ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

Ukraine Provocations Staged to Cancel Trump-Putin Summit

This is the edited transcript of the Schiller Institute’s New Paradigm Webcast of November 29, 2018. A video of this webcast is available.

Editor’s Note: Shortly after Air Force One took to the air this morning, to carry the President to Buenos Aires for the G20 Summit, he sent a tweet reading: “Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin. I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved.”

Harley Schlanger: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute and I’d like to welcome you to our weekly webcast with our founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s November 29, 2018, and we’re in the midst of a very rapidly developing story. In fact, we just heard a few minutes ago that it looks as though the planned summit between President Trump and President Putin may be cancelled.

Helga, this was obviously the intention of this Ukrainian provocation in the Sea of Azov. What do you know? How has this thing unfolded? It’s clear that the target was to prevent this summit from taking place.

Ukraine Provokes Russia, Again

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think it has all kinds of features, but we always knew that one of the danger points of a possible war was on the one side, Syria, and on the other side, the situation between Ukraine and Russia. I tend to agree with Gen. (ret.) Harald Kujat [Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (2002-2005)] who, in a “Phoenix Runde” TV interview in Germany on November 27, said there needs to be a full investigation of what actually happened before taking sides.

Nevertheless, the whole question of cui bono and the whole situation is that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been trying to provoke things for almost the whole year. In March, there was an incident where the Ukrainians captured a Russian fishing boat. Most people know what happened this time—Ukrainian warships approached the Kerch Strait from the side of the Black Sea in the direction of the Sea of Azov, but without announcing themselves, which they are supposed to do. So now, Ukrainian sailors were taken into custody and interrogated. Written instructions were found on them, saying they should absolutely proceed in secrecy and not make their approach known.

So, it really looks like an absolutely staged provocation, and that is exactly what Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. Actually, I think the Lavrov statement was the most interesting, because he said that this was a premeditated provocation conducted by the same forces who want to destroy the Trump Presidency. And I think that that is absolutely on the mark. If you look at such outfits as the Atlantic Council and the neo-con trans-Atlantic network.

Now, this is obviously not the end of the story. How insane this is, can be seen by the fact that the General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, immediately said that NATO is without question fully on Ukraine’s side. And with a delay of two or three days, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated yesterday that the biggest problem in this crisis is that the other nations all the time take the side of Ukraine, and that that encourages the Ukrainian government actually to go further and further in its provocation. And then Putin, ironically said, if the Ukrainian government were to propose to eat babies for breakfast, the West would absolutely go along with it.

We are now, indeed, faced with great danger. There are out-of-control warmongers such as the Atlantic Council and the new British Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith. Smith said that Russia is a bigger problem than ISIS or al-Qaeda; he did not say that in the context of the Ukraine crisis, but in general. The push for war also comes from outfits such as the “Integrity Initiative,” about which I will elaborate further.

Fortunately, it is clear to many European governments, otherwise, that this has the potential of going completely out of control, so most of them called for de-escalation, appealing to both Russia and Ukraine. One can be sure that this will be a hot issue at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, which begins tomorrow.

The situation is extremely, extremely dangerous. Poroshenko, as most people should know by now, declared martial law. He said he wanted it to be for 60 days, but because of the opposition, including from Mrs. Yulia Tymoshenko, he could only get the parliament to agree to 30 days. But our friend, Natalia Vitrenko, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, said in a webcast that the danger is that Poroshenko plans to have a dictatorship, and if you have 30 days, after that you simply announce another 30 days. That has been the previous pattern in Ukraine.

So, I think we are really at an extremely dangerous point. What if NATO sent a flotilla of warships into the Black Sea, or even the Sea of Azov? Exactly this has been demanded by Edward Lucas, one of the leading representatives of the Integrity Initiative. Others are demanding that heavy, lethal weapons be supplied to Ukraine—I mean, this is the stuff out of which World War III could easily be triggered.

