This article appeared in the May 15, 1998 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

The essential features of statecraft to ensure Africa's development

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Mr. LaRouche gave the following address in Rome on April 3, 1998, to a seminar that included priests and students from several African countries, especially from the Great Lakes Region.

I'll just say two things, which may anticipate some part of the questions which will be asked, and therefore perhaps it's better for me to anticipate. Two things, two points I'll make: Number one, if any of you are ever in a spaceship, and you have been sleeping, and you wake up next to a strange planet, before you open the door, find out where you are. This is especially necessary for when you talk about Africa, particularly with Africans, because the problems of Africa are so cruel, so bloody, so forceful; the pressure for change is so immediate, that all is lost, except a narrow focus on the situation in Africa. And, that's a danger, because you have to find out what planet you're on, in order to determine what solutions are available.

The second aspect of the problem is the nature of the struggle. Lives are being taken, great suffering is occurring. But, to whom is it occurring? For example, Museveni will say to you, or he says to some, that this loss of life is "necessary," that these deaths are "necessary," that the horrors, the atrocities, are "necessary." Because, he says, Africa must purge itself by bloody violence, must find salvation through bloody violence. So, it is necessary that many die, so that Africa would have a future. You tell a man like Museveni of the many deaths, he will laugh at you, and say you're being childish, immature.

So, the question is, what should be the motive for the struggle?

Well, let's look at history as a whole. Again, know the planet you're on before you open the door. How long mankind has lived on this planet, we don't know. We know it's for more than a million years. We can find locations which are more than a million years old, in which the tools we find show a mind which has made those tools, which is like the minds of human beings today.

But, the history of mankind is a miserable one, in many parts. What we know of human history, that is, of ideas more than physical artifacts, is about 8,000 years old, or slightly more, which is only a small part of the total period of human existence on this planet. But, what we know of that period, is nearly all people in every culture, 95%, lived as slaves, as serfs, or worse. Some people were human cattle, and other people, a few people, owned the cattle, and used it, and killed it, as they killed cattle.

The general idea of a society in which people could not be human cattle, began with the ministry of Jesus Christ. Many of the ideas which are incorporated in Christianity, in the ministry, came from periods before Christ's ministry. But, it was the ministry itself which, for the first time, established that every person, man and woman, without distinction of race or ethnic origin, is created in the image of God, and must be nurtured and developed in accordance with that.

So, the first thing in the struggle is to define the nature of each and all human beings. If man is in the image of God, and that by virtue of the cognitive potentials which are born with the human individual, how must we treat men and women? How must they live? How must they understand their lives, which end with death? What is the meaning of a person who has died, to those who come after him? Is a human life an accident, or is it a mission? Is human life itself supposed to be a vocation, and must this principle be the law?

Must not the nature of man be the law that governs man's behavior toward man? The development of those qualities which set man above the beast, the power of cognition, the power to change; the nurture of the child, so the child can develop to the fullness of this potential; the opportunities for expression in life, which are in accordance with a creature with a mission, with a vocation, that of being a living human being; to treasure also the gifts which people give, as a part of their mission, and to treasure those benefits, and pass them on to coming generations.

This is a society with happiness; not momentary pleasure, but happiness. You live. You can take joy in living, even in the moment you die, because you know your life was necessary. And, when we speak of giving happiness to people, that is what we should mean: the conditions under which a person who is dying can, in the last moment, smile with happiness, to know that their life was necessary, that they have done their mission.

And, most of what you get in Europe and the United States, for example, when the suffering in Africa is acknowledged, is a regard for Africans like a regard for suffering animals--not the violation of law concerning the treatment of creatures made in the image of God. In my view, not only as a matter of observation, but as a matter of principle, I do not believe, that the fight can be conducted well, except by people who understand that, that I've just described. Unless one conceives of man, the individual as made in the image of God, one can not find the law in one's own heart, so to speak. One can not find the strength to do what is necessary.

The second point is that the President of the United States has recently made a trip to Africa, as I think everybody knows. What will come out of that, is uncertain. But, it is a good thing that it happened, because it creates a new consciousness of Africa, among Africans as well as among people in the United States. And, he has said the suffering must change. This comes to a point of political realities.

In the recent period, the United States had no policy toward, or influence in Africa. The policies of the United States toward Africa were an affair of the State Department, not the Presidency. The policies of the State Department were copied from the policies of the British Colonial Office, and the similar French institutions. In a recent period, we made a fight in the United States to make the President aware of the fact that he must take a personal interest in Africa. We can not have an American policy, a U.S. policy toward Africa, which is a carbon copy of the British policy toward Africa, or the French policy.

Therefore, the good thing is, that he was there and said that the policy of the United States toward Africa is a matter of concern of the U.S. President, not merely the State Department. In that connection, the President is now seized by what the rest of the world is seized by. We're now in the last weeks, or months, of the end of a whole financial and monetary system. We had a severe crisis at the end of the year, which was misnamed the "Asia crisis"--it was, indeed, a crisis which struck Asia, but it was not an "Asia crisis." It was an international financial and monetary crisis.

