July 31, 2008 (LPAC)--When he visited the state of Sonora this morning, Mexican President Felipe Calderon was greeted by a full-page advertisement on page 3 of the state's leading daily, El Imparcial, with the bold headline: "In the Face of the Food Crisis, Let's Build the PLHINO."
The ad, signed the Pro-PHLINO of the XXI Century Committee, brought the stark message: today's worldwide economic crisis is no cyclical event, but a "systemic crisis" from which no nation can escape, and whose most dramatic expression is seen in the global hyperinflation hitting energy, raw materials and, most especially, food. Food import dependent nations like Mexico will find that there are no grains available on the market, even if they have the money to buy it.
To secure its food supply, the State must invest in ambitious infrastructure projects such as the Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), which would link the water basins of the states of Nayarit, Sinoloa and Sonora, and thereby open up more than a million more hectares for cultivation, create hundreds of thousands of productive jobs, generate electricity, etc.
The relevant Congressional committees, the state legislatures of the states immediately involved, and most recently, a meeting sponsored by the National Governors Conference have endorsed construction of the PLHINO, the ad reports. But, Mr. President, your National Water Commission (CONAGUA) is refusing to use the monies allocated by Congress a year and a half ago to build the PLHINO. The time has come for you to intervene, to prevent social chaos.
Criminal Not to Build the PLHINO
The Pro-PLHINO Committee, representing leading farm, labor, business, youth and other institutions of Sonora and founded by leaders of the LaRouche movement in Sonora a year ago, has turned construction of the PLHINO into a national strategic issue. The Committee has organized a growing movement of people who believe that the northwest "must fulfill its mission of providing the nation with the food which is today needed so urgently," and that means taking on the opponents of the PLHINO.
"We face the grave convergence of expensive and scarce food, in the midst of a world financial crisis of greater magnitude than that which shook the world in the decades of the thirties, known as the Great Depression... The extreme conditions of this international picture demand that the nation take emergency measures not limited to welfare measures aimed at ameliorating the impact of this crisis upon the ability to consume of the more than 20 million Mexicans who are live in `food poverty.'
"As you have recognized," the Committee reminds the President in its ad, "`the market is a necessary but not sufficient condition,' and therefore the State's intervention cannot be limited to treating those hurt by the market, but it must act as the party responsible for the General Welfare. This means getting underway an aggressive policy of public investment in great infrastructure projects, such as the PLHINO....
"Mr. President, the time has come for your intervention." If the monies allocated by Congress for the PLHINO are misappropriated, it represents "more than a simple administrative error. It would be committing a crime against the millions of Mexicans who suffer food deprivation, and whose hope of having food in their homes depends in large measure on expanding land under cultivation in the county. What is worse, it would sabotage any possibility of the nation being able to avoid the social instability and chaos towards which a food shortage crisis would lead us."