The latest I have concerning Trump and Putin getting together at the G20 comes from Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, who at some point today said they would briefly greet each other and then maybe meet for one hour on Saturday. Now, one hour, given all the subjects supposed to be discussed—the INF Treaty, Ukraine, Syria, terrorism, and many other issues—is obviously not enough. But Trump said he hopes to have a meaningful summit in Washington, soon. I think that is good, but I can only say, be on absolutely super-high alert, because this Kerch Strait provocation is a very, very dangerous escalation.

Schlanger: Just a couple of other aspects: Putin has pointed out that Poroshenko in the polls is in single digit territory and is running fifth so far, and for him to either postpone the election [in March] or as Natalia Vitrenko said, to establish a dictatorship using martial law, would not be out of the question. But it’s clear, and we have talked about this before, that the intent of the opponents of Trump was to do anything to stop a meeting between Trump and Putin, including the danger of risking a war.

And one of the key elements about this particular provocation is that there have been Ukrainian vessels that have transited the Strait before, but under a 2003 treaty agreement with Russia, they have to be pre-announced, and sometimes they even have Russian pilots captain the ships through the Strait. So, this was a deliberate violation from the side of Ukraine.

Trump tweeted that the reason he’s cancelling is because the Russians were still holding the sailors; he said it’s unfortunate, but he said he looks forward to a meaningful summit in the near future.

The Integrity Initiative

Now, you mentioned the Integrity Initiative. There are a number of these operations out of Britain. Remember, we had earlier the false-flag chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the Skripal affair. This looks like another one of these operations. How does this thing work? How do they get these things organized?

Zepp-LaRouche: This is quite a story and it has not yet broken into the mainstream media. It has been leaked by an organization which calls itself “Anonymous.” It was then published on a website called “Moon of Alabama” in the United States, by Sputnik, and by some Indian newspapers. It is quite an incredible story. The Integrity Initiative is an organization that operates through all the British embassies. They have networks of people through whom they emanate certain anti-Russia propaganda, and they have in each country so-called “cluster groups”—you could say “agents of influence” all of whom are of an absolutely raving, anti-Russian profile.

For example, in the United States, Ian Brzezinski is one of them. He is the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski and a member of the Atlantic Council and numerous other organizations. On November 26, the Atlantic Council put out a collection of statements—I don’t have the authors’ names here now—but all kinds of think tank persons, members of the Atlantic Council, representatives of other think tanks, who all are foaming-at-the-mouth raving.

They are proposing that Russia should be immediately cut off from any financial credits from the West, or even any financial dealings, that the SWIFT agreement [for interbank electronic transactions] be cancelled with Russia; that lethal weapons be sent to Ukraine; that Ukraine and Georgia be accepted as members of NATO immediately; that large flotillas of NATO ships be deployed into the Black Sea—and all kinds of such proposals, that if carried out, would certainly bring a complete showdown between NATO and Russia instantly, with the potential of the whole thing escalating to a real war, because there are certain red lines which Russia will not accept. I think that that is the reason why there have been all these warnings of war coming from Russia in the recent period. [See EIR Daily Alert, Nov. 29.]

This is the way British intelligence operates.

In Germany, one of the members of the so-called cluster groups, is Klaus Naumann, former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, [and former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr], who has even called in the past, if I remember correctly, for a first use of nuclear weapons—he has called for a showdown with Russia in the Arctic, and he is one of these absolutely hardcore neo-cons. That’s the profile.

This is meddling. If you have some organization going into an anti-Russia Cold War-almost-turning-into-a-hot-war propaganda, working through the embassies in each country, I mean, if that is not meddling, I don’t know what is!

Now, I find it absolutely incredible that the mainstream media have not picked this up at all. However, when Foreign Minister Lavrov was in Paris meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday this week, he sharply attacked this. However, that has not been picked up by the Western media, either. Most media outlets completely take the side of Poroshenko. They don’t report the two sides objectively, or even ask for an investigation. This reminds me of the kinds of censorship and black propaganda operations typical of wartime behavior. And I think it should cause people to think, because if people are denied access to information to make their own judgment for themselves, it should really ring the alarm bells in the highest way.