In January, the crisis was brought, so-called, under control, by insane methods. These methods are now blowing up. They're all failures, as we see in the case of Japan. We have now entered into, this quarter, that is, April through June of this year will be the period of a new crisis much more severe than that of October through January. The effect on Europe will be fierce, much stronger than was experienced in October through January. It is impossible to say how severe, but it will be much more severe than anything experienced previously. If nothing is done to change the system, it will cease to exist, probably before the end of the year.

What I'm concerned with centrally at this point, is to force through, somehow, a change in the monetary and financial system. The fight is centered on the relationship between the President of the United States and the President of China, and other forces, including certain forces in Europe. We're trying to get a conference to establish what I've called a New Bretton Woods System, which will be a system somewhat like that which prevailed in Europe and the United States during the 1950s, which was the great period of reconstruction after the war. The big difference, one of the most important differences between then and now, is that China and India, the two most populous countries of the world, will be central features of this new system. The great economic development, if the system is established, will be centered in Asia, Eurasia.

Africa's development potential

Then the question is: What is the future of Africa, under such conditions? You know Africa. You know some of the best parts of Africa, in the sense of areas where, formerly, the level of culture of the population as a whole was relatively high. You have a taste of what might be possible. Africa still has the largest underdeveloped agricultural area in the world, in a world which is increasing in population, and which is hungrier and hungrier. The obstacle to development of Africa's food-growing potential, is largely the absence of infrastructure. There is adequate water in West Africa, but it's badly managed. There is a terrible shortage of water in the Sahel region, especially around Lake Chad, but too much water in the Congo. So that the problem is manageable with large-scale infrastructural development.

There is also no effective transportation. Food spoils. You can not deliver technology or assistance to vast areas, because you don't have an effective transportation system. There's a terrible shortage of electrical power, and other power.

If the infrastructure were provided, and the main routes of infrastructure, rail, power lines, water management, all these things, then it would be possible to re-structure the economy of Africa, to bring the benefits of modern society to the village. Once that can be done, a revolution in terms of economy can occur in Africa, under proper political conditions, which is what your role is. You represent those who, students and others, who are the cadre for building Africa.

If the world, for example, simply says, "Forget the debts of African nations; they were mostly a swindle, anyway, and don't worry about whether Africa can pay for large-scale rail systems or water management systems, don't worry about it; the benefit to the world of the development of Africa is so great, we don't care what it costs." For Asia, Africa is the future source of its children's food. The development of the agriculture and infrastructure of Africa, creates the immediate basis for the development of industry and other things. So, that's the environment. And, under those conditions, if we can succeed globally, we can succeed in Africa. If we can not succeed globally, the forces we must defeat will crush Africa.

Fortunately, the history of mankind is a history of ideas. What you know, are principles which you have re-created, principles which originally were discovered by people hundreds of thousands of years before. The legacy of knowledge of principles makes each of you who assimilates those principles a living embodiment of history. Each of you is a vehicle of ideas. Ideas are the most powerful thing in history. They are history. The great discoverer dies. His house disappears. All the physical objects associated with him, disappear. His grave becomes unknown; and yet, his ideas live on in others.

Ideas are the most powerful force, in the long run, in history. In my view, therefore, the idea of what the world must be, the idea of what must be done for Africa, are the principal forces by which this issue can be fought. Above all, the idea that the African must understand, he or she must understand that whatever they suffer, whatever they achieve, they are an individual made in the image of God. And with that approach, I'm sure that somehow we will have victory.

So, in anything that I say in response to things you say, or questions you ask, assume that what I've just said to you, is said again.

Discussion

Most of the questions asked of Mr. LaRouche were translated from Italian, and are paraphrased here.

Q: What you said about the Europeans--for example, that they see us as if we are animals. You see their reaction to what is happening in Africa. It looks like there is some type of design of certain forces behind what is happening in Africa. Then you said, also, that we can also have some ideas, and we can present these ideas, but these ideas are not going to be taken up, because they [Europeans] command--they have the last word about it.

LaRouche: That's not the danger. It's true that there are certain forces in Europe that do look at Africa that way. There is, for example, the legacy of Britain's Cecil Rhodes. The particular present policy toward Africa, is chiefly dictated by the Prince, the consort, of the Queen of England, who says, he himself, that he is a great ape: Prince Philip.

The World Wildlife Fund, which was formed in 1961, is the source of most of the murder that is done in Africa today, in sub-Sahara Africa today. It's the same thing: It's the British idea that Big White Bwana Makout is going to keep the population of Africa down to the size that he finds convenient. And they think that Africa is overpopulated. They say Africa is overpopulated. And, they're using the usual methods to reduce the population of Africa, in the Great Lakes Region, for example, which is not overpopulated.

