Western European News Digest

Zepp-LaRouche's BueSo Confirmed as a Legal Political Party

In a session in Berlin Aug. 12, the Bundeswahlausschuss, Germany's election commission, officially confirmed the BueSo (Civil Rights Solidarity) party's legal political status. The BueSo is led by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is running for Chancellor in the September elections. Official status is a necessary precondition for any party to run in Federal elections. In total, 34 parties were confirmed, while another 32 were denied status. This does not mean, that all 34 parties will actually present slates or candidates. This decision will be taken by the state and county commissions. It is certain, that BueSo will run seven state slates, and 37 direct candidates.

Leading German Daily Attacks Zepp-LaRouche, Again

On Aug. 11, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the leading mouthpiece of Frankfurt-centered banking interests in Germany, once again attacked the heritage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the LaRouches' role in the revival of it, although this time, without using the "L-word."

Back in April, the FAZ did publish two attacks on the LaRouches by name, claiming that their advocacy of the revival of FDR's New Deal was the equivalent of reviving National Socialism.

The Aug. 11 salvo, as the earlier ones, was tucked into the Feuilleton] (Culture) section, in a review of the 50th anniversary of the death of author Thomas Mann. Rainer Hank, one of the hard-core monetarists on the economics team at the daily, takes the occasion to review Mann's writings from exile in the United States, during the Nazi and wartime period, and uses that review to attack the New Deal.

This ongoing pattern reflects the fact that Zepp-LaRouche's current Chancellor campaign, which is leading with the demand that Germany immediately leave the European Currency Union and re-adopt the D-mark as its national currency, is touching a raw nerve within the political and economic elites in Germany.

'Regional Currency' vs. Productive Credit

In what may, in the course of further investigations, prove to be another synarchist operation to prevent the spread of debate on productive credit, the phenomenon of "regional currency" initiatives has been spreading throughout Europe, recently.

In an alarming full-page article a week ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily reported that already 51 of these regionally denominated substitute "currencies" exist, in various regions of Germany. These are privately issued scrip, looking like banking notes, that even have a certain "convertibility" with the euro. Whether the pretext is tourism-promotion or something else, there is always a private group issuing these would-be banking notes, from the Urstrom-Taler that is in use in parts of the state of Saxe-Anhalt, to the Bayernmark of Bavaria, or other such titles. They are sold in exchange for euros, and can be reconverted into euros.

The scope of this phenomenon is still be limited, although, as a spokeswoman of the Bundesbank told EIR Aug. 8, it does raise concern, because indeed, it is "generation of money." The law on the Bundesbank, Article 35, bans any other currencies on German territory other than the currency issued by the central bank—formerly the D-mark, now the euro. But there is a gray zone, namely, that such regional currency groups design their "banking notes" in a way that the similarity to the official banking notes is avoided—in terms of color, size, and so on. But if there is reason for suspicion that such regional notes develop public support that can threaten the central bank monopoly, the state prosecutor can go into immediate action, the Bundesbank source said.

Since "regionalism" has been an ancient manipulative tool of oligarchies to undermine the nation-state, these tendencies bear careful scrutiny.

Left Party Leaders Steal a Page from Zepp-LaRouche

The two leaders of the Linkspartei (Left Party), Oscar LaFontaine and Gregor Gysi, called for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan on Aug. 9—not an immediate withdrawal, but one to be decided by the newly elected parliament after the elections in September.

Four days earlier, on Aug. 5, Helga Zepp-LaRouche had already called for a pullout of German troops at a press conference in Berlin.

Gysi initially was very much for the Afghanistan deployment: in statements immediately following 9/11, 2001, Gysi endorsed global deployments of NATO commando forces against "terrorists," including any in Afghanistan. He had earned himself the mock title of "General Gregor" among shocked anti-war Germans.

Left Party Forced To Soften Pro-Drug Stand

On Aug. 8, the youth organization of the PDS (the former East German Communist Party) in Saxony, led by Juliane Nagel, who is youth policy spokeswoman of the new Linkspartei, and Julia Bonk, PDS member of the Saxon state parliament, announced a big public relations campaign to begin Aug. 9, whose theme was "a better life with drugs." The campaign called for youth to make "individual decisions" to consume or not to consume drugs such as marijuana, but also heroin, speed, and Ecstasy.

Faced with a broad, nation-wide outcry over this plan, the national executive of the Linkspartei decided to call off the public relations campaign, although, they said, they still endorse "decriminalization of drugs."

Left Party Seeks Allies Among Hard-Core Right-Wingers

When the new Linkspartei was formed a few weeks ago, leaders of the right-wing radical NPD (National Democratic Party) said they would penetrate the new party, the way they penetrated the "leftist" anti-Hartz IV ferment during the Monday Rallies a year ago.

Rico Gebhardt, the campaign manager of the Linkspartei in Saxony for the early national elections, said Aug. 8 that the party would invest special efforts into harvesting the 10,000 votes from the "protest ferment" against Hartz IV, which in the Saxony state parliament elections last year, went to the NPD.

On Aug. 9, Holger Apfel, chairman of the NPD group in the Saxon state parliament, said that his party no longer had the aim of getting above the (mandatory) 5% mark for parliamentary status on a national level, in the upcoming elections. The NPD would rather concentrate on the coming elections in the various states of Germany, he said.

The mesh of policies from the "left" and the "right" should not be surprising, as both are basically controlled by the same Synarchist controllers.

London Police Chief Issues Terrorist Alert

James Hart, Commissioner of the City of London police warned that a terrorist attack on the City of London is only a "matter of time," in an interview with the Financial Times Aug. 10. The London Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and hundreds of banks, insurance, and other financial firms are located in The City, London's financial district. "If you want to hurt the government, hurt people at the same time and cause maximum disruption, not only to individual lifestyle but to the economic well-being of the country, where better to hit than at the financial centre?" Hart told the FT.

Hart said that a terrorist attack is "a matter of when, rather than if," pointing to the number of IRA bombings of the City, in 1992, 1993, and an unexploded bomb in 1996. Hart said that potential targets had been staked out several times since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. He also said that there had been "hostile reconnaissance" on the City on several occasions. "Every successful terrorist group pre-surveys its target. There's no doubt we've been subject to that surveillance, and that sort of thing has been successfully disrupted," Hart said. He claimed potential targets are not only financial buildings, but "anywhere where the maximum damage can be inflicted on the financial systems of the City of London and where you can associate that with mass murder and maximum disruption."

Hart said only 50% of firms had contingency plans for possible terror attacks, although the security "ring of steel" around the City has been extended twice since 9/11.

Britain Detains Ten as Threats to National Security

Ten foreign nationals have been designated threats to national security, and were detained pending deportation from Britain Aug. 11. These include Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian, who came to Britain in 1993 for political asylum, and has been sentenced in his motherland to life in prison by a Jordanian court. Others detained were Algerian and Lebanese nationals. Another possible detainee is Jordanian Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh.

The detentions were carried out after an agreement was reached with the government of Jordan that deportees to Jordan would not be subject to torture, ill-treatment or the death penalty. There will likely be appeals against the deportations, which could be delayed for some time.

In addition, Syrian-born cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who is Lebanese, but had been based in Britain, was detained in Lebanon Aug. 11. Bakri had recently voluntarily left Britain for Lebanon. He had made a statement after the July 7 bombings, that he would not tell the police if he knew of Muslims plotting bomb attacks. Bakri left Britain after Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he will ban the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Bakri helped found.