I suggest that everybody look closely at this Integrity Initiative. Sputnik interviewed me about it. It really deserves much wider attention. There should be a parliamentary investigation of this group in a every country. Given that there is such hysteria about “Russiagate,” and so-called “Russian meddling,” here we have, once again, a clear-cut case of British meddling. This apparatus may very well be the same one, or in coordination with the forces which committed the coup, or the attempted coup against President Trump, and I find it extremely interesting that Lavrov said that the provocation by Ukraine was done by the same circles which are trying to destroy the Trump Presidency, and that is exactly on the mark.

Schlanger: And that’s what we’ve been covering from the very beginning. Speaking of British operations, there was an article planted in the Guardian by Luke Harding, one of the MI6 mouthpieces, claiming that they now had evidence that [Trump campaign figure] Paul Manafort had gone into the Ecuadorean Embassy [in London], and met with WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. Manafort and Assange and WikiLeaks vehemently deny this, but it looks as though this was designed at the same time as an escalation against Manafort, to push Trump further into a defensive mode going into the G20 Summit.

What to Expect from the G20 Summit

Now, with the Summit coming up, Helga, it looks like even though there may not be a Trump-Putin meeting, there are many, many other side meetings scheduled, which probably will be the main course, because it doesn’t look like the G20 is going to do much about the global financial crisis.

What are you expecting to come out of this?

Zepp-LaRouche: Over the last several weeks, we in the Schiller Institute have demanded that what must be put on the agenda is a New Bretton Woods credit system, the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche—Glass-Steagall, a national bank, a credit system, and a crash program for fusion and space cooperation to increase the productivity of the world economy. I think it is already predetermined that, because of the presence of certain governments [at the G20], this will absolutely not happen, and because of this sabotage, it is also not going to happen between Trump and Putin, or Trump and Xi Jinping.

However, as you said, there will be many interesting meetings: Trump is meeting with Putin briefly, with Xi Jinping, I think with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Then there will be a three-way meeting, with I think Trump, Modi, and Abe—so a lot of interesting developments will come out of it, but it will for sure not be what is needed, given the fact that the financial crash is hanging over the world as a Damocles Sword.

We will continue our mobilization, because unless there is a complete change in international relations, the danger of a repetition, or something even worse than what just happened around Ukraine, is quite possible.

However, we do expect some interesting things to come out. Some Chinese and some Americans expect some kind of a deal between Xi Jinping and Trump. But, let’s see: We will know in a few days.

What Are the Chinese Doing?

Schlanger: The China side is very interesting in this. The same forces behind Russiagate and who are attacking Trump-Putin, are also escalating against China, with a demand for Magnitsky Act sanctions against China; other kinds of crazy charges from people like Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida and Rep. Chris Smith from New Jersey. But it does appear as though the Chinese are shrugging it off and continuing a global mobilization around the Belt and Road Initiative. Helga, this is something that’s quite significant, with Xi just in Spain. Why don’t you update us on what the Chinese are doing?

Zepp-LaRouche: I have said many times that we have to surround Germany, in order to eventually crack open even Germany for cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative—and that’s exactly what seems to be happening. In the last days, six major events have occurred in Europe, with another one coming up, on cooperation between China and European nations. There was a meeting about major cooperation between an Italian media outfit and the Chinese media, building up networks of media in Italy. Then, naturally, the quite successful state visit of Xi Jinping to Spain, where the discussion focused on turning Spain into in a hub for the Spanish-speaking countries around the world.

On his way back from the G20, Xi Jinping will stop in Portugal, where there has been discussion about building the deep-water seaport of Sines, also to become a hub for not only the Eurasian connection of the Silk Road, but also the Maritime Silk Road. And this picks up on a proposal which we have in our World Land-Bridge report, namely, building the Atlantic route of the Maritime Silk Road, which then will connect Central America, South America with Europe, with Spanish-speaking countries elsewhere.