But, if you want to put a lot of Europeans down there to supervise looting of the mines, where can they find a suitable climate for Europeans? The reason there's a concentration of population in Rwanda and Burundi, is because the conditions are favorable to human beings, the natural conditions, without much intervention. So, a lot of Africans went to the place which is the best place to live. Now, somebody wants to steal it. So, they remove the present occupants. And, we know the history. We've published this, we've studied it. We know this history very well.

But these are not "Europeans." That's the wrong word to use. Because the European culture was the first culture which said, "This is wrong."

Then, what's the problem? The problem is, there is in Europe, as in other parts of the world, an oligarchy, which believes that 95% of the human species should be human cattle. If you go to England, and you compare what has happened to the English population in the past thirty years with what you see in other parts of the world, you'll see that these British oligarchs have done the same thing to the English people, although in less degree, than they do in Africa. Another generation of the current trend in Britain, and the inhabitants of Britain will be incapable of human speech.

You look at the United States, you look in education: The people of the younger generations today are less intelligent, by far, than those two generations earlier. Look at the education system: People are now running around with university degrees, who would not have qualified twenty years ago, or twenty-five years ago, for a high school diploma.

You look at education in Europe or the United States today, and look at things such as history: For most students, history is never taught. The Classical culture is no longer taught. What is taught, is largely material which is not worth learning. As a matter of fact, you'll be much happier, and more useful, if you don't learn.

Look at the news media. Look at the entertainment media. There is no happiness in Europe; there is pleasure. What is pleasure? Pleasure is the excitement of the senses, either by sense, sensibility, or fantasy. What is that? A life of pleasure is a life with an automobile which has a half-gallon gas tank. And, every time it fills up, it can only go a short distance before it has to fill up again.

The life of most people in Europe and the United States, of the majority of people, is going from suffering and suffering to pleasure and pleasure, never experiencing happiness, never having a sense that their being alive is worth anything. People don't tell you what they think, they tell you what they feel.

So that the problem here, is that we're dealing with a class, an oligarchy, which wants to destroy European civilization. Because European civilization was a form of civilization developed to end the condition in which 95% of the human race was treated as cattle.

There's a very important psychological factor, political factor, in this problem for Africa. You see this in the worst aspects of Zionism in the Middle East. For example, you read the book of Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 26 through 30: God made man and woman equally in His image. It doesn't say anything about black, or white, or yellow there. This is authentically the first Book of Moses, the first chapter.

Presumably, this is a book of law for the Jewish religion, Hebrew religion. Therefore, there can be no difference in human rights between a Palestinian and an Israeli. There can be no property rights, divinely given property rights, for a certain territory on this planet. All people have equal rights, because they're equally made in the image of God.

You see, in particular, then, the significance of the ministry of Jesus Christ, and the ministry of apostles such as, most notably, John and Paul. Christianity is not an ethnic religion. All men and women are equal.

Now, over the years, the greatest fight we've had, is the attempt to impose the system of oligarchy, by setting one group of people against another on the basis of ethnic or racial distinctions. In the history that I know of, of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, and, of course, the Americas, in the past 6,000 years, the most concentrated victimization practiced by oligarchy of all countries, was the treatment of the African as a different species. If you wish to destroy the idea that the individual is in the image of God, get him to treat an African as not-human. You have not merely made him a racist, you've destroyed his own sense of his own humanity. And then, he becomes like a beast. The oligarchy has always understood--if you read the history of slavery, the practice of slavery by the Canaanites, by ancient Rome, by Byzantium, by the Venetians, by the extension of the Venetians--by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, and so forth--consistently, this has been the practice: "The Africans are special."

For example, when Spain brought Indians back from America, after the discovery of America, Queen Isabella demanded that they be freed and returned home as free persons. But some people in Spain, especially those who belonged to the pro-Venice faction, said, "All right. We will consent not to enslave Indians. But Africans are traditionally, naturally, slaves."

And, it's that current in Europe, which opposed the Renaissance, which opposed the nation-state, which was the oligarchical opposition to the American Revolution, for example, which has always been the issue.

In the United States, for example, you have the perfect way to see this, if you study U.S. history on the question of slavery. You find there's an absolute correlation between oligarchy and slavery, and other kinds of oppression. These attitudes are always a product, either of the oligarchy itself, or the stupid fools who allow themselves to be corrupted by this kind of nonsense. It's impossible to fight this, except by (as I said, I won't repeat it again), except by emphasizing that every person is made in the image of God.

Unless you can reach inside a person, and make them aware of that principle in themselves, you can not rid them of that kind of racism. See, we're dealing with people in Europe and the United States who are behaving like beasts; morally, they're behaving like beasts. Our job is to uplift them, to make them aware of what they should see in themselves, as in others.

One of the great African-Americans, Frederick Douglass, who was a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, made it a point in saying that the first step toward freedom of the slave, is freedom of the slave's mind. And the freedom of the mind comes through things like literacy, the ability to participate in the ideas of mankind.

In the United States today, we have people who are involved in pleasure-seeking, who don't read. They watch television, and it's very bad television they watch. And they become like beasts in their mentality. This is our problem.

