Minister: Soros trying to overthrow Cabinet

RIGA - Government ministers took the current wave of NGO hysteria to new heights this week when they suggested that billionaire George Soros had organized an attempt to overthrow the ruling coalition via nongovernmental organizations.

Interior Minister Eriks Jekabsons' Aug. 19 statement that the security police would begin to analyze Delna, the local chapter of Transparency International, and that billionaire financer George Soros may be behind its actions caused consternation in the capital.

This was followed by an interview with Deputy Prime Minister Ainars Slesers in the Russian language tabloid Vesti Segodnya on Aug. 27, in which Slesers claimed that Soros "wants to control the power in Latvia" and added that Delna and Latvian Television were effectively instruments under Soros' control.

"The goal is obvious - to overthrow the Cabinet of [Prime Minister Indulis] Emsis," he said. Slesers, who together with Jekabsons founded Latvia's First Party, one of three in the ruling coalition, went so far as to suggest that Delna chief Roberts Putnis might have a direct line to Soros in order to coordinate plans to bring down the ruling coalition.

Finally, on Aug. 30 millionaire oil baron and Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs reiterated to journalists the same speculation, only augmenting the conspiracy theory by adding New Era head Einars Repse and the leading Latvian daily Diena as co-conspirators.

According to Lembergs, Delna had become a weapon of New Era, and since the NGO was financed by foreign entities, the conclusion was obvious.

"Thus foreign countries are meddling with Latvia's internal affairs, as Delna is dealing with political activities," he said. The string of accusations was preceded and complemented by attacks in the press - mainly Latvian papers Neatkariga Rita Avize, Latvijas Avize and the tabloid Vakara Zinas - which are all owned by the same organization, Preses Nams, which is majority owned by Ventspils Nafta, the oil terminal controlled indirectly by Lembergs.

The coordinated attack against Delna is even more bizarre considering that Slesers and Lembergs are bitter rivals - even enemies, some would claim. Still, they seem to have found common ground in their resentment against New Era, Delna and the daily Diena.

Slesers, in his interview, also singled out New Era general secretary Uldis Grava as censoring the news and turning LTV, the state owned television station, against the government. He cited recent programs criticizing government decisions as evidence.

"The accusation is absurd. Much of Latvia's media is controlled by economic interests, but Latvian Television and Radio is independent," he told The Baltic Times. "Even when I was the director general of Latvian Television my presence in the newsroom was not particularly welcome, and that is how it should be."

Lembergs has been named as one of the principal backers to the Greens and Farmers Union, an upstart coalition including Emsis and Parliamentary Speaker Ingrida Udre. Udre previously worked on the privatization of Ventspils Nafta when she worked as an auditor at Coopers & Lybrand.

Responding to the charges, Repse said "such claims are simply a cause for laughter."

While political analysts dismissed conspiracy theories involving Soros, the security police's sudden interest in NGOs in a country where memories of a repressive Soviet security apparatus are always close to the surface, caused great unease.

"I have received support for my research and policy analysis since 1999 from the Soros Fund, and not in a single instant have I ever felt any influence," Valts Kalnins, a Delna board member, said.

"I only know of the public statements made by Jekabsons, and I definitely took them as a threat," he added.

Indeed, the specter of repression and a shadowy security service charged with fighting foreign influence while looking at domestic NGOs was roundly criticized.

Andris Aukmanis, head of Soros Foundation Latvia, said this was the first time that high-ranking government officials openly attacked Soros.

Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks, who received a Soros grant in the past and is a member of the People's Party, called the Soros-conspiracy "very original." He said he dismissed Slesers' argument "as it was put," since Vesti Segodnya has a history of misquoting officials, including Pabriks, in the past.

The interior minister's spokesman, Krists Leiskalns, denied the possibility of phone taps and surveillance on either Delna or the Soros Foundation Latvia.

"We are just looking closer. It does not mean like during the Soviet times," he said.

Why You Don't Want To
Take George Soros's Money
October 29, 2003

Recent reports that mega-speculator George Soros is putting millions of dollars into funding think-tanks for the Democratic Party (Center for American Progress, and America Coming Together are two notable recipients), in a not-so-veiled effort to buy up the party, should raise the question: Just how does George Soros make his money? Years of investigation by LaRouche's associates have answered that question in grisly detail: Soros's money comes from impoverishment of the poor countries against whose currencies he speculates, and from deadly mind-destroying, terrorism-funding drugs.

We provide below a brief dossier on the low-lights of Soros's history of theft and drug-promotion.* If, after reading this, you still want to take Soros's money, at least have the decency to put the truth on your website: "I support drug-pushing. I'm pushing cocaine."
SOROS THE SPECULATOR:
Hungarian-born George Soros has been involved in financial speculation since the late 1960s, at which time he established the Quantum Fund, N.V., which manages the money of leading British and Swiss financiers, including the British Royal Household. The Quantum Fund is a private investment body called a hedge fund, which is headquartered in one of the leading centers of money-laundering internationally, the Netherland Antilles.

