Christopher Sare

March 7 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche was one on a panel of three guests on CGTN’s Dialogue broadcast today, responding to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s annual press conference, which lasted at least 90 minutes. The other guests were Peter Kuznick of American University and Prof. Victor Gao Zhikai of Soochow University; the hostess was Li Quiyuan. The discussion focused on China’s role in bringing peace especially in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but most importantly to the world as a whole. The half-hour panel discussion is posted on the Dialogue program at 15:30 today. Here are the exchanges between Ms. Li and Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche.CGTN: And Mrs. LaRouche, let me get your take on this: What sort of key messages did you pick up from Foreign Minister Wang’s press conference? HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I was actually very happy with the tone, because it was like a return of sanity. This is in stark contrast to the atmosphere in the European and American media and politics in the recent days. And I think the focus on solving problems through diplomacy, on upholding the principles of the UN Charter and having a general attitude toward problem solving through cooperation, I think this was really a breath of fresh air. And I’m very, very encouraged because China is really taking a leadership role in the world right now, which is badly needed. CGTN: The Foreign Minister did say, and I’m quoting his words, “China would like to work alongside with international community to facilitate talks when needed,” although he did not specifically say in what ways. But China did stress the importance of keeping dialogue open all the way. Another question being raised by reporters at the press conference is whether this conflict or this crisis in Ukraine would impact China-EU relations. So Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, let me get your take on this? There’s some concern that this conflict will affect this relationship between China and the bloc. The foreign minister said dialogue and cooperation between China and Europe are on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit and that will provide more stability to the turbulent world situation. And he’s also urging the European Union to form an independent China policy. What do you make of this comment? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the situation is very severe, because, for example, the trade between the EU and China, which was a pillar of the world economy so far, is threatened by what is happening between Ukraine and Russia. So I think the sentiment in Europe right now is really terrible, and I can only say that what the foreign minister is giving some hope that new ways can be found. And I really think that the model of Chinese policy, the shared future of a joint future of humanity, I think, is what is needed right now in my view, and I think Professor Kuznick is right in stressing the urgency of the question, you need something completely different. If we continue geopolitics as it has been done in the past, it is a question of time when humanity is crashing against the wall, and it could lead to a nuclear extinction. So I think the model which would fit perfectly, the shared community of the one humanity, would be to convoke a conference, an international conference to take care of the security interests of every single country on the planet. Because you cannot have a peace order without taking care of the interests of every country, and there is a model in European history, that is the Peace of Westphalia. The Peace of Westphalia ended 150 years of religious war, culminating in the Thirty Years’ War, and it was based on the recognition of all war parties that if the war would continue there would be nobody left to enjoy the result. And this is in a certain sense a parallel situation to the one we are facing today, because if it comes to a nuclear war there will be no winner, there will be nobody left to even comment on the result. So I think that should be a motivation to convoke a new Peace of Westphalia conference with the specific aim to conduct an international new security architecture, which would include Russia, include China, and I think this would be in perfect spirit with the policy of President Xi Jinping about the shared community of mankind and the one future we all have. CGTN: China is hosting this year’s BRICS summit. The APEC and G20 would also be held in Asia this year. The Foreign Minister said, “Asia’s time has come in global governance,” and “it would transform from followers to front-runners and even pacesetters.” Mrs. LaRouche let me get your take on this: These are very strong words coming from the foreign minister. What do you make of his assessment here? ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it’s absolutely to the point, because the Asian countries in general, not just China, but also some other Asian countries, are very conscious of their 5,000-year-old history, and from that standpoint of a positive tradition they define a future, and they want to develop. And this is the common idea of the BRICS, the SCO, and even other organizations, and that is in stark contrast to Europe and the United States. And I think the idea of a new model of international relations, if these organizations, even if it would be brought into the G20, the idea that you need a new model of international relations which has been stressed by Wang Yi today again, that should be filled with content. Because I think we have either the choice of ending up in a geopolitical confrontation which would be to the detriment of everybody and possible nuclear war, or, we make a jump in the evolution of civilization by defining the international relations, in a certain sense in the tradition of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Bandung Conference, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence of the UN Charter; but also giving it the vision of solving together the main problems of humanity, such as, that we still have a pandemic, we need a modern health system in every single country to defeat this pandemic and the danger of new ones. We have a world famine of, as Beasley from the World Food Program always says, “of biblical dimensions”: This will get bigger because of the inflation of food prices, of fertilizer, of energy prices. So there is an urgent agenda. And I think if this year could be used to say, we need a new model of international relations which overcomes geopolitics: Foreign Minister Wang Yi and also President Xi Jinping have made references by saying, why not have the Belt and Road Initiative cooperate with the Build Back Better initiative of the United States and the Global Gateway of the European Union. So if these initiatives, rather than being in a competition, be streamlined and say, let’s address together that which is stressing all of mankind, world hunger, epidemics, the poverty—with the present financial system of the trans-Atlantic sector going completely out of whack, we are facing a new collapse much worse than 2008. The Federal Reserve was not able to “taper” the interest rate, because they’re afraid if they increase the interest rate they will have a mass collapse of bankruptcies. So there is an urgent need to have a new financial system, a New Bretton Woods system, a new credit system which provides credit for development of all developing countries—these are some of the points which really will be the test of humanity. Can we, when we face fundamental challenges, give ourselves an order which allows the survival, and happiness, of all people on this planet? I think that will be the agenda.