To be a real politician in dealing with these issues, you have to be half a missionary. Because you have to reach into the best part of the population, and lift them up, inspire them. My experience is that most people can be reached. But, unfortunately, there are some people who can't be reached. And often, these people who can't be reached, have too much money and power for their own good. They can't get through the eye of the camel.

So, it's not a problem of the Europeans. If the Europeans will accept the kind of change that we have to make, in terms of monetary system, it will not be hard, particularly in Italy, for example. Italy is, of course, the European state which is closest to Africa, in terms of large-scale water projects, things of that kind. Italy is the leading European nation of the Mediterranean. Italy's natural economic interest is to export high technology to nations which need high technology. The development and progress of Africa is part of Italy's economic security. If the Italian believes that such policies can be carried out in Africa, the Italian will become the best advocate of the interests of Africa.

But here, you see what's happening to the Italian people, what the economic conditions are, and what the change in conditions are.

Q: The main point for Africa, is the defense of human beings. We see that these human beings are being killed everywhere. So, my question is whether the defense of human beings should be the priority, number one, rather than the effort to develop Africa.

LaRouche: In a sense, it is. This must be an integral part of the problem. I mean, it's not a separate question. It's an integral part.

For example, the United States policy toward Africa, from the State Department, has been strongly influenced by Britain, most strongly influenced. French influence is secondary. Every toleration of Museveni, of Kagame, and so forth, has all come--whether it comes from the United States, all comes from Britain. I know the details of that. In Washington, I can give you a list of the people, show you who the people are who make these policies. And they're all British-controlled.

The British Commonwealth policy is the depopulation of Africa. Nothing happens in Africa, in the way of mass slaughter, that does not come from the British monarchy. Nothing! You can look at, for example, Dar es-Salaam University, which is a center of the ideas which have been spread into the Great Lakes district, which caused this killing.

One of the people in the United States State Department who now pushes the worst policies for Africa, is Susan Rice. She is of African origin. She is close to the oligarchical circles in Nigeria. She is a British agent of influence. Her predecessor, Moose, was of the same type. All the same type.

So, the point is, therefore, if you're talking about saving human life in Africa, you have to say kick the British out! If you don't say, "Kick the British out," you're not serious about stopping the loss of human life in Africa. Get the murderer out of the baby's bedroom! Don't talk about saving babies' lives.

My approach has been: The United States has the power to kick the British out of Africa. My concern is to convince the President to do that. Now, this is several years later, because we went heavily on this issue of the Great Lakes issue about two and a half, three years ago, to try to get the President of the United States to have an actual U.S. presence in and policy toward Africa. Because no country can have a good policy toward another country, except through the direct activity of the head of state. Therefore, President Clinton's personal position in Africa, is the first step toward the defense of human life in Africa. It's not the last step, it is not the completed work; it is only a first step.

I can tell you some things which I know well. One of the things that was done, some time ago, was that the President of the United States adopted a policy of getting rid of Kagame, who is now outlawed in the United States. He is persona non grata in the United States. The center of the problem in the Great Lakes Region is Museveni; not Museveni as such, but Museveni as an agent.

Now, Uganda is not a nation. It's a constant state of civil warfare. You have the Lord's Army, the other things, the other wars that are going on inside Uganda. You must look at the way in which Museveni came to power, albeit from Tanzania, where he was put into power. But, the fact is that what Museveni represents, was a product of perpetual civil war. He came to power under conditions of perpetual civil war, in which British weapons, primarily, were being funneled into all the warring forces in Uganda.

So, the people around Clinton, or his advisers, came up with a proposal that they would concentrate on forcing Museveni to accept peace inside Uganda itself. That is, if you enforce peace inside Uganda, and a political resolution of the warring problem, you will find that Museveni will evaporate, because he can not live, except in a climate of civil war.

Work was done by us, and also by some people in the U.S. government, to contact all the groups in Uganda to see if it were possible to get them to force Museveni, under U.S. pressure, to say, "Yes, I will stop the war."

What happened was then, Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, went to Uganda. She was supposed to carry a policy from the President; but, she also carried a policy which she was advised on by her Assistant Secretary of State, Susan Rice. Now, Madeleine Albright is upset, because Susan Rice swindled her. She was supposed to make it public, what she had said privately to Museveni about peace, that the United States was saying to Museveni, "You make peace, or else!"

So obviously, Kabila, Kagame, and Museveni, typify the targets of a policy of bringing peace to Africa. If you get these people out of control, then you can begin to have peace, and end the killing. Because all this fruit comes from the same tree. And, if you cut the tree, the fruit is ended.

Now the President has gone on this mission to Africa. You notice that one of his big stops was in Uganda, where he said, himself, what Madeleine Albright should have said. Then he went to South Africa, where Mandela had been brought into the British policy, with respect to Uganda and the Great Lakes Region. The President of the United States has created a situation where Mandela now says he is going to take an independent position on Africa, knowing that he will have the backing of the United States on that position.

