Current and former Ibero-American and Caribbean legislators participated today with Schiller Institute founder and president Helga Zepp-LaRouche and independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York Diane Sare in a three-hour seminar: “Stop the War Before It’s Too Late, Eliminate the Causes of the War Danger.” The very lively but serious discussion focused on a range of ideas and proposals made by the participants to address the grave global strategic and economic crisis the world faces, against the backdrop of the looming threat of nuclear war. The seriousness of the discussion reflected the participants’ willingness to be part of an international effort and initiating group that rises above local concerns to address the needs of “one humanity,” as Helga Zepp-LaRouche put it. As she told the group, there is no contradiction between being a world citizen and a patriot of one’s country.
Aside from Helga Zepp-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; Dr. Kirk Meighoo, Trinidad & Tobago, former independent Senator, 2004, United National Congress; Jorge Robledo of Colombia, former Senator, 2002-2022, the Dignity Party; Maria de los Angeles Huerta, Mexico, former deputy, MORENA, 2018-2021; Dr. Rodolfo Ondarza, Mexico, former deputy in the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, 2015-2018, Workers Party (PT). Fabiola Morales of Peru, a 2022 deputy of the Popular Renovation Party had been scheduled to attend, but was unable to, due to a scheduling conflict.
The enthusiasm of the group, and the sense of urgency to act quickly given the war threat was such that all agreed they should meet again in two weeks. 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 include the Schiller Institute’s Dennis Small, Donald Ramotar and Maria de los Angeles 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.”
Diane Sare’s presence in the discussion was very 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. Yesterday’s demonstration in front of Senator Schumer’s office, with a banner asking “Why is Schumer Supporting Nazis in Ukraine?” didn’t provoke a hysterical response from passersby. Are people waking up?
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. 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 canlearn to show solidarity with other nations.
We will not be silenced
Moderator Dennis Small opened up the seminar with a strategic overview, noting that the world today faces a far worse crisis than the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis. In 1962, John Kennedy and Khrushchev had the intelligence to engage in negotiations. Today no such possibility exists and the world is in the midst of an economic disintegration unparalleled since the 14th century. As Lyndon LaRouche had forecast, 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 policy and the speculative looting of the countries of the Global South continued and put forward alternative programmatic solutions.
Small reviewed the way in which the Ukrainian “crisis” had been orchestrated over the past thirty years with NATO’s encroachment right up to Russia’s borders. NATO and the U.S. have crossed every red line that Vladimir Putin indicated would be an existential threat to Russia, organizing the 2014 fascist Maidan coup and allying with the Nazi Azov Battalion and followers of Hitler ally Stepan Bandera. The Center for Countering Disinformation and its parallel Myrotvorets were set up by the U.S., NATO and the U.K. to intimidate, silence and kill anyone who opposes the war, and of the first 30 names on the CCD list, the first is Helga LaRouche; others are members or friends of the Schiller Institute or individuals who have participated in SI conferences.
