The timing and content of the May 17 “Open Letter to Governments of the United Nations: A Policy To Bring Peace and Development to Southwest Asia,” following the EIR Emergency Roundtable dialogue May 15, has contributed significantly to the discussion in and around the many international events at the end of this month, coming at what was called an “historic moment” for humanity by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in his opening remarks May 26 for the UN Security Council “High-Level Open Debate: Upholding the UN Charter and Strengthening the UN-Centered International System.”
Well over 105 countries and organizations gave presentations during this debate, held during May 26 and May 28, but even so, this UN Security Council special session was not the only important international occasion. As of the close of this month, a number of other gatherings also served as platforms for dialogue and initiatives toward steering a course away from dangerous warfare and Western “Epstein Class” breakdown, to the higher path of progress.
On May 28 in New York, the Group of Friends of Global Governance met at the United Nations, again under chairmanship of Minister Wang, who presented nine points of recommended reforms of world governance, with representatives from 60 nations in the discussion. He started with ways to restore the United Nations to the principle of serving the sovereign interests of all nations.
In Eurasia this week there were two major multi-nation conclaves. In Russia, from May 26-29 was the first International Moscow Security Conference, along with the 14th International Meeting of High Representatives Responsible for Security Issues. In Kazakhstan were meetings in Astana of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with its plenary May 28, and today its heads of state Council session. Joining Kazakh President Tokayev and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was on an official state visit, were leaders of the three other EAEU members, and additional guest nations.
Taken altogether—including the initiative of the “Open Letter,” under the signature of Helga Zepp-LaRouche of the Schiller Institute and EIR Editor in Chief—these occasions for deliberation constitute an intervention in support of humanity. Certain public statements explicitly recognize this point, by cross-connecting what is underway in this process, especially in connection with the combined leadership of Russia and China. In Moscow, host of the International Moscow Security Conference Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, put it this way May 28:
“In order to strengthen coordination between countries of the Global South and East, the following is important: to comprehensively reinforce the central coordinating role of the United Nations (UN), to support the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations established on Russia’s initiative, and to avoid provoking contradictions, disagreements and confrontation in relations between countries of the Global South and East. [...] Of particular importance in the current conditions are the initiatives of the President of the Russian Federation to form a Greater Eurasian Partnership and an architecture of collective security on the Eurasian continent. [...] Moscow, for its part, will continue [...] to provide partners with assistance through supplies of agricultural products, fertilizers and hydrocarbons and jointly work on the creation of pooled reserves of resources.”
Key points of the Open Letter provide content for debate in this spirit of getting on with tasks and decisions to serve mutual interests of nations, focused on the immediate necessity toward settling the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. One of the Letter’s four points proposed by Ahmet Davutoglu, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkiye, is the offer for Turkiye to be a location for temporary storage of radioactive material from Iran. If unacceptable, in practice, there are other proposals: For example, the IAEA is offering to supervise storage in Kazakhstan. Or other alternatives must be taken up.
This same kind of approach to debate it and solve it is especially true of the Extended Oasis Plan economic development perspective for the Greater Southwest Asia/North Africa region, which is in the Open Letter. It has been put forward for decades since its outline in the 1970s by statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche. There are many debatable sub-points, and open questions. For example, what share of the goal of total water supply in the Trans-Jordan region should be desalinated at multiple seawater locations, as opposed to desalination at a few huge complexes with multi-nation conveyance systems? Plus, what will be the new system of credit and funding for construction, transition, and operation?
Yet another conference in Eurasia this week was directly relevant to this approach, the world over. In Tajikistan, the Dushanbe Conference of the Water Action Decade (2018-2028) took place in the capital, May 25-28. Co-sponsored by the UN and Tajikistan, this year’s conference, the fourth such event, was attended by 110 countries and 75 international organizations. Until now, hung up by the drag factor of UN bureaucracy and Western anti-development finance networks, little has been accomplished on world water improvements, with the outstanding exception of China. But with the global shift to new multi-nation commitments, this can change. At present, some 2 billion people worldwide lack safe drinking water, and 3.5 billion lack water for sanitation.
Break down the world crisis by continent and the tasks are clear. In Central Asia, which was one of the topic areas of the Dushanbe conference, the Himalayan run-off resource base (Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers) has been insufficient for the population for decades, and “new” water needs to be diverted southward from the Arctic-flowing rivers in Russia—the Ob and Irtysh. This project was on the agenda under the U.S.S.R., and now has renewed interest. Similarly, in North America, the limited Rocky Mountain and other mountain run-off flows have been insufficient for the dry Southwest for decades. The North American Water and Power Alliance, set to go in the 1960s, must now happen. In the Southern Hemisphere there are corresponding overdue and exciting tasks.
These are the needed ideas we are called upon to bring into the world debate without delay. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, on her May 27 weekly webcast “Extended Oasis Plan Key to Development Architecture,” said of China’s UN “open debate” initiative and related deliberation, “I think this is a very important discussion process, because it pertains to the question, is the human species capable of governing itself, or are we on the path of potential self-destruction, which is not an answered question yet.”
Join the mobilization through the International Peace Coalition. Watch for early reports from the capstone event of this historic week: the Schiller Institute international conference in Berlin this weekend. Stay up to date through https://eir.news/](https://eir.news/)">[https://eir.news/.