What I'm saying is this: If you say you want an end to the killing, you can not just publish a decree. That does not work. You can move in troops and start killing a lot of other people. And war should not be undertaken casually. St. Augustine's rules of justified warfare have to apply to this situation, too. So, what you actually do, is, you get in the position of trying to get people to commit themselves to do the things that are going to build the structures which will ensure the result which you must get, the peace. But it must be a just peace. Only a just peace will endure. And those are tough enough to keep anyway.

So, there is a process in that direction. I'm not guaranteeing anything. I simply know we did a lot of hard work, and a lot of other people did a lot of hard work, and certainly some things began to move, and they're now moving. They should have moved two years ago, but they didn't. It's necessary to have this view, that to win a fight like this, is a lot of hard work. Even though justice should be immediate, it is almost never immediately realized.

But, as Plato says through the mouth of Socrates, you must be motivated by what Plato called agape¯, and what Paul called agape¯, St. Paul: a stubborn commitment to seek truth and justice, relentlessly, and the willingness to move mountains, when necessary. And, I think we are now beginning to move some mountains in Africa, slightly. We have to do more. And it's important for people who are concerned about these matters, as you are, to understand as much as possible about what is actually going on, and to judge whether it could be done better.

The point is, putting guns into Africa does not solve the problem. We've got to remove the problem at the source. As long as you allow the British to make Africa policy in Africa, or in the United States State Department, you will not have a solution. It's important to understand that the colonial system in Africa, since the defeating of the Dutch, has always been British. The French colonies in Africa were created only as junior colonies of the British Empire. The London School of Race Relations spreads pan-Africanism, the French spread negritude. In the end, they're the same thing: death and deprivation.

Whatever can be done better, if you see something that's not being done well enough, and you can do it better, we must do it better. But, it's a tough fight. And we have to make the things that are good now, work.

Q: There were also some ambiguities, during the Clinton visit, because de facto there was some type of support for certain dictatorships, in defining these dictatorships as democratic entities. And, at the same time, it has also been decided to give certain credit and financial support to these regimes. I am convinced that this money is going to be used only for continuing genocide and war.

LaRouche: Well, I think the dictatorship thing is a difficult problem. You can not make a fetish of democracy. No democracy, pure democracy, has ever worked. In history, every attempt at pure democracy has ended in dictatorship.

What's the concern here? There are political ideas which are spread about democracy and so forth, today, which are just pure nonsense. It's spread on the basis of people not knowing what history is.

What is the purpose of government? The first purpose of government, according to my view, as I indicated in my opening remarks, is that every person is made in the image of God. Within that definition of natural law, then the concern of government is to ensure truth and justice.

How do we find truth? If we don't know what truth is, how do we know what justice is? Because an untruthful decision is, by its nature, unjust. So, what do we do to enable society to discover the truth?

We educate the people: the right of the people to a complete education, including education in history, above all. So the people are then able to judge, not what their pleasure dictates them to desire, but what their knowledge warns them is what they must demand today, for the result they expect tomorrow.

And, a good society is based on generations, because it's based on the number of years that are required to turn a baby into a mature individual. The idea of the just adult, is to think about what their life means to the next generations, after they die. How will what I decide today, affect the coming generations? Otherwise, you say, "I want what I think is good for me"--which is how the British destroyed Nigeria.

How did the British destroy Nigeria? Through Royal Dutch Shell. Through money. Because every little group is trying to compete for its share of Royal Dutch Shell money. Virtually all the leading people in Nigeria who are screaming about democracy, are on the payroll of Royal Dutch Shell.

Nigeria has large, modern steel factories. It has other things which are modern, which don't function. Why doesn't the country grow? Why doesn't it develop? Because Royal Dutch Shell says the important thing is that you get your special money for your little group next week.

So, the people don't vote for the policies of the country, they vote against each other. And, what happens? When the people behave like children, what do they get? They get hell, or a strong father.

So, therefore, the democracy is not a virtue. What is a virtue, is a just government. And the just government is one which ensures that the next generation is capable of deciding the truth. The protection and development of the people is the first responsibility of the government.

So, the point in Africa is this: The way you should judge governments, the way I judge governments, is, which side are they on? Are they against the enemy? The enemy is the British. Are they against the British? That's the first condition of justice--not the only one.

Secondly, do they have a policy which is committed to the development of the country for the benefit of its people?

Thirdly, do they care for the other nations around them, too?

Fourthly, do they try to provide justice to every individual who comes before them seeking justice? Do they insist on providing educational opportunities for their people? Do they insist on providing employment opportunities for the benefit of their people? And, do the people go with their heads hanging low, or their heads upright? Are they afraid of their government, or are they proud to be a member of their nation? Not ashamed of their own nation.

So, that is the situation in Africa today. Yes, wherever you have ignorance and great poverty, you can not have democracy. But you must have just government, by whatever means you have to get to get it. And it must love the people, and it must make the people proud of being citizens of their own nation.

You know what the true, just government is? It's one in which all the people can say, "You'll see. If I have a problem, I will go to my government, and my government will give me justice." If a people can believe, if each individual can believe, "I can go to my government, and I will be given justice by my government, if no one else gives it to me," that's what defines a just government.

