June 16—The LaRouche movement held a meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Friday, involving several dozen participants from a dozen nations, representing a growing number of labor unions, social movements, political and religious groupings. They brainstormed for two and a half hours on actions to be taken, in a process encouraged by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Regular follow-up meetings will be held to report back on steps taken and to plan future activity.
The peace effort got a boost Friday from the Global South. Seven leaders of African nations, including four Presidents, are on their peace tour to Ukraine and Russia, where they will be meeting with their counterparts to discuss the urgent world need for peace and an end to the economic mayhem caused by the continued fighting and disruption to world trade.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday, June 16 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, addressing the great economic realignment taking place and the dangers of war. Despite, or perhaps because of the sanctions against it, Russia reports an economic growth rate of 3.3% in April, with an expected 2% growth overall for the year. Trade with Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) nations is 90% in rubles, while trade with China is 80% in rubles or in yuan. This means “that the ugly international system, which was neocolonial in nature, has ceased to exist. Meanwhile the multipolar world order is being reinforced.”
Russia is backing Egypt’s efforts to join the BRICS+ grouping, and Syria has announced that it will seek membership in that organization as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
China has issued a ten-year license for the operation of a new thorium molten salt nuclear reactor, which has the benefits of using a more plentiful resource than uranium, and not requiring water.
On the military front, while Putin insisted at the SPIEF that there is no present consideration of using nuclear weapons, even the act of normalizing discussion about their potential role lowers the threshold for their use, and should be avoided. The Russian President also told reporters earlier this week that NATO is wrong if it believes Russia will not enforce its red lines. After all, “is the special military operation itself not a response to them crossing these lines?”
And the red lines are being crossed, by support for military activities that were denied earlier in the war. U.S. weapons have now been used for attacks on civilians in Russia. As expressed in a recent Newsweek article: “If Polish soldiers launching a self-proclaimed ‘ground war’ in Russia isn’t enough to rattle off the complacency, one shudders to think how severe of a shock would be necessary.”
Let’s not find out.
Organizing for peace is what is necessary. Join the LaRouche movement in doing so!