1990: With the opening of the East Bloc, Soros moves into Poland and Russia, with "advice" for devastating economic "shock therapy," to be administered by his associate, economist Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs' major claim to fame was his "rescue" of the Bolivian economy, by shutting down industry, and building up the cocaine trade.

1992: In this year, Soros's speculation made big news, as he pulled off major attacks on the currencies of Great Britain and Italy, after which he bragged about earning more than $1 billion by hurting the currencies of these nations.

1993: U.S. Congressman Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas) called for an investigation of Soros's manipulation of foreign exchange markets, including the possibility that the same measures used against Great Britain would be used against the United States.

1995: The manager of Soros's Management Fund, through which he controls the Quantum Fund, took out an ad in the U.S. press, which urged the Congress (then controlled by Newt Gingrich), to proceed with its budget cuts, despite the possibility of a budget impasse (train wreck), because such austerity was absolutely required for the financial markets.

1995: The Italian courts, in response to a legal brief by associates of LaRouche in Italy, launched an investigation of Soros's role in the speculative attack on the lira in 1992. The suit was dismissed in 1999.

1997: Soros's hedge funds launch a speculative attack against the Thai baht, in a move widely credited with triggering the great Asian financial crisis of 1997, which destroyed the economies of Indonesia, and many other nations.

SOROS THE DRUG PUSHER

1992-1994: Soros creates the Open Society Institute, and through that, both the Drug Policy Foundation and the Lindesmith Center, funneling more than $15 million for their activities, which focus heavily on changing drug laws, toward legalization.

1996: Ballot initiatives in favor of "medical marijuana" in California and Arizona, funded lavishly by Soros's front groups, are passed. These were the front end of a campaign that encompassed up to 25 states.

1997: Soros's Drug Policy Foundation pours money into a campaign to legalize euthanasia in Australia.
Meanwhile, in Ibero-America, Soros becomes a leading finacier of the drive to legalize cocaine. He bankrolls a meeting on Oct. 8-9, 1997 in the Colombian city of Medellin, for the purpose of pushing drug legalization, at the same time that Human Rights Watch/Americas, another major beneficiary of his funds, attacked the national forces deployed against the drug cartels as "human rights violators." It should be noted that the pro-drug guerrillas in Colombia are known to be bloody-thirsty kidnappers, and murderers, who terrorize the nation.
In the United States, Soros worked with the pro-drug Mayor of Baltimore Kurt Schmoke, to promote "progressive" drug policies, including needle-exchange programs. Soros "donated" $25 million to spreading illegal drugs in the city.

1998: Another Soros-related group, the Andean Council of Coca Leaf Producers, begins to carry out an armed revolt in Bolivia, under the banner "Coca or Death." The Council was established by a European group called Coca 95, whose chief financier was Soros, and whose directors call for free trade in every narcotic on the face of the earth: cocaine, heroin, marijuana and synthetics.
Soros's Lindesmith Center in June of this year, issues an Open Letter to Kofi Annan calling for a "truly open" dialogue on illegal drugs -- claiming that clamping down on them is worse than drug abuse itself, and demanding that legalization be put on the table.

2000: Soros moves both through Human Rights Watch, and direct funding of the Toledo Presidential campaign, to topple the successful anti-drug government of Alberto Fujimori in Peru. EIR forecasts that the new Soros-backed government will move to put anti-drug fighters in prison, and bring back the murderous Sendero Luminoso -- which it has done.

2001: In June, the Wall Street Journal gives major coverage to the decision by Soros, along with billionaires Peter Lewis and John Sperling, to kick in at least $10 million for the 2002 elections, where they will target Florida, Ohio, and Michigan for decriminalization referenda.
Soros also funds a drive for decriminalization of marijuana in Canada.

2002: Soros funded a referendum on the Nevada ballot, which called for the legalization of marijuana use, and would {mandate} that the state begin growing and retail distribution of the drug to anyone over 21 years of age. The effort was run by a Washington, D.C.-based group, the Marijuana Policy Project, which receives direct funding from Soros, through the Drug Policy Foundation, which has received more than $15 million from Soros in recent years. The Drug Policy Foundation recently merged with the Lindesmith Center, a project of Soros's Open Society Institute tax-exempt foundation. The new, unified entity, the Drug Policy Alliance, is run by Soros employee Dr. Ethan Nadelman. Soros has poured at least $25 million into various dope legalization schemes over the past five years, and has vowed to substantially increase his bankrolling of the dope lobby efforts.
The Marijuana Policy Project was launched by a former official of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Legislation (NORML), the oldest of the drug legalization fronts now under the Soros umbrella.

* - For documentation on Soros's drug and money operations, and much more, see EIR's Special Report "The true story of Soros the Golem," from April 1997, and the website www.larouchepub.com.

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Paid for by LaRouche in 2004

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