Feb. 25—Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent a portion of today sending out feelers for negotiation with Russia for a cessation of hostilities, then apparently pulled back. He said this morning, “I want to again address the President of the Russian Federation. The fighting continues all over Ukraine. Let’s sit at the negotiation table to stop human fatalities,” reported RT. And a key advisor, Mikhail Podolyak, added his voice: “If negotiations are possible, they must be held.” If Moscow demands it, Zelenskyy and his government are willing to discuss “neutrality status.” Kiev “has always left and [still] leaves space for negotiations” despite a “full-scale invasion” by Russian troops.Various Western media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying this morning, that inherent to a neutral Ukraine, was both demilitarization and de-nazification. With that understanding, the Russian government is ready to send a delegation to negotiate—since Zelenskyy had said he is “ready to discuss the neutral status of Ukraine.” Peskov continued that, Putin had “said from the start that the goal of the military operation was helping [the breakaway regions] L.P.R. and D.P.R., including by demilitarizing and de-nazifying Ukraine. Those are essential parts of a neutral status.” The Russian delegation would include military and civilian officials representing various branches of the government. Belarus, a military ally of Russia, agreed to host the peace talks in Minsk, the site of the original 2015, and much-abused, Minsk Accords Kiev responded by counterposing that the talks should be in Poland. Peskov: “The Ukrainian side said it had reconsidered the idea of holding talks in Minsk, chose Warsaw instead, and then disappeared.” He then pointed to Kiev’s new actions at that point—per foreign advisors—they had begun placing artillery in the center of Kiev and Kharkov. Peskov identified this as the known modus operandi of terrorists. These remarks today were preceded by comments yesterday evening. Peskov had stated that Moscow is willing to negotiate terms of surrender with Kiev. He referred to President Putin’s preparedness to engage in discussions with the Ukrainian President, with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of both a status of neutrality for Ukraine, and the promise of no weapons on its territory. Such terms would address Russia’s announced goal, the demilitarization and de-nazification of Ukraine, eliminating the most immediate threat to the security of Russia and its people. Peskov: “The President formulated his vision of what we would expect from Ukraine in order for the so-called ‘red-line’ problems to be resolved…. The operation has its goals—they must be achieved. The President said that all decisions have been made, and the goals will be achieved,” reported RT. Late last night Zelenskyy responded by way of posting a video on Telegram: “We heard from Moscow today that they want to talk about the neutral status of Ukraine. We are not afraid of Russia, we are not afraid of engaging in talks with Russia, we are not afraid of discussing anything, such as security guarantees for our state, we are not afraid of talking about neutral status.” Zelenskyy’s list of things Ukraine is not afraid of can be read as the only permissible way that Ukraine’s President might open the door for a discussion of neutrality. Zelenskyy also stated that Ukraine would need security guarantees from the West for such a neutrality agreement—something the West has not encouraged up to now.

