NYSE Chief Meets Rebel in Colombia

June 27, 1999|From Associated Press Los Angeles Times

BOGOTA, Colombia — The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange explained markets to a senior

leftist guerrilla commander Saturday in Colombia's steamy southern savanna--and invited him to Wall

Street for a firsthand look.

Richard Grasso met for 1 1/2 hours with Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or

FARC, in the remote hamlet of La Machaca. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Grasso

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raúl_Reyes

Grasso told reporters afterward that the surprise meeting, his first with a rebel chief, was intended to

demonstrate to FARC leaders the support of the world financial community for Colombia's fledgling

peace process.

Stressing that his talks with a group that is on the State Department's terrorist list were strictly private,

Grasso said he hoped his visit "will mark the beginning of a new relationship between the FARC and the

United States."

He said he explained how Colombia would benefit from the increased global investment it could expect

if nearly four decades of civil conflict can be ended.

Critics of the FARC's peasant-based leadership say it is out of touch with the modern world and needs to

better grasp how the international economy works as it prepares for formal peace talks, set to begin July

7.

President Andres Pastrana invited Grasso to the unusual meeting in a rebel-controlled area demilitarized

by the government.

The FARC was formed 35 years ago by communist guerrillas and controls about 40% of the Colombian

countryside.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jun/27/news/mn-50699

(Several other business executives from the United States met with FARC on the state sanctioned

mission)

NYSE Chief Meets Top Colombia Rebel Leader

Saturday, 26 June 1999 Reuters

BOGOTA -- The head of the New York Stock Exchange held face-to-face talks Saturday with a leader of Colombia's main Marxist rebel group, government sources said.

They said NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso flew into a demilitarized region of Colombia's southern jungle and savanna for his talks with a member of the general secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

A government spokesman initially said Grasso had met Manuel Marulanda, a legendary figure known by the alias ``Sureshot'' and the FARC's maximum commander.

But the state-run news agency ANCOL later reported that Grasso had met Raul Reyes, one of Marulanda's top deputies and his chief negotiator in fledgling peace talks with the government.

The meeting was thought to be the first between a senior member of the FARC, which is radically opposed to capitalism, and a representative of one of the world's top financial markets.

ANCOL quoted Grasso as having stressed the importance of full-fledged negotiations between the government and FARC, which are due to get under way on July 7 and aimed at ending a conflict that has taken more than 35,000 lives over the last decade alone.

The news agency said Grasso had extended a personal invitation to leaders of the FARC, which is considered a ''terrorist'' organization by the State Department, to visit Wall Street as soon as possible.

"I invite members of the FARC to visit the New York Stock Exchange so that they can get to know the market personally," Grasso was quoted as saying.

"I truly hope that they can do this," he added.

The government has granted the FARC control of a Switzerland-sized area of south and southeast Colombia since last November as a confidence-building measure to enter into peace talks.

ANCOL said Grasso's talks with Reyes, which lasted 1-1/2 hours, took place inside the rebel-controlled zone in an area near the village of La Machacha, in southern Caqueta province.

The news agency also said Grasso, whose presence in Colombia was kept secret until Saturday, was slated to return to New York Sunday.

Local media said Grasso had asked to meet a representative of the FARC's high command to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.

The FARC and a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), both took up arms against the state in the mid-1960s and have a long-running tradition of targeting U.S. interests in Colombia.

Both groups also use kidnapping to help bankroll their war effort.

©1999 Reuters Limited

The Real Deal: The Ultimate New Business Cold Call

Monday, 18 February 2002, 10:13 am Column: Catherine Austin Fitts

Narco-Dollars For Dummies (Part 3)

How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade

Part 3 in a 13 Part Series By Catherine Austin Fitts

First published in the Narco News Bulletin

EARLIER PARTS TO THIS SERIAL... Part 1 - Narco Dollars For Dummies

Part 2 - Sam & Dave Do White Substances

******

NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso Embracing A FARC Commander

A Real World Example:

NYSE's Richard Grasso and the Ultimate New Business "Cold Call"

Lest you think that my comment about the New York Stock Exchange is too strong, let's look at one event that occurred before our "war on drugs" went into high gear through Plan Colombia, banging heads over narco dollar market share in Latin America.

In late June 1999, numerous news services, including Associated Press, reported that Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange flew to Colombia to meet with a spokesperson for Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the supposed "narco terrorists" with whom we are now at war.

