EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Brazil’s Lula Proposes an International Alliance for Peace

Jan. 31, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—President Lula da Silva of Brazil announced his view that a group of nations needs to come forward to work together for a peace deal in Ukraine. Speaking on Jan. 30, Lula said that he had discussed with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron and intends to discuss with others, the vision of forming a new group of nations—like the formation of the G20 to address the 2008 economic crisis—to work out peace between Russia and Ukraine. The world needs “a club of people who want to achieve peace on the planet,” the President said. “My suggestion is that we create a group of countries, that sit down at the table with Ukraine and Russia to try to find peace.... What we have to do is form a group strong enough to be respected at a negotiating table—and sit down with both sides.”

There must be “a G20 to deal with the ... conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” he explained. He volunteered Brazil for the task, and put forward China, India, and Indonesia as potentially having important roles, and said he would discuss with Beijing’s President Xi Jinping the “extremely” important role of China.

On the reason for the conflict, Lula pointed to the 2003 war on Iraq, where the basis for the war was a lie. “I believe that’s the reason the war between Ukraine and Russia must be made clearer—whether it’s caused by NATO, or territory, or entry into the EU.... The world does not have much information.”

The world should welcome this initiative by President Lula!

Countries of the new institutions of what is called the Global South—institutions such as the Non-Aligned Movement—have the moral authority and significant representation of the global population to make demands for a comprehensive peace and a new security and development architecture, as proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

“The driving force behind this war danger is the imminent disintegration of the neoliberal financial system, which has now entered the hyperinflationary phase as a result of years of liquidity injections into the monetary system, and of the ‘Great Reset’ policy,” she wrote in an article for the Bandung Spirit conference held in Indonesia last November.

“It is ... appropriate that the Non-Aligned Movement countries speak with one voice at the next occasion, at the G20 conference in Indonesia in November (or at an extraordinary session of the UNGA, if called on an emergency basis), and that they demand a new security and economic architecture, which takes the interest of every country into account,” she proposed. “It is a proven principle in history, that peace treaties only function, if they take into account the interest of each party, as was the case with the Peace of Westphalia.” (In the right context, even Ukraine and Britain could find legitimate national missions.)

President Lula’s proposal is for the sort of grouping Zepp-LaRouche outlined.

There are big openings to change the United States, and there is also the incredible power of voices from outside the conflict to speak up for the interests of humanity. The 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement comprise 4.5 billion people, a majority of the human race. Adding Non-Aligned observers brings the total to 6.5 billion.

It is past time for the voices of these people to have bearing on the course of history, to intervene into the perilous risk of nuclear extinction.

The program for the Schiller Institute’s February 4 conference, “The Age of Reason or the Annihilation of Humanity?” is available here.