So, I think this is a major breakthrough. And what I find very exciting, is that the idea of building a tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar is now fully back in the discussion. There is already a state treaty between Morocco and Spain; a feasibility study has been made, and all that is needed now is basically to start doing it. The idea is to connect the European transport networks through a tunnel at Gibraltar to connect to transport networks in Africa, which also are to be built. Once this tunnel is completed, Europe and Africa will be connected in a much more direct infrastructural way, which I think is very exciting.

Then there was a big event in Lyon, France. The mayor very proudly said that Lyon is the most natural place to build corridors that would connect to the Silk Road. And even in Hamburg, there was a big event, 450 participants, sponsored by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and China, where, except for one crazy Greenie who went out of control, everybody else was more or less in favor of cooperation, seeing the tremendous potential. Hamburg would connect to both the Maritime Silk Road and also the overland Silk Road Economic Belt—23 trains from China, traveling the Silk Road, are already arriving ever week.

So, I think this is very good. And what was very beautiful is that Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, the chief economic advisor to Xi Jinping, made a very optimistic speech on the limitless potential of the New Silk Road. He then told the audience a personal story which I think won the hearts of everybody. During the Cultural Revolution, as a younger man, he had to hide in one of the hutongs; these are the ancient, old alley houses in Beijing. There, in secrecy, he listened to Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E-minor, developed a love for Classical music, and came to know how important Classical music is for society and for humanity.

So, this was really good, and considering all of these developments—there will be another major forum in France at the beginning of December—I think the Silk Road is progressing. And despite the continuous opposition of Brussels, and unfortunately Berlin, I think it is on the march forward. Unless we have World War III, I think the advantages of such a new paradigm will become apparent to everybody, especially since this is one of the major campaigns of the Schiller Institute, and we will not lessen our efforts to win over all of humanity to a New Paradigm.

Schlanger: You mentioned surrounding Germany: Well, Hamburg is the northern beachhead for the New Silk Road for Germany!

Italians in U.S. for Talks with Congress

Now, another very significant development is the presence of two prominent Italian political leaders in Washington, D.C.: Michele Geraci and Marco Zanni, who brought a petition signed by 217 prominent Europeans to the U.S. Congress. More importantly, both came to speak with the members about what’s happening in Europe, what’s happening especially with banking. Have you a report on their visit. Helga?

Zepp-LaRouche: Oh, yes! This is really very, very important. Michele Geraci is the Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Development, and Marco Zanni is a very prominent Member of the European Parliament (MEP). They met in the Congress, and also met with two Schiller Institute members, Paul Gallagher and Alicia Cerretani. There is a very nice picture of the four of them.

Both Geraci and Zanni are having many meetings. Zanni and Gallagher and Cerretani had altogether 13-15 meetings with congressional offices, with some congressmen and Italian-American Congress members. The Petition is a demand for Glass-Steagall, and an appeal to President Trump to implement Glass-Steagall. The two government parties in Italy—the Five Star Movement and the Lega both have in their party programs, the demand for Glass-Steagall.

I think this is extremely important trans-Atlantic coordination. The Italian government, in the person of Michele Geraci, met with Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish. So now there is a government-to-government connection. According to Geraci’s website, he has been proposing an EU-U.S. summit to discuss joint development projects in Africa. I don’t know what the response to that was, but I think it’s a wonderful idea, and actually, what we in the Schiller Institute have been proposing for a very long time, and now it’s being proposed on an inter-government level between a pro-Trump government, and a government which is otherwise also pro-China and pro-Russia.

So, I think this is really a major breakthrough, and it is the direct work of the Schiller Institute, because our chairwoman in Italy, Liliana Gorini, was very instrumental in helping to collect the signatures. Today she was interviewed by Radio Gamma 5, an Italian radio network, where she was asked, “Are there important signers among them?” to which she replied: “Yes, seven members of the Italian government, including three ministers and four undersecretaries, as well as members of the Italian Parliament, the European Parliament, and other political figures in Germany, Switzerland, and France, all asking President Trump to keep his election promise to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act in order not only make America great again, but the whole world.”

