This article appears in the October 14, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
SCHILLER INSTITUTE SEMINAR
‘Stop the War Before It’s Too Late’
With Current and Former Ibero-American and Caribbean Legislators
[Print version of this article]
Oct. 9—A group of current and former legislators from two Ibero-American and two Caribbean nations joined Schiller Institute founder and president Helga Zepp-LaRouche and independent LaRouche candidate for U.S. Senate from New York Diane Sare Oct. 7, for a seminar titled, “Stop the War Before It’s Too Late, Eliminate the Causes of the War Danger.”
Indicative of what Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche described as the “revolutionary” period through which the world is living, three hours of lively and serious discussion saw a group of people who had never previously met, holding diverse views on how to respond to the global crisis, coalesce into an inspired group committed to acting together internationally, rising above local concerns or narrow interests to address the needs of “one humanity,” as Mrs. LaRouche put it.
In addition to Mrs. LaRouche and Diane Sare, participants included Donald Ramotar of Guyana, former parliamentarian for the People’s Progressive Party, 1992-2011, and former President of Guyana, 2011-2015; Jorge Robledo of Colombia, former Senator, 2002-2022, the Dignity Party; María de los Ángeles Huerta, Mexico, former deputy, MORENA, 2018-2021; Dr. Rodolfo Ondarza, Mexico, former deputy in the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, 2015-2018, Workers Party (PT), and Dr. Kirk Meighoo, Trinidad & Tobago, former independent Senator, 2004, United National Congress. Fabiola Morales of Peru, a 2022 deputy of the Popular Renovation Party, scheduled to attend, sent regrets and best wishes; she was unable to attend due to an urgent congressional session to which she was called.
A New Peace of Westphalia
The participants were particularly moved by Mrs. LaRouche’s discussion of the principles of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which were presented as the model for the Schiller Institute’s call for a new security and development architecture put forward at several of its conferences this year, after it became clear last April that the U.S. and the U.K. weren’t going to allow Kiev to negotiate with Russia to end the Ukraine war. Then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson personally traveled to Kiev to deliver that message.
Those Westphalian principles which call for forgetting past crimes for the sake of peace; of taking into account the interest of the other, with the understanding that foreign policy must be based on love of humanity and strengthening the role of the state in rebuilding from the “rubble field” of war, are absolutely required today, Mrs. LaRouche said, if there is to be any hope for peace and development. She urged the participants not to just look to Ibero-America or the Caribbean, but to go to a higher order and look at humanity as a whole.
Her call for a “growing movement of elected officials to demand a new paradigm and leave geopolitics behind,” and to contribute to creating a “chorus of voices” that will demand “new relations among nations,” informed subsequent discussion and inspired the participants to formulate specific proposals reflecting that international focus.
The group’s enthusiasm, and the sense of urgency to act quickly given the war threat, was such that all agreed they should meet again in a few weeks, but with an expanded group—including representatives from European nations as well as from other Ibero-American countries. Prior to the meeting, Jorge Robledo had circulated a draft document for discussion, addressing the need for peace and security. A coordinating committee was set up to prepare a final Declaration calling for further organizing activity, including the Schiller Institute’s Dennis Small, Donald Ramotar and María de los Ángeles Huerta. They took extremely seriously Zepp-LaRouche’s final comment that “we have to move fast. A window of opportunity is open, but not for long.”
‘We Will Not Be Silenced!’
Moderator Dennis Small opened the seminar with a strategic overview, noting that the world today faces a far worse crisis than the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis. In 1962, President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had the intelligence to engage in negotiations. Today no such channels currently exist, he said, and the world is in the midst of economic disintegration which has seen no parallel since the 14th century New Dark Age. As Lyndon LaRouche had forecast, Small pointed out, it is the bursting of the speculative bubble, the destruction of the physical economy and depopulation and deindustrialization of the planet, that are behind the drive for war.
Lyndon and Helga LaRouche founded the Schiller Institute 40 years ago to warn what would happen if neoliberal policies and the speculative looting of the countries of the Global South continued, and they put forward alternative programmatic solutions to industrialize and develop especially developing nations.
Small detailed the way in which the Ukrainian crisis had been orchestrated over the past thirty years with NATO and the U.S. crossing every red line that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned would constitute an existential threat to his nation. This included the dramatic eastward expansion of NATO, organizing the 2014 fascist Maidan coup and allying with the Nazi Azov Battalion and followers of Hitler-ally Stepan Bandera.
The U.S. State Department and its NATO allies set up and financed the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) which, along with its parallel Myrotvorets website and hit squad, are tasked to intimidate, silence and kill anyone who opposes the war, Small explained, and that the first 30 names on the CCD’s “kill list”—number one on the list is Helga LaRouche—are members or friends of the Schiller Institute or individuals who have participated in recent Schiller Institute conferences.