Q: The Presidents we have in Central Africa, especially, don't care in general about their own population. For example, Museveni is presented as the "son" of the Americans, especially Clinton. . . . And the same with Kagame, who is now destroying the north of Rwanda. Yesterday, one of the press agencies reported that he is destroying, from house to house. . . . I don't speak about Kabila.

LaRouche: I agree. That's the problem.

Well, Clinton, you know, is not perfect. But Museveni is not his favorite boy. However, he is backed by certain people in the U.S. government. Let me give you an example of what the problem is here, on the U.S. side.

See, the largest political influence in the United States today, is--the biggest crowd of Zionists is not Jewish. This is a group of Protestant fundamentalists, so-called, who do not pray, they bark. You know, like a baboon. This is called the Pentecostalist movement, eh? It's something which the British established in the 1890s and so forth, first against the Zulu, and then against the Afrikaners in South Africa. And they spread it from the Zulus and Afrikaners into the United States. These are people who believe that if the Third Temple of Solomon is built in Israel, on the Dome of the Rock, that the Battle of Armageddon will come, and they won't have to pay the rent next month. I don't exaggerate. It's that bad.

This is typified by two fellows called Falwell and Robertson, who are the hard core of the right wing in the United States. These are the biggest supporters of the right wing in Israel, inside the United States. In other words, in the United States, the political support for the right-wing Israeli policies does not come from Jews, it comes from these people, these fundamentalist Protestants of this type, especially the Pentecostalist type.

You have many other forms of corruption. The President is weak, he vacillates. This group of Pentecostalists in the United States, is controlled from London. Well, you know, you can't teach a baby to bark like a baboon, unless you send him to a British something-or-other, right? Well, after all, the Royal Consort of Queen Elizabeth says publicly, repeatedly, that he is a great ape! What do you expect?

The Church of England is, you know, the first section of the British Royal Privy Council, which is the real government of Britain. The British Privy Council controls all the religions of the British Commonwealth, just the way that the Roman emperors controlled all the religions of the Pantheon. They control these Pentecostalists in the United States, who they created.

The entire operation against Clinton, the scandals against him, are all orchestrated from Britain, by British intelligence. So therefore, there are big problems in the United States, especially in places like the State Department and the Justice Department. I have great problems in dealing with the Clinton administration, in this respect, because of its mistakes.

Clinton is not a bad person, if you don't mind '68ers. But, he's a very stubborn person. He has, essentially, what you would call a good heart; but, sometimes it takes--

He's often pragmatic. He will say, "Well, you're right, but I can't do that. The British won't let us." Or, "I'm not going to do it your way, I'll do it my way." So that there are many problems.

When I said this is a fight, to our friend earlier, on this question, this is a fight. It takes constant work, constant effort. It's like pulling a big sled uphill every day. There's not a morning I get up that I don't have two or three situations in the world which strike me, which means that we're going to have to fight desperately to try to get a certain thing done by the end of the day, or the next week.

We've developed an effective, though small machine inside the United States, and internationally also. We're so effective, that we get into a lot of trouble. We have managed to accomplish a number of things of importance by that method. But, it's not easy. It's very difficult. And every day, you wonder if it's going to fail.

It's what you feel in dealing with Africa policy today, every one of you. Every morning you get up, you wonder if you've failed. And you fight, and you fight, and you fight, and you think you have done nothing, and then suddenly you get a little bit. There are no magic words, no simple solutions. The truth becomes simple when you understand it; but it's hard to get there.

Q: Buyoya [of Burundi] does seem to be loved very much by the British, if you see how he's treated by Museveni. Do you think that Clinton intends to support Buyoya financially, via France?

LaRouche: I don't know. It's a complicated question. Clinton's policy is simply to give a little bit to everybody to quiet them down, and try to establish a U.S. presence in the area.

Let me explain what the problem is. You see, the way the African responds to the United States, the African responds to the United States based on State Department actions, and what the press says. When the African representative goes to Washington, or even a private African goes to Washington, and tries to say something to somebody in the U.S. about conditions in Africa, they go into a series of traps.

Most of the places they would go to try to talk to the United States about their problem, they're walking into a trap. There's a very large apparatus which catches Africans who try to do so. They take them in, they lie to them, they try to mislead them, and then they go back to Africa, completely--having done nothing, having never talked to the right people.

So, one of the great problems in the United States' policies on Africa, is, Africans don't know who to go to, to get a response, and what the response might be.

Therefore, the importance of the President going to Africa with a small entourage, was to make his personal presence in Africa there, establish it, and also to give credibility to a number of U.S. representatives who do not have the Susan Rice line, who are in contact with various African groups.

From Washington and from Europe, with our friends in Africa, with what we know from various parts of European governments and the U.S. government, we know of many efforts that are made every day to try to do something about Africa. Most of these things do not succeed, because they don't have enough backing, or because people don't recognize what they are. And so, it was necessary to create a situation in which Africans could say that the United States is actually, actively, directly involved in Africa.