Feb. 25—Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the Russian Security Council, and gave remarks afterward, in which he called on Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to separate themselves from the radical Stepan Bandera-tied militias. So far, it has been the radical battalion groupings persisting in the fighting. The UAF members are allowed to disarm and go home. Such a policy aims at breaking Ukraine’s institutions free from the neo-Nazi groupings, and to survive intact.Putin also condemned the Kiev leadership’s decision today to base artillery in the residential areas of Kiev and other cities. He posed to the UAF members not to allow Kiev to use their “children, wives and loved ones as human shields” for the militias. Rather, the UAF can choose to “take power” in the country and negotiate peace with Moscow. “Take the power into your own hands!” encouraged Putin, arguing that the army would be a better negotiating partner than “a bunch of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” who, he claimed, have “entrenched themselves in Kiev,” and have been holding the people “hostage.”

Feb. 25—Natalia Vitrenko, chairwoman of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), and Alessia Ruggeri, of the Comitato per la Repubblica in Italy and also a member of the Committee of Coincidence of Opposites of the Schiller Institute, were on a exclusive TV program broadcast live on the evening of Feb. 23, together with journalists, host Luca La Bella and Gianmarco Landi, and Russian journalist Iryina Mikhaylova, who lives in Italy and volunteered to translate for Vitrenko, whom she knows and admires.In the first 10 minutes of the hour-long interview there were technical difficulties to get Vitrenko connected to the program, and during this time Alessia Ruggeri briefed the audience about her endorsement of Operation Ibn Sina and the fight by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, to not only to prevent a war with Russia, but also to prevent mass starvation in Afghanistan. Natalia Vitrenko then joined the discussion, by means of simply having her cell phone image presented to the camera, and she was able to answer many questions from all three participants. The exchange started with a question on the situation in Ukraine, since Putin’s announcement that Russia recognized the two Donbas republics. She emphasized that the Ukrainian people want peace, but the followers of Stepan Bandera (neo-Nazi militias) in the country are being supplied with weapons from America and Britain, and that makes a war possible. During the broadcast, she insisted that it is the Americans and the British who are pushing for war, not the Ukrainian people, who are against war. To a question from Alessia Ruggeri on President Zelenskyy’s request to join NATO and the EU, Vitrenko replied, “the people in Ukraine do not want to join NATO. There was a referendum in 1991 against joining any military bloc. It is Zelenskyy who wants to join NATO because he does not defend the interests of Ukraine, but that of the United States and the U.K.” Host Luca Di Bella asked Vitrenko about her situation, since she had been attacked at a political rally in the past, and she confirmed that she feels threatened by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and called for an urgent de-Nazification of the country. There was a question also on the role of Soros in the Euromaidan, and in the present politics there. Vitrenko confirmed that many Soros people are in the government and the Euromaidan coup was also sponsored by his foundation. Alessia Ruggeri asked her about Putin’s statement during his Feb. 21 speech about the Odessa massacre in 2014, for which, he said, those responsible should be punished. Vitrenko replied there must be a Nuremberg Tribunal against such crimes against humanity. An audience of 1,300 people were watching the interview on YouTube, and many of them thanked Natalia Vitrenko for her courage and firsthand report on the situation. Also the hosts thanked her, and concluded that they “pray that Natalia Vitrenko may become President of Ukraine” and that Ukraine may have peace.

Feb. 20—FLASH: It was announced early Feb. 21 (Paris time) by the Elysée, that President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin have agreed, in principle, to a summit.French President Emmanuel Macron’s first phone call today with President Putin lasted for an hour and 45 minutes. He next spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and later in the day, Macron spoke with President Biden, for 15 minutes. Then again, Macron and Putin spoke. The Elysée reported this morning that Macron’s intention was also to speak with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “in the coming hours” — and also was intending to have discussions with the British and Italian Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Mario Draghi. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also planning speak on the phone to his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Elysée had earlier described Macron’s call to Moscow today as among “the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine.” It followed a meeting between the two leaders in Moscow on Feb. 7. In their call today they both agreed that there should be a meeting between the OSCE, Ukraine, and Russia on Monday, Feb. 21. They also agreed that their foreign ministers should meet “in the coming days.” According to the Kremlin, Putin blamed what he called Ukrainian “provocations” over the escalation in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. He also demanded that NATO and the United States “take seriously” Moscow’s demands regarding security—the issue at the heart of the current crisis. In a statement, the Kremlin said that “modern weapons and ammunition being sent to Ukraine by NATO member countries” were encouraging Kyiv to pursue a military solution in the Donbas region, which in turn was forcing civilians to leave. Russia wants guarantees that NATO will halt what it calls the alliance’s eastward expansion, rule out membership for Ukraine and other former Soviet countries, and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.