But, Small warned, “They won’t silence us. We’re here to evaluate and inform others and get out our proposals.” Today’s seminar participants aren’t affiliated with the Schiller Institute, he said, but they have ideas and proposals to deal with the crisis, to approach it from a higher standpoint, seeking to define a universal form of cooperation as the great Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa did in his conception of the Coincidence of Opposites.
A Serious Debate
Speaking with the authority and insight of a former head of state, Donald Ramotar gave a hard-hitting account of what he said is the most dangerous global situation to exist since 1962, which he attributed to the complete breakdown of politics and diplomacy. The U.S. goal was always to weaken and destroy Russia, to make it a “second-class state, bleed it white” and break it up, he said.
He recounted in detail what has been done over the eight years of a Ukrainian army, armed to the teeth by the West, bombing the Donbass region, killing 15,000 people. Through the Minsk agreements, Russia tried to secure peace, he said, but Germany and France sabotaged that, and Ukraine has been turned into a “de facto NATO state.” Backed by the U.S., the U.K., and NATO, he said, Ukraine’s role has been to “entrap and destroy” Russia. Add to that, he said, Western wars and invasions that destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, and NATO’s eight years of shelling and bombing of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics of eastern Ukraine.
Detailing Western duplicity toward Russia over years, and the methods used by the West to keep developing countries in a colonial status, the former Guyanese President stressed the need to really look at the current system. The problem is that “people aren’t thinking globally,” he said. “I believe that for a lasting solution to take place there needs to be a re-examination of the international social and economic situation so that we can have the resources of the world better distributed to all their people.”
Non-Alignment the Solution
In his remarks, Kirk Meighoo of Trinidad & Tobago stressed that what exists today is “pure imperialism” which we all oppose. The majority of people wish to see a new international order, both in military and economic terms. When former British colonies of the Caribbean became independent in the early 1960s, he said, they decided that they didn’t want to become part of the NATO or U.S. bloc. Rather they were sympathetic to the Non-Aligned Movement. The idea was to chart an independent path. Meighoo reported that he only learned of Lyndon LaRouche’s policies for a New Bretton Woods and proposals to develop the world economy in the past few years, but has worked for decades on the idea of creating a new economic order.
Meighoo noted that even though former British colonies became independent, they were still “neo-colonies,” kept dependent on the North Atlantic system. Trinidad & Tobago did actually begin a process of industrialization in the 1970s, he said, but ultimately that collapsed.
Today, “we see the future in the present,” he stressed. The multipolar world is emerging, with China, Russia, and Iran, so now is the time to push the New World Order forward and to come together. Look to the BRICS and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). How to solve the Russia/Ukraine conflict? he asked. “We’re going to have to organize an international diplomacy differently ... and it cannot only be security and military, it’s going to have to be economic as well,” including such alternatives as a non-dollar system for trade and investment.
Dennis Small commented that the concept of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Spirit of Bandung resonates with most of the world. Nations are attracted to the BRICS and the BRI, and there is a wave of opposition to the direction the world is going in. But the question is, what form will that take?
An American Viewpoint
Diane Sare’s presence in the discussion was important, as she represents the United States that should be, as it was founded, and that Lyndon LaRouche represented. She reported on the process of collecting 66,000 signatures for her campaign’s ballot status, in which she told people she was running to prevent nuclear war, and people took that seriously.
Her campaign’s Oct. 6 demonstration in front of the office of her Democratic party opponent, Senator Chuck Schumer, with a large banner asking, “Why is Schumer Supporting Nazis in Ukraine?” didn’t provoke a hysterical response from passersby. Are people waking up to reality? Perhaps, she said. Sare also reported on the Oct. 6 Schiller Institute press conference in which several prominent individuals who are on the CCD and Myrotvorets “kill lists” participated, under the title “We Will Not Be Silenced! Speaking Truth in Times of War.”
Sare also stressed the importance of improving relations between the U.S. and South America, as two assassinated U.S. presidents, William McKinley and James Garfield, had intended to do. The video of today’s seminar, she said, should be widely disseminated in the U.S., because Americans don’t know much about the rest of the world, and perhaps they can learn to show solidarity with other nations.
Dennis Small also responded to Ramotar’s comment about the lack of any real leadership, in the U.S. or Europe. It’s true, he said, that since the death of Franklin Roosevelt, there haven’t been any true statesmen in the U.S. (Jack Kennedy was a partial exception). But, if you look at U.S. history, you see there has been a visceral hatred of the British. “We were born out of a revolution against the British Empire,” he emphasized. So, in a key period such as today, to whom can we look for models? There is Martin Luther King, and there is Lyndon LaRouche, Small said. LaRouche was the greatest economic forecaster, and he and his wife and political partner Helga Zepp-LaRouche accomplished great things. LaRouche was sent to jail in an attempt to silence him, but that failed, Small added.
