On Sept. 4, Executive Intelligence Review combined with the 170th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) to host a roundtable discussion on the topic, “An Alternative to War and Looting in the Americas.” The day-long deliberations—which brought together distinguished panelists from Ibero-America, China, Spain, Germany, and the U.S.—began by listening to remarks delivered by EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche during a June 2002 visit to Brazil, which laid out a challenge, both to the roundtable panelists and to the over 2,500 on-line participants listening from 38 countries in five different languages:
“On the subject of integration: The bringing together of people of different cultures and nations for a common enterprise, a strategic enterprise, is the most important and most challenging enterprise in all statecraft. You cannot use ordinary politics under such circumstances,” LaRouche cautioned, because to achieve true integration “you must actually communicate ideas.”
He elaborated on the essential idea which in fact unites all nations, all religions, all language groups and all races:
“Every animal species has a more or less fixed potential relative population-density. Then how does man reach a level of several billions of population on this planet? By changing his own behavior. Other species can only do this through a kind of evolutionary development of their genetic material. Man can do it as an act of will, as in the image of God. How does this result in human progress? By transmission of these discoveries from one generation to another.”
This is the basis, LaRouche argued, on which we can “agree, strategically, to create a community of nations on this planet, which is fit for human beings to live in.”
With that conceptual guidepost, the participants took up the specific challenges of integration around the most critical infrastructure project of Ibero-America and the Caribbean: building a bi-oceanic rail corridor from Brazil’s Atlantic ports to Peru’s Chancay port on the Pacific, in order to link the entire region to the phenomenal growth expressed in China’s Belt and Road Initiative across the Pacific.
EIR editor-in-chief Helga Zepp-LaRouche used her keynote address to put the proposal in strategic focus.
“The time has come that the countries of the Global South have to assume a leadership role in the world of today, and prove that Kissinger’s mantra that ‘history is not made in the South’ is utterly false. If the countries of Ibero-America unite around a common development plan, they can assume sovereignty of all and determine their own future. Rather than having the South American continent be a playground for a geopolitical confrontation, a united Ibero-America can influence the course of world politics.”
She turned her attention to Brazil, which is facing a presidential election on Oct. 4 in which the speculative vultures of Wall Street and the City of London are doing everything in their power to try to stop President Lula da Silva from being reelected.
“Brazil is a founding member of the BRICS,” Zepp-LaRouche reminded the audience, “and in that capacity can play the role of a mediator between the Global Majority and the Global North, invoking the tradition of the spirit of cooperation between [Brazilian President] Getúlio Vargas and [U.S. President] Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By putting the bi-oceanic railway corridor on the agenda, Brazil can invite both China and the United States to participate in the perspective of common development.”
A central issue discussed during the dialogue among the panelists was how—or even if—the United States that today is imposing the law of the jungle around the world, could ever be brought back to its senses and revive the tradition of FDR and LaRouche. Zepp-LaRouche stressed that such a change in the United States, driven by the “voice of the Global South” demanding a new system of justice for all, is the only way to avoid a head-on collision which would likely lead to thermonuclear war.
Zhang Weiwei, Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, conveyed China’s full support of such a development-based approach to solving global problems, as seen in Chancay port, which was jointly built by Peru and China and inaugurated in 2024. “At this moment of history, a time of uncertainty and much chaos, it’s indeed timely and very perceptive to discuss this landmark project, the Bi-oceanic Rail Corridor linking Peru’s Chancay port and Brazil’s Ilhéus port,” Zhang stated. “[This] is a landmark project under joint feasibility study by Brazil, Peru, and China, which I think is an expression of genuine multilateral cooperation and Global South solidarity.”
As became clear in the course of the roundtable dialogue, building such an integration project will not only serve as a living alternative to the policies of war and looting today being unleashed across Ibero-America by the Trump administration. It will also serve as a proof-of-principle that the same approach to integration—"the most important and most challenging enterprise in all statecraft”—can be applied to even more challenging and difficult problems elsewhere, such as the ongoing genocide and wars in Southwest Asia.
As Zhang Weiwei put it: “The Bi-oceanic Rail Corridor is more than a transport infrastructure project. It is a powerful symbol of South American integration, mutual assistance, and independent development. It unites rather than divides, delivers development rather than confrontation, and pursues common prosperity and development. I think we should all work hard to promote this kind of idea and fascinating project in the interests of the Global South.”
