“The BRICS: Development Strategies and Cooperation Mechanisms in a Multipolar World”; Conference, Lima, Peru, October 3, 2024
A Call for “Moral Violence of Nations in Favor of Peace”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Dear conference participants, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The tension in the world affairs has never been stronger in human history: On the one side the genocide happening in front of the eyes of the world public and the terrifying threat of the possible extinction of mankind in a global nuclear war, and on the other side the concrete perspective for the creation of a new economic system, where the aspiration of the Global South nations for development, prosperity and a fulfilled life for all of its citizens is about to come true. This tension characterizes the end of the epoch of colonialism, which started about 500 years ago, and is now about to end—one way or another.
As Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov recently said: The level of conflict on Occupied Palestinian Territory and in the Lebanese-Israeli border region is unprecedented, destabilizing the entire Southwest Asia and North Africa. According to two American surgeons who just returned from Gaza, Dr. Mark Perlmutter and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, the level of suffering surpasses that of any other war zone they have ever worked in. The defiance of the powers that be to respect the rulings of the highest courts of this world, is encouraging a war drive, aimed to engage Iran and even the U.S. into the conflict, which would rapidly expand into a world war.
Equally at the cusp of global conflict is the situation between NATO and Russia, where President Putin just announced a proposed change in the Russian nuclear doctrine, stating for the first time, that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to an overwhelming conventional military attack coming from a non-nuclear country, if that attacking country was backed by a nuclear power. This is the Russian reaction to a long line of provocations from the West, starting with the broken promises to President Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War, never to expand NATO one inch to the East, through the Western-backed Maidan coup in 2014, and the delivery of ever-more powerful weapons to Ukraine, until the very recent threat to allow Ukraine to use these weapons for strikes “deep into the territory of Russia.” The announcement of the new Russian nuclear doctrine is literally the last warning, before the apocalypse could descend on humanity.
The effort by the BRICS and nations aspiring to become BRICS-members has already evoked the “Spirit of Bandung,” meaning a tremendous sense of optimism that economic independence can finally be accomplished. But at the same time it is more than appropriate to also remind ourselves of the warnings of President Sukarno in his historic speech at the Bandung Conference in 1955, which sounds totally prophetic for the crisis we face today:
Sukarno said: “Today the picture is more black. War would not only mean a threat to our independence, it may mean the end of civilization and even of human life. There is a force loose in the world whose potentialities for evil no man truly knows. Even in practice and rehearsal for war the effects may well be building up into something of unknown horror.
“Not so long ago it was possible to take some little comfort from the idea that the clash, if it came, could perhaps be settled by what we called ‘conventional weapons’—bombs, tanks, cannon and men. Today that little grain of comfort is denied for us. It has been made clear that the weapons of ultimate horror will certainly be used, and the military planning of nations is on that basis. The unconventional has become conventional, and who knows what other examples of misguided and diabolical scientific skills have been discovered as a plague on humanity.
“And do not think that the oceans and the seas will protect us. The food that we eat, the water that we drink, yes, even the very air that we breathe can be contaminated by poisons originating from thousands of miles away. And it could be that, even if we ourselves escaped lightly, the unborn generations of our children would bear on their distorted bodies the marks of our failure to control the forces which have been released on the world.