Agreement on Principle
There was a broad-ranging discussion among all the participants, each of whom added their own perspective and analysis, but came to an agreement on the need to act together on the basis of a straightforward declaration of principles on which they all agree. There was a spirited discussion of the proposals among all the participants, emphasizing the need for a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict and bringing more people into a “global” discussion.
In his opening presentation, Senator Robledo had reviewed the history of the so-called Ukraine crisis, including the eastward expansion of NATO which Russia repeatedly warned was threatening its basic security as a nation. He took note of Pope Francis’s urgent call for a negotiated, peaceful solution to the war. And he issued a closing urgent call to all people of good will around the world to speak out, that “no one and nothing can be allowed to take us to an extremely destructive war, or even a nuclear war. We call for this demand to multiply from all corners of the Earth.”
In the discussion period, Mr. Robledo stressed the urgency of the situation, noting that his Dignity Party in Colombia is working on a specific proposal to unify forces around the world to resolve the conflict without increasing the threat of nuclear war, and offer security guarantees to all parties. This is something that should be spread throughout the Americas, he said, and could have a multiplier effect around the world. “I’m optimistic,” he stated. “I think the world is waking up, and, demanding a solution now.”
María de los Ángeles Huerta, a former Mexican Congresswoman who remains engaged in legislative activities, began by denouncing the forces that are promoting war, identifying the military-industrial complex as well as “the Establishment that promotes neoliberal economic policies.” She took the opportunity to read a number of paragraphs from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s recent presentation to the United Nations, urging that a five-year truce be adopted in Ukraine, and that Pope Francis, UN Secretary General António Guterres and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi be asked to help mediate the situation. “The issue still lies in how to overcome the immense hegemony of those who hold power over the world and how we can build this new possibility [of a non-aligned group of countries] from the ground up.”
In the discussion period, Huerta expressed her support for the idea that Helga Zepp-LaRouche had presented, of the overriding importance of the One Humanity as the only basis, given the extreme crisis facing all of Mankind, for solving all local and national concerns. Huerta posed the organizing challenge for all present: We all have a general idea of what to do; the question is, how to do it.
Small commented that one important flank in this effort has arisen from López Obrador’s proposal to the U.N., which needs to be strengthened with an economic policy perspective of replacing today’s bankrupt financial system with one based on high-technology industrial development of all nations, especially of the Global South. He noted that López Obrador in his recent summits with both President Trump and President Biden had stressed the high-points of U.S.-Mexican relations in the Lincoln-Juárez and Roosevelt-Cárdenas periods, when the joint interests of both nations were given a priority. One way to return to that today, Small concluded, would be for Mexico to call for joint cooperation with the U.S. and China in the development of great infrastructure projects in Mexico and the entire Caribbean Basin region, which would be a win-win-win policy for all.
Dr. Ondarza, a medical doctor, noted that there is a spirit “against war and violence,” seen in the reactions of many people around the world, who aren’t asleep, who are rising up. Raising people’s awareness is crucial, he said, especially on the nature of the global economic crisis, which is only being worsened by the Establishment’s policies of the Great Reset and sanctions targeting Russia.
He suggested that the answer will be through the creation of an international organization which he proposed could be called the “Society for Peace and Development,” and he recommended that medical organizations be mobilized as well. “Wherever there is the love of the art of medicine there is the love of humanity as well,” he emphasized. He also pointed to the importance of Mexican President López Obrador’s proposal for ending the Ukraine conflict, made to the UN, quoting Mahatma Gandhi: “There is no road to peace … peace is the road.”
Zepp-LaRouche responded to the various proposals and comments by emphasizing that these initiatives can spread quickly, because the world is in a “revolutionary” period. Look at the upheaval taking place in Europe, she said, as a result of the economic disaster wrought by sanctions. Germany is ready to explode—it will cease to be an industrialized nation if things don’t change.
But the solution isn’t a technical one, she underscored. Rather, a new paradigm of thinking is necessary. Look at the transition from the Dark Ages of the 14th century, where scholasticism, witchcraft and superstition prevailed, to the Italian Renaissance, in which Nicholas of Cusa established a revolutionary “new way of thinking, a Coincidence of Opposites thinking, which stressed the perfectibility of the human being” and the concept that the One is a higher power than the Many.
Cusa established a new paradigm, a complete change in axioms, Zepp-LaRouche explained, and this is exactly what is needed today. We must think in terms of one humanity and its long-term survivability. This requires an international discussion, in many countries. People should recall Friedrich Schiller’s profound concept that one has to be a world citizen and a patriot of one’s own country at the same time. These are not contradictory, Zepp-LaRouche stressed. Thinking individuals and many groups should be involved in this process, she said.
In response to these remarks, Ms. Huerta’s inspired comment undoubtedly reflected all the participants’ thinking. “What has happened here today can spark and give rise to a resurgence of the spirit,” she said. “I repeat that as citizens of the world, we need to consider collective action, as part of a world effort.”
