the opposition which centered its attack on
corruption, or poor management of the privatization of
electricity. In fact, as was emphasized at the forum, the Penitas
Dam, the only one there is in Usumacinta, doesn't provide more
than 3% of water control, while the 97% is totally uncontrolled.
And clearly what is needed in southwestern Mexico is a project
like the PLHIGON (Water Plan of the Northern Gulf) to control the
most abundant rivers in the country.

- Anur Supports the PLHINO -

At the same time that the water forum was being held in
Sonora's Ciudad Obregon, the National Assembly of Irrigation
District Users (ANUR) met in Acapulco, Guerrero, representing
some 478 associations and 13 merchant societies from the
irrigated districts (which are administrative entities like the
TVA in the U.S.). States represented included Sonora, Sinaloa,
Guanajuato, Michoacan, Jalisco, Baja California (north and
south), Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua and Veracruz. Parra
Gutierrez, the president of the Irrigation District of the Yaqui
River, called for ANUR's support of the PLHINO project, which was
unanimously accepted.

*** END OF BRIEFING ***

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