I think the President was right in going to both Uganda and South Africa, among the other countries. I would have liked to have him go visit the government of Sudan, too, which would have been a real political bombshell. But, to go to Uganda and say, "I'm here, we're here for peace, buddy, stop shooting!" and then go to South Africa and get Mandela to say that he's going to be pro-African rather than pro-British, because he now has the backing of the United States to be pro-African.

We function that way, and I function personally that way. What you and others from Africa tell us, we try to make sure that that expression is heard in the right places in Washington, for example. It's necessary to get this bridge started, where Africans know that they can talk to the United States, and how to talk to the United States.

See, the President doesn't know who the Africans are. He didn't meet them before. He doesn't know which African leader represents what. Diplomacy, a real diplomacy, has to be very personal: You have to meet people and talk to them, and have some experience with them, to know who you're dealing with. Because you have to do something with somebody. You have to know who is likely to be able to do the job they say they can do.

If three countries go in Africa, all of Africa goes. These are Sudan, Nigeria, and South Africa. If you destroyed one or all three, especially, of those countries, all of Africa becomes indefensible for some period of time. We've been working for years on long-range projects for the development of Africa as a whole. But we also recognize that there are certain strategic points in Africa which must not be lost.

And, as I say, what we try to do, is, when Africans speak to us, people we work with and talk to, we tend to get a closer appreciation of what some of the problems are. And, through our discussions, and through our publications, we attempt to make sure that these ideas are known in places where they should be known, in Washington, for example, among other places.

The other thing that concerns us, of course, is maintaining among Africans in exile these important networks, among students and others, who are living outside of Africa, who are channels back to people in Africa. Because when groups like this are discussing, in exile conditions, discussing conditions in Africa, based on their communication with their families and friends and so forth back there, this is one of the most important aspects to consider in getting a picture of what's going on in Africa.

The African in Europe, or in the United States, has a special advantage: They not only know Africa (maybe not perfectly, but they know part of their own country), but they also have learned how to state ideas in terms that can be understood by people in Europe and the United States.

So, all we can do when these imperfections arise, is recognize them, respond to them, and try to correct them. . . .

Q: Taking into consideration the pro-Museveni IMF policy, as well as the continuous increase of the debt of these African countries, what is your perspective?

LaRouche: First of all, the IMF and World Bank are both essentially agencies of Britain, when they're not working for Satan. Their primary assignment is to work for Satan.

You look at, for example, the World Bank, Wolfensohn. What does he represent? What does this crazy Frenchman, Camdessus, represent, over at the IMF--the falling underwear, Cam-dessous, eh? Anyway, you see what these people do in Asia, what the IMF did in the Asia crises. These are pirates, bandits, who come in to loot countries.

We have to, on the question of the African debt, as Clinton opened his mouth on this one, one of the most important things he said, is talking about a debt moratorium for Africa. Because Africa can not pay these debts. They're unjust debts anyway. They're products of a swindle. Africa needs every bit of capital it has, in order to implement the projects on the basis of which you can have nation-building.

For example, what do we need? We need a development corridor, probably 100 kilometers wide, from Alexandria to Capetown, which is based on a high-speed modern railway and pipelines, and all the other things beside it. It needs another rail line from both Port Sudan and, ultimately, Djibouti, up across--into Nigeria, to connect with Dakar, which is the line which you use to fight the Sahel.

Africa needs several large-scale water management projects, a very important one in South Sudan. West Africa can be saved by water management projects. We can pump the excess water from the Congo/Zaire river system into the Sahel area, through the Central African Republic. We can reclaim the entire area of the Sahel.

We can put in other communications lines, in the same way, other corridors; and by criss-crossing Africa in strategic ways, using natural lines of communication, develop development corridors. And these projects alone mean an end to African unemployment.

Together with power, water management, transportation, sanitation, we now have food preservation, we now have all the basis for beginning to develop an infrastructure in-depth throughout every country. If it is done properly, 5-10% of the capital for these development projects will come from the outside. Ninety percent will come from the utilization of presently wasted, idle labor and other resources inside Africa itself.

And, if we don't do that, nothing is going to work. So therefore, that's what must be done. Anyone with any knowledge of European experience of these things, knows exactly: That's what Africa needs. You want to help Africa? Help them do that. Foster stable nation-states in Africa, foster cooperation among the nation-states to participate in the benefits, mutual benefits of these projects.

Given peaceful conditions, what happens in Africa if you eliminate the factor of extreme spoilage of food in the field and in transportation? If you eliminate some of the problems of disease in animals which are raised by farmers? If you bring some land improvement, in terms of fertilizers and general land upgrading, and better crops? If you bring even modest degrees of technology, in terms of tools, and so forth, to assist in the process?

As we saw in Sudan, if you use those methods, you not only find that you can meet the needs of the population, in terms of present nutritional standards, but you can actually have a certain amount of surplus food, which gives you the margin for growth, economic growth.