Feb. 19—Working on a comparison of the current strategic crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, U.S. historian and political scientist Joshua Shifrinson found documents in the British National Archive which further prove that Western leaders did give Moscow assurances in diplomatic contacts in 1990 and 1991 that NATO would not be expanded Eastward. The documents include one quoting German representative Jürgen Chrobog at a meeting “of the political directors of the foreign ministries of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany in Bonn on March 6, 1991.” According to the memo, Chrobog expressed, “We made it clear in the two-plus-four negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe. Therefore, we cannot offer NATO membership to Poland and the others.”The documents also show that U.S. Ambassador Raymond Seitz agreed with Chrobog, saying: “We have made it clear to the Soviet Union—in two-plus-four as well as other talks—that we will not take advantage of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe…. NATO should not expand to the East, either formally or informally.” All mainstream media are covering this archive find. However—such as Der Spiegel—they claim that NATO did not break a promise, which was never laid down in legally binding form, but just made adjustments of their policies after the conciliatory atmosphere of the 1990s ceased to exist afterward, and because Russia was no longer as weak as it had been during the Yeltsin period. The change in NATO attitudes, and openly breaking their promises, was not “intentional,” as Russia charges, but just developed over the time, Der Spiegel proclaims.

Feb. 16—In her weekly webcast today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated that the world took a small step back from the brink, as the British-proclaimed deadline for a supposed Russian invasion of Ukraine came and went today without incident. Rather, diplomacy seems to be gathering a bit of a toe-hold, with the back-to-back visits to Moscow and Kiev of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, along with a growing chorus of American voices demanding strategic sanity from the U.S. government.“This is an important step,” Zepp-LaRouche commented, “but obviously a lot more has to happen.” She noted that an environment is being created “to force a discussion about Putin’s demands to the U.S. and NATO to have security guarantees that NATO will not expand further to the east, and that no offensive weapon systems would be installed along the Russian border.” “I hope that diplomacy can play a bigger role again,” Zepp-LaRouche continued, including the idea that has been circulating that a new “Helsinki 2” agreement among the super-powers should be organized. “But I think even Helsinki 2 is not enough, because we need a new international security architecture which takes into account the security interest of every single country.” What is needed is “a global new security architecture that would mean the end of geopolitics. That is the necessary step mankind has to take if you want to get out of this dilemma of potential world war for good.” Simply appealing for peace is useful, she continued, but “it falls completely short, because it does not address where the war danger comes from. Sure, the war danger comes from the military-industrial complex, who need their wars to keep their machine going. But you cannot separate the interests of the military-industrial complex from Wall Street, the City of London, Silicon Valley, etc. The fact is that the neo-liberal financial system is blowing out and the war danger comes from that, because there are some people in these circles who would rather risk World War III than allow that a multipolar world develop. Especially now with China and Russia being in a new strategic partnership, which is a completely new element in the situation. The war danger comes from the fact that these neoliberal circles are experiencing their Waterloo.” Zepp-LaRouche concluded: “This is the powder keg on which we are sitting…. There is no solution within this system. This system is finished, and the only solution would be to do exactly what Lyndon LaRouche proposed for many years, namely to have a complete reorganization of the bankrupt system, a global Glass-Steagall banking separation, and then go to a Hamiltonian banking system and set up a New Bretton Woods system which provides for a long-term low-interest credit for development of the developing sector in particular. That could be done very easily, in cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative. So a solution is eminently possible.” Please register to attend the Schiller Institute’s Feb. 19 international conference, “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!”