The purpose of the trip was "to bring a message of cooperation from U.S. financial services" and to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.

Some reading in between the lines said to me that Grasso's mission related to the continued circulation of cocaine capital through the US financial system. FARC, the Colombian rebels, were circulating their profits back into local development without the assistance of the American banking and investment system. Worse yet for the outlook for the US stock market's strength from $500 billion - $1 trillion in annual money laundering - FARC was calling for the decriminalization of cocaine.

To understand the threat of decriminalization of the drug trade, just go back to your Sam and Dave estimate and recalculate the numbers given what decriminalization does to drive BIG

PERCENT back to SLIM PERCENT and what that means to Wall Street and Washington's cash flows. No narco dollars, no reinvestment into the stock markets, no campaign contributions.

It was only a few days after Grasso's trip that BBC News reported a General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress as saying: "Colombia's cocaine and heroin production is set to rise by as much as 50 percent as the U.S. backed drug war flounders, due largely to the growing strength of Marxist rebels"

I deduced from this incident that the liquidity of the NY Stock Exchange was sufficiently dependent on high margin cocaine profits (BIG PERCENT) that the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange was willing for Associated Press to acknowledge he is making "cold calls" in rebel controlled peace zones in Colombian villages. "Cold calls" is what we used to call new business visits we would pay to people we had not yet done business with when I was on Wall Street.

I presume Grasso's trip was not successful in turning the cash flow tide. Hence, Plan Colombia is proceeding apace to try to move narco deposits out of FARC's control and back to the control of our traditional allies and, even if that does not work, to move Citibank's market share and that of the other large US banks and financial institutions steadily up in Latin America.

Buy Banamex anyone?

- AUTHOR NOTE: Catherine Austin Fitts, author of Scoop's "The Real Deal" column, is a

former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co, Inc, a

former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush

Administration, and the former President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. She is the

President of Solari, Inc, an investment advisory firm. Solari provides risk management services

to investors through Sanders Research Associates in London.

Who Harbors Terrorist FARC

Cartel? The 'Grasso Factor'

The quagmire of U.S. policy, announcing its intention

to destroy one limb of international terrorism, while

de facto giving active support to others, is starkly

revealed in EIR's Oct. 12 report by Gretchen Small

and Valerie Rush: Wall Street's biggest players

promote the FARC narco-terrorists. The White

House, under new questioning, is unable to deny this

bending of U.S. policy. Here is the report's

introduction.

In his much-cited national address on Sept. 20,

President George Bush announced his government's

commitment to carry out a war on terror "until

every terrorist group of global reach has been

found, stopped and defeated," wherever it exists

around the world. What about the Revolutionary

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), right here in this

hemisphere?

The FARC is on the State Department's official list of

terrorist groups, with which the U.S. government

will have no dealings—supposedly. The FARC is so

heavily involved in all aspects of the cocaine trade,

that it is the world's number-one drug cartel,

controlling about two-thirds of the cocaine that

enters the United States every year. It systematically

perpetrates hideous crimes, including kidnapping

and murdering civilians, and forcibly impressing

thousands of children into guerrilla military service.

And the FARC has already spread its narco-terrorist

activities to neighboring Andean nations, and

threatens the security of the United States itself.

And yet the U.S. State Department continues to

actively promote the Colombian government's

criminal policy of so-called "peace negotiations"

with the FARC, under which, three years ago, they

were granted a vast "demilitarized zone" (DMZ) in

the cocaine heartland of southern Colombia, and

from which they today exercise de facto control

over about half of the national territory.

The answer to this rather obvious, but most

embarrassing, question, lies in what can be called

"the Grasso factor." This refers to the famous

photograph of New York Stock Exchange President

Richard Grasso embracing Raúl Reyes, the head of

FARC finances, in the cocaine-producing DMZ of

Colombia. What that photo merely typifies, Lyndon

LaRouche and EIR have documented over decades:

The FARC, like all terrorist groups around the world,

are nothing but instruments of irregular warfare

deployed by powerful financial groups in order to

achieve their political goals.

This is as true in Afghanistan as it is in Colombia. The

only serious war against narco-terrorism is one that

begins by going after the "Grasso factor"—the

powerful financial oligarchical interests—running

the irregular warfare in each regional theater.

That, unfortunately, is not the way Washington is

approaching the Sept. 11 terror atacks in this

country; nor is it the way it is approaching

Colombia's FARC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPgUwG5XbwE