International Peace Coalition Conference Call with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

June 2, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—A Zoom meeting with over 20 representatives of peace organizations from about a dozen nations was held today, with the aim of bringing the diverse peace movements around the world together to counter the rapidly escalating threat of full-scale war by the U.S. and NATO against Russia and potentially also China. Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened and closed the meeting, noting the extreme danger of the NATO escalation toward war, with Defender 23, the largest military exercise in European history; drone attacks on Moscow; and virulent proposals for dismantling the Russian Federation. She said there were significant peace rallies in the U.S. and Europe in February and in March, but since that time the war escalation has rapidly increased. The meeting was aimed, in Zepp-LaRouche’s words, at launching a “new form of organization” to unify and expand the world’s peace movements to end the march to war.

The discussion included the urgent need for the diversion of military spending to development, contrasting the cost of a single F-16 to the massive need for development financing in most parts of the world. The challenges of mobilizing large numbers of Americans to take to the streets to oppose the war policy was also taken up. Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the fact that the Global South is in a “revolutionary upheaval” to escape from colonial backwardness, and we must make their voices be heard in the West.

Over 25 “world citizens” from a dozen nations—the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Spain, Guyana, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago—participated in the two and a half-hour meeting, discussing proposals for achieving these goals. It was agreed that the group would meet again within the next few weeks, and that a forum for discussion will be established online, as well as a possible weekly newsletter, to expand the mobilization.