So, I think this will definitely have an impact, and is an inspiration of what can be done to bypass this trans-Atlantic control which is otherwise trying to suppress normal relations among countries. This is a very good development.

Schlanger: Given the danger that we talked about at the beginning, of a possible outbreak of World War III around the Ukraine crisis, I think we should come back to that. I want to bring up the Schiller Institute’s intervention.

We’ve been insisting that there are three steps that have to be taken. One is to end the coup, to shut down the Mueller investigation which is designed entirely to prevent U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese cooperation. The second step is to work with Russia and China. And third, is to work together with other countries, including India, toward a Four Power agreement for a New Bretton Woods and for LaRouche’s Four Laws. Helga, given what we heard you say at the beginning of our discussion today, that is, the probable cancellation of the Trump-Putin summit in Buenos Aires, what needs to happen now, to get this thing back on track, get the momentum going again towards the New Bretton Woods Four Power agreement?

What to Do About the Coup Against Trump

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think the summit will produce some interesting results, and Trump, because this Ukraine situation escalated in this way, or in the context, actually, still wrote a very powerful tweet, which expressed his determination to fight the coup. Because he said that Mueller, who basically (and these are my words) has absolutely been unable to produce any proof for Russia collusion in the almost two-year investigation,— so Trump apparently was quite annoyed by the continuous efforts of Mueller to go after Manafort, Roger Stone, in a fishing expedition, because there is absolutely no evidence. So, Trump wrote in a tweet that Mueller and the crazy Democrats, or the “angry Democrats” have gone rogue, and that all of those people should go to jail, and that there will be heroes and it will not be the Democrats in the end.

So obviously, the declassification of the documents pertaining to Christopher Steele, the role of the British, the manipulation of the FISA Court—all of that should be very much up on the agenda. We in the Schiller Institute have been absolutely in the forefront of pointing out, again and again, that it is not just an American fight between Trump and the neo-liberal establishment, but it is a fight absolutely involving the role of the British secret service, British intelligence, the British government. What we generally call the “British Empire” is alive and kicking—not in the old form, but in the form of control by the City of London and Wall Street. That is the apparatus trying to destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump.

So people should join us to study these matters, because if you don’t, you just easily get caught up in the fake news being spread by the mainstream media, and then you think Trump and Putin and Xi Jinping are all the enemies of mankind and you miss the boat, that it is the combination of these leaders—including some others like Modi and other countries not to be excluded—who are absolutely essential to form the platform for a New Paradigm.

Since the problems will not go away with the G20 summit, the Schiller Institute intends to continue the mobilization. We will continuously produce pedagogical materials, we will have meetings and conferences.

I really ask that you join our effort, that you make sure to spread the existence of this weekly webcast, that you become a member, and that you help us to really show that there is a way out of this crisis. If we get Russia, China, the United States, and other nations to work together—like now, the example of the Italian-U.S. cooperation demonstrates—we could really solve all problems of this world, including poverty, including underdevelopment in all countries, emphatically including the United States, where it is now widely reported internationally that longevity in the United States is going down for the first time in two consecutive years. If there’s any parameter for a failing economy, then it is if the lifespan of people becomes shorter instead of longer.

So, I really urge you: Do not sit on fence. Become active, join the Schiller Institute. Join our movement which is trying to get a new world economic system combined with a new cultural Renaissance. As Liu He said in Hamburg so beautifully about Classical music, that is the kind of spirit which is a foretaste of what the New Paradigm of mankind must be and will be, if we are going to make it as a human species.

Schlanger: To end on a positive note, I want to interject a little story on the Spirit of the New Silk Road. In September, Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea, as a “peace gift,” gave two Pungsan dogs to President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. Those two dogs have now produced six puppies. President Moon has expressed his happiness about this, saying that it augurs well for relations between the two nations, the “Singapore Model,” the New Silk Road Spirit.

So, with that, Helga, thank you very much, and we’ll see you next week!

Zepp-LaRouche: I hope so—next week.