The Schiller Institute cordially invites you to attend our seminar/Zoom webinar originating in Copenhagen:
Date: Monday, October 11, 2021
Time: 13:00 CET
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9396531267
Meeting ID: 939 653 1267
Zoom waiting room opens at 12:45
Speakers:
Hussein Askary: the Schiller Institute’s Southwest Asia Coordinator, board member of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden, author of Dawn of Geo-Economics – Extending the Belt and Road to Afghanistan, and co-author of Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa: A Vision of an Economic Renaissance, Arabic translator of The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, originally from Iraq
Prof. Pino Arlacchi: Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (1997-2002) (who negotiated an almost total elimination of opium production with the Taliban before 2001), and former EU Rapporteur on Afghanistan. Currently professor of Sociology at the School of Political Science of the University of Sassari in Italy. Prof. Pino Arlacchi's homepage.
H.E. Ahmad Farooq, Ambassador of Pakistan to Kingdom of Denmark: Ambassador in Denmark since April 2020. 2013-2016: Counsellor/Alternate Permanent Representative of Pakistan at the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the Rome-based UN Agencies, Rome. 2010-2013: Counsellor Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations, New York. Member of Pakistan’s Security Council team during Pakistan’s membership of the UN Security Council from 2012 to 2013. 2018-2020: Director General (Counter Terrorism) dealing with counter terrorism at the United Nations and other multilateral forums. 2016-2018 and 2008-2010: Director United Nations, dealing with UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, Counter Terrorism, UN Peacekeeping and other political and peace and security issues.
Moderator: Tom Gillesberg: Chairman of the Schiller Institute in Denmark, Bureau Chief for Executive Intelligence Review in Copenhagen.
Background:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and international chairman of the Schiller Institute stated in a webcast on August 21, just a few days after the Taliban took control of Kabul, “Exactly three weeks ago, we had a seminar here on this [Schiller Institute] channel on the situation in Afghanistan. I compared it in terms of importance to the fall of the [Berlin] Wall in 1989, which was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. I said it may not be quite as big as the collapse of the entire Soviet Union, but what is happening in Afghanistan is of the same nature, because it is the end of a system.”
The new system has to be defined by a peace through development strategy for Afghanistan and the entire region. On August 17 Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, “It’s very good that the war has ended, and I think it is, on the contrary, the real chance to integrate Afghanistan into a regional economic development perspective, which is basically defined by the Belt and Road Initiative of China. There is a very clear agreement of Russia and China to cooperate in dealing with this situation. The interest of the Central Asian republics to make sure there is stability and economic development, there is the possibility to extend the CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, into Afghanistan, into Central Asia, so I think it’s a real opportunity. But it does require a complete change in the approach….
“If the European nations and the United States would understand that this is a unique chance, if they cooperate, rather than fight Russia and China, and their influence in the region, and they join hands in the economic development there — there needs to be a perspective for the reconstruction of Afghanistan in a serious way, as it was not done in the last 20 years, for sure — then this can become a very positive turning point, not only for Afghanistan, but also for the whole world.”
Peace through economic development is a policy which the Schiller Institute has been campaigning for since its founding in 1984, and which the late Lyndon LaRouche’s political movement has been advocating since the 1970’s, by designing economic development programs for most of the world. Our efforts intensified after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, proposing a policy called the Eurasian Land-Bridge, or the New Silk Road, later extended to become the World Land-Bridge concept. There is a reflection of some of the key elements of this policy in the Belt and Road Initiative announced by Xi Jinping in 2013.
Now, after 20 years of war, Afghanistan is facing an appalling humanitarian catastrophe. Helga Zepp-La-Rouche wrote in “Can “the West” Learn?: What Afghanistan Needs Now” on September 5: ”World Food Program Director David Beasley, who visited Afghanistan last week in August, announced that 18 million Afghans are starving—more than half the population—and 4 million are at risk of starvation next winter without massive help. The WHO fears a medical disaster in view of the scarcely existing health system in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and only around 1 million people are vaccinated so far….”
The necessary economic development emphatically includes building a modern health system, as well as educational expansion, extending the Belt and Road Initiative’s infrastructure connectivity projects, industrial development projects, and agricultural programs designed to eliminate opium production.”
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche has proposed that Italian Prof. Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (1997-2002), and former EU Rapporteur on Afghanistan, be appointed as coordinator for the western countries’ economic development efforts in Afghanistan. He had negotiated an almost total elimination of opium production with the Taliban before 2001, which then was reversed under the ensuing years during the U.S. and NATO military operations. Arlacchi again proposed a plan in 2010, which was thwarted by the EU, Britain, and the United States.
Zepp-LaRouche: “Afghanistan is the one place where the United States and China can begin a form of cooperation that can be a baby step toward strategic cooperation putting humanity’s common goals in the foreground. Ultimately, its realization indicates the only way that the end of mankind in a nuclear Armageddon can be prevented.”
Afghanistan is the test case of whether the West is able to learn from its mistakes, and join with the rest of the world for a peace through economic development policy — the path to a new paradigm for all humanity.
We sincerely hope that you will be able to join us for this crucial discussion.
For more information contact:
Michelle Rasmussen: +45 53 57 00 51 or
Feride Gillesberg: +45 25 12 50 33 or
si@schillerinstitut.dk
Resources:
Homepages:
Danish: www.schillerinstitut.dk
English: www.schillerinstitute.org
Articles:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “Can “the West” Learn?: What Afghanistan Needs Now.”, September 5, 2021
Hussein Askary: Dawn of Geo-Economics – Extending the Belt and Road to Afghanistan, August 18, 2021.
Schiller Institute videos:
Afghanistan: A Turning Point in History After the Failed Regime-Change Era, July 31, 2021 (two weeks before the Taliban takeover of Kabul.) Link: Schiller Instituttets Afghanistan-konference:
Spred ideen om et fælles udviklingsprogram med det samme
Afghanistan: Opportunity for a new epoch, Interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche on August 17, 2021, two days after the Taliban took control of Kabul by Michelle Rasmussen, vice president of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. Link: Afghanistan: Potentiale for en ny epoke:
Interview med Helga Zepp-LaRouche den 17. august 2021 af Michelle Rasmussen
Now, More Urgent Than Ever: Afghanistan—Opportunity for a New Epoch for Mankind, August 21, 2021 Link: Schiller Instituttets Afghanistan opfølgningskonference 21. august 2021: