Schiller Institute Conference • Paris • June 13th, 14th 2015

On June 13 and 14, eminent representatives from three of the five countries which make up the  BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and countries associated to them, were featured speakers of an exceptional international conference of the Schiller Institute in Paris,  France, titled “Rebuilding the World in the BRICS era”.

The aim of the conference which brought together some 500 people was to have the winds of  progress blowing over the BRICS and their allies reach France and Europe, and bring them to rise  up against an international order, which has nothing to offer but the return of Empires, wars of all  against all, and the systematic looting of peoples and public goods.

Also under fire at the conference was the rampant Malthusianism spread in the context of the  climate change swindle, and the UN climate change conference (COP 21), which is now being prepared to take place at the end of the year in France. That Malthusianism is the mortal enemy of  the development of the BRICS and of the rest of the planet.

War, or peace through economic development

Helga Zepp­LaRouche, founder and chair of the Schiller Institute, keynoted the conference,  outlining the perils ahead of us: a financial crisis that could rapidly turn into an implosion of the system, as the Greek crisis comes to a head at the end of June, and the growing threat of war,  including nuclear war, against Russia and China. The source of that war drive in the Anglo- American camp is the neo­conservative ideology of the PNAC (Project for a New American  Century), which proclaims that no power should be allowed to exist which could threaten the  global power of the British Empire’s Anglo ­American relationship.

In that context, her husband, U.S. statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, addressed the  conference per video, supporting the protests of three high­level German figures, two former chancellors, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder, and the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs,  Frank­Walter Steinmeier, against Chancellor Merkel’s decision not to invite President Vladimir Putin to the last G7.

Mrs LaRouche, however, was optimistic in presenting the BRICS, the New Silk Road of President  Xi Jinping and the Eurasian Economic Union, as the alternative to those dangers. She also underscored that the Schiller Institute has contributed for at least 25 years to building that  alternative, having proposed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an international order of peace through mutual development for the 21st century, based on the launching of infrastructure  corridors throughout Eurasia.

Russia, China and India

Representatives from Russia, China and India gave the conference a sensuous idea of the  “polycentric” world, or embryo of a new, more just, international economic order that the BRICS  call for, and which is coming into being at breathtaking speed. The Iranian Ambassador in France,  His Excellency Ali Ahani, sent a message indicating that the Islamic Republic of Iran is “willing  and ready to cooperate with the BRICS countries in order to offer its assistance and support to  solve regional and worldwide problems.”

Russia became acting president of the BRICS in April, and Mr. Leonid Kadyshev, Minister  Councilor of the Russian Embassy in Paris, listed the priorities that the Russian presidency will announce at the upcoming BRICS summit in Ufa (Russia) on July 9 and 10.

Before that summit is convened, the New Development Bank and the Currency Reserve  Arrangement (CRA), adopted at the Fortaleeza summit in 2014, will be launched, Mr. Kadyshev  reported, since the ratification process is “going well”. A road map should then be voted which  defines precise investments in infrastructure projects, as well as a new axis of cooperation in areas  such as “mining, energy and communications”.

Professor Shi Ze of the China Institute for International Studies then went through the different  goals of China’s New Silk Road : reducing the internal economic imbalances between its Eastern  and the Western regions, and improving foreign trade with its Western neighbors (Central Asia,  India and Russia), which can contribute to China’s huge need of energy for development. But the  “One road, one belt” strategy, Prof. Shi stressed, is also China’s contribution to the world in the  Confucian tradition, as “the development of the Eurasian continent,” will create “a new locomotive  for growth in the world” and “reinforce peace and security worldwide”.

A very important contribution followed from Indian Ambassador Viswanathan, Senior Fellow of  the Observer Research Foundation and coordinator of all activities related to the BRICS. In light of  the fact that the BRICS represent 25% of the world’s GDP, but only 11% of the voting rights in the  IMF, he denounced the “completely anachronistic character… of the IMF, the World Bank and the  Security council of the UN”.

Thus, while the BRICS started as a group that aspired to a better order, they have now decided to  be one that determines the agenda of the present order. That is confirmed by the creation of the NDB and the CRA, which Mr. Viswanathan pointed out were the first global institutions to be  created in 200 years without the participation of the West.

The future “looks bright” for the BRICS, he said, but cautioned that the group is “a work in  progress and not a finished product”.

The two days of intense discussions involved hundreds of Frenchmen and delegations from  Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Australia, Poland, Romania, Russia, China, Peru, and yet others. The public came to understand that they were not attending a “conference as usual”, but  rather participating in an ongoing international fight to ensure their own survival and that of the human race, and thus decided to become active actors in shaping their own destiny.

A solution for “Greek” and “African” debt in the era of the BRICS

The problems of debt and of a productive economy, as opposed to the  predatory financial system which has taken control of the trans­Atlantic economy, were at the  center of the June 13­14 Schiller Institute conference in Paris. At stake is what type of economy  the world will build in the BRICS era, to make it truly human.

Jacques Cheminade, Chairman of Solidarité & Progrès, opened the second day of the conference  on the theme of “Public credit and debt cancellation, the political challenge for Europe”. He gave numerous examples of a world financial system that has gone mad and become criminal: the EU  demanding that countries include prostitution and gambling in their GDP; the incestuous relationship between the banks and the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon); high  frequency trading with no judicial control; shadow banking and “alternative pools”; $800 trillion of derivatives claims.

We have to reestablish a world of real growth, said Cheminade. It is better to jump on the train of  the BRICS than to stay behind, or even worse, to actively oppose them as the oligarchs propose. However, the real challenge for Europe is “to add a surplus of power and a larger horizon to the  impetus of the BRICS”. Cheminade went on to outline Lyndon LaRouche’s measuring rod for a productive economy, which Russian scientist Pobisk Kuznetzov once proposed to call the “L”.  That means understanding that man is not a “geopolitical animal seeking to occupy territories and control resources against other human beings”, but a creative being capable of discovering  universal principles and transforming society for the better, thorough high technology applications.

Greece: a silent putsch is underway

In contrast, Greece today presents a case study in oligarchical practices. Steglios Kouloglou, a  European MP from the Greek Syriza party, engaged the audience by showing how the Troika  (IMF, European Central Bank and EU) is using the debt issue to try and overthrow the current  Greek government.

The situation is comparable to that of Chile under Salvador Allende, he said. Before Pinochet came  in with the tanks, President Nixon told the CIA: “Let the economy scream”. And the banks cut off  all credit to Chile. Today, the coup is “not with tanks, but with the banks”. As soon as Syriza came  to power, explained Steglios Kouloglu, Mario Draghi of the ECB cut, without the slightest  justification, the main source of financing of Greek banks, and replaced it with the Emergency  Liquidity Assistance (ELA), a facility which must be renewed every week. This, he used “as a  sword of Damocles hanging over the head the Greek government.”

Mr. Kouloglou used the occasion to address bitter remarks to France: “Abandoned by those forces  whose support they were counting on ­­ the French government ­­ Greece cannot solve the major problem of the country: an intolerable debt,” which was used essentially to bail out French and  German banks in Greece. “The proposal for an international debt conference like that of 1953  which freed Germany from the greater part of debt reparations, opening the road to the economic  miracle, has been drowned in a sea of threats and ultimatums,” he charged.  In that loaded climate,  Russia’s positive answer to Greece’s request to participate in the new BRICS bank came as a “sigh  of relief and optimism for Greek public opinion.”

Mr. Kouloglou received a standing ovation from the 450 participants.  “We will resist,” he  concluded, underscoring that time is of the essence: “Best wishes for the Greek government are no longer enough. The solidarity it deserves must be expressed by acts.  Time is limited.”

Africa: the myth of African independence

Diogène Senny, Secretary General of the UMOJA Pan­African movement, then showed how the  indebtedness of Africa is the result of a “cleverly orchestrated policy of new conquest by neo- colonial forces”, and should thus be declared “odious” and “illegitimate”, just as the Greek debt  should be.

Several phenomena contributed to inflate African external debt: 1) private debt in the form of  excess euro­dollars reoriented to Africa in the early 1960’s, and then of petrodollars after the oil  shock of 1973; 2) public “tied debt”, i.e., aid tied to signing contracts with the companies of the donor country; 3) multilateral debt given by the IMF and the World Bank.  Between 1970 and  1980, Africa’s foreign debt rose to $89 billion. According to UNCTAD (UN Commission on  Trade and Development), between 1970 and 2002, Africa received $540 billion in loans, and  reimbursed $550 billion, and yet today, the debt is still of $295 billion.  Studies by the CADTM  (Committee for cancellation of Third World debt) showed that in 2012, Sub­Saharan Africa  returned to the world 5% of its GDP (in investment profits and debt service), while development  assistance only accounted for 1% of the same GDP.

So, “who is helping whom”, Diogène Senny asked rhetorically.  Debt audit and cancellation for  which UMOJA is fighting are “not a request for generosity from the creditors, but a reparation and an act of justice for peoples betrayed”.