Historic Bangalore Conference:
For a Just New World Economic Order!

The international conference on the "World Situation After the Iraq War," co-sponsored by Chandrajit Yadav, chairman of the Centre for Social Justice of India, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the international Schiller Institute, was held in Bangalore, India, on May 26-27. This was the first international conference on these strategic issues to be held in Asia.

The conference was inaugurated on May 26 with a speech by Shri K. Natwar Singh, a Member of Parliament and member of the Congress Party Working Committee, who addressed the urgent need for a multipolar world to start a dialogue with the United States, to end its "hyperpower" drive. India, he said, must join hands with Russia, China, Germany, France, and other nations to convince Washington that the world does not need a "Pax Americana"—successor to the Pax Romana and Pax Britannica—but rather, a "Pax Planetica," as the only way to lead a complex world. Natwar Singh was Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement under the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, when India hosted the NAM world summit in New Delhi in May 1983. He has also been chairman of the Congress Party International Committee.

Singh introduced the keynote of Lyndon LaRouche, candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. President in 2004, whose fundraising record—as was emphasized at Bangalore by Shri Yadav—proves that he is leading in support from the common people. LaRouche made a forthright statement on U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's drive in the United States, to follow in the path of Adolf Hitler. Inevitable catastrophe will follow, LaRouche said, if we do not rapidly stop and reverse this fascist drive from inside the United States. LaRouche called for a return to the great efforts of the Non-Aligned nations, demonstrated at their Colombo, Sri Lanka summit of 1976, to set the world on the path of true development. Now, this movement for a Just New World Economic and Political Order, must be led by a community of nations in Eurasia, especially China, India, and Russia.

The Bangalore event continued the strategic discussions begun at the Schiller Institute international conference on "How To Reconstruct a Bankrupt World," held in Bad Schwalbach, Germany, on March 21-23. Those discussions were on stopping the drive of the Dick Cheney-Donald Rumsfeld "war party" in Washington, which could set off nuclear world war; on the urgent need for cooperative development of Eurasia as the only way to save the world economy; and on the rapid growth of the political movement among youth around the world.

Shri Yadav welcomed the 240 delegates from states all over India, including Karnataka, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Hyderabad, and Madhya Pradesh. Shri T.N. Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka, was Chief Guest of the conference on May 26. Shri K.H. Rangnath, Senior Minister of the state of Karnataka, presided, and Ministers Shri Dharam Singh for PWD, Shri A. Krishnappa of Social Welfare, and Shri Mahadev for Dairy Development were guests of honor. Among the delegates were several leaders of the fight for Indian freedom, one 88 years old. National MPs, leaders of womens' groups, youth, professors from New Delhi and Bangalore, and a broad media contingent, all attended.

Foreign guests and speakers included Nouri A.R. Hussain, Secretary General of the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, based in Cairo, high-level representatives of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China, and the chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba. Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, a noted analyst of security issues, also addressed the conference. The Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament in Beijing, which was unable to send a delegation due to the strict measures the Chinese government is taking to control the SARS epidemic, sent a message of greeting.

Chandrajit Yadav, chairman and chief organizer of the event, began and concluded the conference with the happy announcement that Bangalore, the beautiful "garden city" of India, and its center of science and high technology, will now also be known as the "city of peace and harmony." The "Bangalore Declaration" is now being prepared, to follow up the March 23 "Bad Schwalbach Declaration: This War Must Be Stopped!" Bangalore will, as Zepp-LaRouche stated, become known as the beginning of a new world movement to put development of peoples and nations back at the top of the world's agenda.

Zepp-LaRouche addressed the conference on May 27, on the theme of the dialogue of cultures and religions. Her discussion of the great culture of India, and its millennial dialogue with the cultures of Europe and China, especially impressed the younger conference participants.

In India, young people are facing the same "no future" crisis as they face in the Americas and Europe, and there were many interventions from the lively contingent of about 50 young people in Bangalore. A leading youth organization participating was the Nehru Bal Sangh, which, with the Centre for Social Justice, is dedicated to the ideals of India's great first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. May 27, the final day of the conference, was the anniversary of Nehru's death, and the delegates honored his memory with two minutes of silence.

Congress Party chairwoman Sonia Gandhi sent her wishes for success of the conference. And the Chief Minister of Karnataka also sent a message of support.

One of the reflections of the impact of the Bangalore conference—which is clearly only just beginning—was a report on Udaya national television on May 26. It noted that, just at the time when the visit of Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee to China is being planned—an event of much importance for these two great nations of Asia—a conference on world peace was being held in Bangalore.