If we study the history of the development of economy over thousands of years as we know it, certain things are obvious about Africa. If some banker comes in and opposes a project that proposes that, they're sane. If they don't propose that, they're crazy. And the point is, these organizations are Malthusian organizations which are concerned with population reduction, and that wish to starve and adjust populations to cut down the size of populations. These are the institutions that say "Africa is overpopulated." "Overpopulated"! They should see Belgium!

Q: On the question of man in the image of God: There are, in the world, many, many people who are atheists, who don't believe in God. So, they will have some type of ideological reaction to these kinds of ideas. How can one make this idea a driving idea in society, when a lot of people are either atheistic, or ignore the existence of God?

And the second point, also related to this, is the question of the British oligarchy, in which the Church of England is the leading aspect. They should know, these priests in the Church of England, this idea that man is in the image of God. Maybe they don't believe it, or they do something totally different with this idea.

So, how do we deal with these aspects?

LaRouche: First of all, there are often ideas about religion which you have to treat with a certain understanding. Very few people, even those who believe as Christians, know what they believe. They understand something, but mostly, they don't understand, but they become devoted to things they do understand, and to things they do not understand.

I don't have that problem, but I recognize the problem of people who do. With my background, education, experience, and so forth, these questions are not mysteries to me, though they are to most, many of them.

In point of fact, the question of the reality of the Creator is a matter of certainty. It's not a matter of arbitrary "I choose to believe," or "I do not choose to believe." It remains true, whether you believe it or not. Now, I can prove it. I don't have to assert authority. I can prove it. As it says in Luke, sometimes the stones can speak. The problem for many people is a misunderstanding of man's relationship to the universe.

The other problem, apart from the atheist as such, the other problem is that most people who profess to be Christians, maybe aren't. There's a certain advantage in the fact that they may believe they are. Maybe you can blackmail them into doing some good. But the point is, they think if they go to church on Sunday, or something, and practice devotions, they can leave the church, call themselves Christians, and that's it for the rest of the week.

They actually are not really Christians, they're Freemasons. What they believe is that life is a test. It's like a maze: If you don't make any mistakes, you get to Heaven in the next life. They think God is stupid, or something. He goes through all the trouble of sending these crazy souls into this life, for no purpose!

These are spoiled children: They don't believe they have any duties here. If they don't beat their wife on Sunday, they're going to go to Heaven! They don't realize that they're here to perform a mission. As Paul says in I Corinthians 13: Without agape¯, you're as nothing. You're nothing.

You're on a mission. I explain it to people this way. I say, well, think of yourself as an angel. You don't have any wings. Get rid of that idea. You don't have any wings. You don't have any magic. You don't even know what you're here for. But you have a power, a power of cognition, to develop your mind, to develop your talent. And a talent first of all to recognize that there is a mission.

Like the Good Samaritan: a man beside the road is a mission, as Mother Teresa would explain to you, if she were still alive. That's a mission.

Now, you have a sick person beside the road. You don't know much of anything. You have got to figure out what you're going to do for that person. As a Good Samaritan, you recognize that Africa is suffering. The man by the side of the road, all of Africa--suffering. You have no wings, no magic, only your mind, and your devotion. Are you going to do something?

And, if you do that, you are going to be happy. When you discover that you are on a mission from God to serve humanity, and you do that, you're going to smile at Death. And you'll be happy.

Now, man has this power that no animal has. We can discover the laws of the universe, and the universe is so arranged that whenever man discovers a law, the universe has to obey man. In other words, God has built the universe so that it has to obey man. This is a power which you have, and everyone has it, if it's developed.

So now you know, or from that method you can know. You are on a mission. You are part of the proof of the existence of God. When you live so, you are proof, an absolute scientific proof. No question about it. Man can increase his power in the universe indefinitely, because the universe has been designed to obey man when man obeys the quality which is given to him.

So, when a person understands that, or can see that, and can see themselves as that, then life is beautiful. And it's not a falsity, it's not an illusion. When you know that you are on a mission given to you from the Creator, and you're not off running away from the mission, hiding in a whale, or something, you realize how the universe--in a certain real way, you get a sense of what this all means.

And so, therefore, if you think of yourself as being an angel, that will help you a lot. And people want to be angels. They'd rather be angels than devils. That's the secret of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa would always go to the abandoned person by the side of the road, and, by these methods in dealing with poor people, could shake governments.

So, be angels.

If you're talking about saving human life in Africa, you have to say kick the British out! If you don't say, "Kick the British out," you're not serious about stopping the loss of human life in Africa. Get the murderer out of the baby's bedroom! Don't talk about saving babies' lives.If you say you want an end to the killing, you can not just publish a decree. So, what you actually do, is, you get in the position of trying to get people to do the things that are going to ensure the result which you must get, a just peace. Only a just peace will endure.As a Good Samaritan, you recognize that Africa is suffering. The man by the side of the road, all of Africa--suffering. You have no wings, no magic, only your mind, and your devotion. Are you going to do something?