An important international dialogue took place today in the urgent process of backing a new paradigm for one humanity, ending the war paradigm persisting in multiple, deadly ways. The Schiller Institute-France and the Federation of China-Africa Friendship Associations, a multi-nation group headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, co-sponsored an international video-conference, “China-Africa Cooperation in Poverty Reduction Strategy.” Diplomats, industrialists and others engaged in a three-hour dialogue on concrete plans and development strategy, with opening remarks by Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Excerpts are given below.
This dialogue took place as still more voices are speaking out, in conscience, that there must be a stop to the genocide in Gaza, negotiations to end the Ukraine debacle, and other decisive breaks with the current rule-by-military financial complex. Yesterday World Food Program Director Cindy McCain stated about Gaza (on NBC’s “Meet the Press,”) “There is now famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
Student protests for a ceasefire, full-scale humanitarian aid, and statehood for Palestine are now international, from Ireland, to Venezuela, to Germany, where a Berlin demonstration took place despite the government’s de facto ban.
This weekend is also the two-day summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, most of whose 57 member nations are represented by top ministers, who are both engaging in formal sessions and also meeting bilaterally on the world crises, especially on Gaza. Present at the OIC Summit in Gaza are foreign ministers of the immediate Southwest Asia region—Egypt, Iran, Türkiye, and others, such as Indonesia, committed to action on the crisis. The delegation from Russia, now with permanent observer status, is led by Rustram Minnnikhanov, head of the Republic of Tatarstan, whose capital Kazan is the venue for the BRICS Summit in Oct. 22-24, and the venue later this month for the Russia-Islam Economic Kazanforum, where 10,000 participants from 79 nations are registered to participate for a week of economic and related talks.
The world is in motion for development, amidst urgency to stop the immediate war dangers and mass murder. That cannot be done without a solution-concept, which is seen in the “Oasis Plan” approach for Southwest Asia, and at large.
This picture was reviewed completely today, by Zepp-LaRouche in her address to the Africa-China video conference. Other speakers included: Assane Mbengue, President of FAACA; His Excellency Ibrahima Sory Sylla, Senegalese Ambassador to China; Zhang Hangbao, First Secretary to His Excellency Xiao Han, Chinese Ambassador to Senegal; Zhang Yun, CEO of SOMETA SA (Senegal’s leading iron and steel company); Edmond Moukala N’Gouemo, UNESCO representative in Ghana.
Some 50 people attended the entire conference, which included lively discussion, moderated by Sébastian Périmony, Schiller Institute-France.
Here are excerpts from Zepp-LaRouche’s presentation:
…We are clearly at a crossroads of history and the outcome of how this will end is not yet decided. We have on the one side an escalation of the war in Ukraine, which is actually a proxy war of NATO against Russia. NATO will soon have to make a decision, because it is not going well for the Ukrainians, either to negotiate or escalate. There are many forces in the Transatlantic world who call for escalation, which has the danger of leading in the short term to a global nuclear war.
Then we have the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza,and the pending attack by the Israel Defense Forces on Rafah, on people who are already dying of hunger, of starvation, of thirst, of need of everything. The entire Southwest Asia region is a powder keg, which if ignited, could also lead to global war.
Then we have the extension of NATO, or the effort of NATO to become Global NATO by extending itself into the Indo-Pacific around the South China Sea, the Taiwan crisis with China, which is being steered from the outside.
Now all these three crises are driven by the collapse of the Transatlantic financial system. Because what is behind all of this escalation is a desperate effort to prevent the emergence of a new economic system.
Let’s briefly look back at the end of the Cold War where we had the chance for a peace order for the 21st century. With the LaRouche Movement, the Schiller Institute actually promoted [peace] by proposing the Eurasian Land-Bridge as the beginning of the World Land-Bridge connecting all continents through infrastructure.
At that time there was the promise not to expand NATO one inch to the East, but this promise was broken right away. The neocons established the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was the idea that the United States will be the leader of a unipolar world, and not allow any country or group of countries to bypass the United States economically, militarily or politically.
Instead they went to consolidate this unipolar world by pushing regime change, color revolution, intervention with wars. All of that, which for the last thirty years has led to a gigantic blowback because the countries of the Global South saw what was happening. They saw the effect of the sanctions against Iran, against Syria, against Yemen, against Nicaragua, Venezuela, and all the other countries, and they saw what it did to increase the poverty of the poor.
So, what were the consequences of the endless wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, Syria, Libya? Millions of people died. They saw the weaponization of the dollar.
But then on the other side you have the rise of China which first lifted 850 million of its own people out of poverty, and then, when in 2013 Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road—which actually was an echo of our original Eurasian Landbridge proposal from 1991. The world started to change dramatically.
In the ten years since, or almost eleven years, the Belt and Road Initiative has given the countries of the Global South, for the first time, the chance to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. The emergence of the BRICS, the BRICS+, for which now more than 40 countries have applied, is causing a tectonic change in history. Six hundred years of colonialism is ending, and you have right now a revival of the Spirit of Bandung…
The Global South, the Global Majority, is actually the key today, in my view, to overcome the strategic crisis and the danger of nuclear war. Because the relationship between NATO and Russia, and NATO and China is already so poisoned and slandered, that it definitely requires the addition of the Global Majority to come out with a very strong voice….
Recently the Schiller Institute had a conference on an Oasis Plan for Southwest Asia. This is the idea that given the fact that much of Southwest Asia is desert, we need to produce lots of fresh water by building canals from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, to the Red Sea and then use nuclear energy to desalinate large amounts of ocean water, create actually new rivers this way, and have water for irrigation for agriculture, forests, new cities, and a real integrated infrastructure project.
Now that same concept can apply for all of Africa. Egypt is already building many projects, but you can use the Oasis concept for Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and regain much of the Sahel zone in the Sahara by desalination of ocean water. Take Sudan for example. They have the most fertile soil on the planet and with water they could have three to four harvests each year.
Now all of that is not enough; we also need a new international security and development architecture in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, which takes into account the security and development interest of every single country on the planet, and which pushes for the first time, the idea of the One Humanity first. And with this new paradigm I think we will have a very bright future. All my best for you.
