Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her live dialogue and discuss the issues and solutions that move the world and its people. Send your questions & comments to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them in the next live stream.
Executive Intelligence Review sponsored an Emergency Roundtable Jan. 12, featuring leading political figures from around the world, which convened online under the theme, “It’s Worse Than You Think: The Strategic Implications of the Attack on Venezuela and How To Bring the World Back from the Brink.” Ten experts, from the Americas, Eurasia and Africa, representing long experience and tested judgment in international affairs, met for nearly three hours, with a live-stream audience averaging 1,200 participants, with translation in English, French, German and Spanish.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Editor-in-Chief of EIR, and founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, welcomed her 10 fellow panelists, saying: “We have assembled here today not to lament the unprecedented situation which can only be described as a threat to the existence of the entire human civilization, but to discuss, analyze, and catapult an international response to restore international law.”
The stern reports and evaluations that followed provided a powerful expression of the shock and disgust around the world at the violent actions of these past weeks, and the role of the United States government in acting with abandon to discard international law.
However, as one speaker said: “we are not here to become more knowledgeable” about the crises, but to confer on galvanizing action to change the situation. Proposals ranged from a “Declaration” to be issued, to consensus that the priority is to mobilize the forces of the Global Majority to discuss new “configurations” to be supported to restore international law and morality. Many confirmed that the UN General Assembly is still a formation of potential positive international impact. The idea was posed to create a “structured international civil organization.”
Several speakers made the point that the cultural and political situation inside the United States is a priority to transform and upgrade. There is a correspondence between the violence underway inside the United States, and the international lawlessness from Washington. As one senior U.S. diplomat stated, now is the time that “America must introspect.”
Zepp-LaRouche summed up at the conclusion of the discussion that an organizing grouping will be formed to formulate priorities and to move on followup action.
The discussion period allowed for several exchanges on how to make this Roundtable of leading figures the basis for a global movement. The proposals discussed were for a UN General Assembly action to stop the U.S. policy; creating a movement of civil society organizations to intervene globally; activate mass movements along the model of Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; start a movement for the forgiveness of the unpayable debt; to remind Trump that he campaigned against the “Deep State,” but now appears to be run by that same Deep State.
Terming the event, “extremely productive,” Zepp-LaRouche called for everyone to reach out to good institutions and individuals. She noted—not in a religious, but in a humanitarian way—that Pope Leo XIV, on the occasion of the Jubilee year, has backed debt relief, and called for the “coincidence of opposites” way of thinking based on Nicholas of Cusa (15th century), which provides one path for organizing. The necessary elimination of the debt bubble must be controlled—an uncontrolled collapse could cause chaos. We should get this discussion to world leaders and institutions.
Extraordinary Panel
The discussants were truly an extraordinary gathering of expertise and morality, amounting to a Council of Elders. The moderator was Dennis Speed of the Schiller Institute. Presentations were made by the following speakers, in the order given, proceeding after the Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche’s opening:
- Naledi Pandor, former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation;
- Zhang Weiwei, Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai;
- Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador;
- Dmitri Trenin, Director and Academic Supervisor of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the HSE University in Moscow ;
- Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana;
- Graf Hans-Christof von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General;
- María de los Ángeles Huerta, former Mexican Congresswoman;
- Namit Verma, Indian author and security analyst;
- Dennis Small, EIR Ibero-America Editor; and
- Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard (ret., Swiss Army), former military adviser to the OSCE secretary general.
Video archive of the Roundtable will be available, and upcoming issues of the weekly EIR will publish selected transcripts. The following are selected highlights.
Zepp-LaRouche pointed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent declaration that he is not bound by international law, but only by his own mind, allowing the “might makes right” actions he is following. Trump’s call for increasing the U.S. defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, together with the military buildup across Europe, demonstrates that we are on a path to global nuclear war. She insisted that we are the only species capable of reason, and thus, can and must act to change this disastrous course. She reviewed her own proposal for “Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture” and noted that these ideas were contained also in the four global Initiatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
She called for a return to the principles of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, placing the concept of “one humanity” above all, as also in the concept of a “coincidence of opposites” presented by Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century, as a means of resolving differences by reaching a higher, unified vision. We must reach back to all the great thinkers of our different cultures, such as Confucius, Plato, and Leibniz, to restore a true love for humanity through agape.
Hon. Naledi Pandor addressed the horror expressed around the world at the illegal acts against Venezuela; and she warned that an attack on Cuba would be “a catastrophe.” She is the former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, and Chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, who initiated the South Africa’s motion to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to investigate Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Pandor pointed out that most of the Western nations accept that the West can override the interests of Russia. Developing countries have suffered under colonial rule, which the UN Charter was intended to eliminate, assuring the protection of the vulnerable from the strong. What is occurring now is the “most dangerous abuse of international law since 1948,” she said. The BRICS, the Hague Group (formed by nations of the Global South in January 2025 to defend the ICJ’s investigation of genocide in Palestine), the African Union, and other international organizations “must do more to restore international law,” while civil society organizations must also speak out. The UN must be reformed, so that those who break the rules of the Charter face a court. And individuals, too, must cause “good trouble.”
Prof. Zhang Weiwei expressed his outrage at Trump’s actions in Venezuela, terming it a “dangerous precedent” for the future. He noted that the U.S. had a “long history of reckless invasions,” adding that the new U.S. National Security Strategy granting power to the U.S. over all of the Western Hemisphere is “shortsighted and self-defeating,” which is destroying the country’s “soft power” by carrying out regime-change operations militarily, while using a “value-based humanitarian figleaf.” The U.S. action is destroying the UN Charter, which was “forged by two world wars.” He called for all nations to “unite to save the UN Charter.” He condemned the recent moves in Japan to restore the militaristic policies that had caused such destruction in World War II, insisting that China “will not accept the return of Japanese militarism,” and warned the U.S. and others that the world will not accept the end of the UN Charter.
Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, expressed support for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s recent denunciation of the U.S. being responsible for a “breakdown of values” and allowing the world to become a “den of thieves.” “My country,” he said, “has followed Israel in the law of the jungle,” acting like a mafia in protection rackets. “We are heading into a New Dark Age,” he warned. The genocide in Gaza, he said, demonstrates that “words won’t fix it” when there are such blatant crimes against humanity. The banning of free speech is a “disastrous misjudgment,” while the media refuse to even report that Russia had reasons for the invasion of Ukraine, or the blatant act of piracy of a Russian ship, or that the U.S. has turned Venezuela into a colony. Now the U.S. is even threatening its allies, pointing to Greenland. On Trump’s “brutal reassertion” of the Monroe Doctrine, he warns that “Venezuela is just an opening move.” In the face of such an “abyss of tyranny,” Freeman said, “rhetoric is not enough—if we can’t convince our governments to respect the Peace of Westphalia, we will perish.” Our rules have failed, and if the UN cannot enforce the peace, we must “find a work-around,” to either “repair or replace it.” Surely, the ambassador concluded, “we can stop this run to nuclear war.”
Dmitri Trenin, Russian military and economic strategist, gave a “bleaker view of the path ahead,” warning against the use of force. In particular, he said that Trump “won’t stop until someone strikes back.” He said that this forum was provoked by the attack on Venezuela, but he asked himself, is this the cause? Rather, he said, look at Iran, at the Israeli and U.S. war on Iran, which shows the worst that this can become. The advent of Trump, said Trenin, changed the priorities of the U.S., but they are still the same policies of the U.S. since World War II. But the “globalist collective West” is no more, now it is Trump’s personal force, while the hegemony of the U.S. is still in force. On Venezuela, he believes it was an “inside job,” as was also true in the Iraq war. What can be done? Trenin proposed that China and Russia must cooperate more, and that Iran must do more to defend itself. Trenin worries that the only protection of states over the past decades was the possession of nuclear weapons.
Donald Ramotar, the former President of Guyana, a neighbor of Venezuela, which has been threatened by Venezuela over contested territory, nonetheless asserted that the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro was a “giant step backwards for humanity.” The U.S. is asserting itself a “super colonial power, even against its allies in Europe.” He thinks this is MAGA, mafia style. There is no regard for sovereignty or international law—already seen in Gaza. The immediate target is China and the BRICS, to “push China out of South America and the Caribbean.” The targeting of the BRICS is because the sanctions failed to destroy Russia as intended, and the U.S. fears losing its position as the unipolar power. Those supporting democracy in the U.S. are powerless, and now chaos is breaking out in major U.S. cities. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about has taken over foreign policy, and is now moving on domestic policy. The policy will spark a new global battle for liberation, or nuclear war. The U.S. must mobilize against this madness. Ramotar praised Diane Sare for announcing her campaign for U.S. President.
Graf Hans-Christof von Sponeck from Germany, the former UN Assistant Secretary General, said he had studied and worked in the United States, but that what he sees now is not the “good” U.S. he used to appreciate. He proposes that the UN should activate Article 6 of the UN Charter, which allows for the expulsion of a country which consistently breaches the UN Charter, but added that perhaps the U.S. should have its membership “frozen” first. He also called for an integrated social forum internationally, a civil society institution to act on global policy.
Maria de los Angeles Huerta, a former member of the Mexican Congress warned of a “brutality unmatched threatening 2026,” with Mexico definitely threatened. She described this as the “death rattle of the bankrupt financial system.” In keeping with Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Ten Principles, she proposed: development of the transoceanic rail connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean and an energy and monetary fund to protect all the countries of Latin America, as well as a security pact as a deterrent to “the new fascist policy of Donald Trump.” She called for support of an “Action Group” designed to find new pathways. She recommended joining in international actions on Jan. 17, when the World Without War group is demonstrating.
Namit Verma, a security expert from New Delhi, India, said that Trump’s actions are “so wild that it shocked the world into seeing the state we are in.” The world is itself responsible, since after World War II there was an agreement to tie the dollar to gold, keeping exchange rates stable, but on Aug 15, 1971, Nixon made a “unilateral declaration ending this policy, and we accepted it.” He said, there have been many more betrayals. Now, America is bankrupt. “Do we need to save a bankrupt Empire?” He said, “pragmatism has become opportunism.” It is time to call the bluff of the U.S. and of Trump.
Dennis Small, EIR Ibero America editor, presented the dimensions of the Western system debt and financial aggregates bubble, standing at $2.4 quadrillion. The system is bankrupt, and even worsening through the crypto bubble and bailouts. This is “Schachtian” economics as Hitler’s central banker Hjalmar Schacht devised it—printing money for mass military buildup to save the bubble and the Empire. One-third of the U.S. budget will be going to Wall Street through military spending and debt service. Thus the world economy is governed by the military ambitions of the Western leaders preparing for a war against Russia. Small referenced LaRouche’s “Four Laws” as the crucial alternative, including a global Glass-Steagall, and new national banks to provide credit, and currency controls for all nations, to allow an economic development drive with vast increased employment in productive jobs. Think of a Global Land-Bridge spanning the world.
Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard, who served as the military advisor to the OSCE secretary general, said the unilateral attack on Venezuela sent a message to the world that universal law is finished. This is not new, he said, since the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia without UN approval was already bypassing international law. Now we have nations building military coalitions among the 150 countries which are not already part of military alliances. The talk of a new Monroe Doctrine is absurd, since the original Doctrine was to stop the Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers from undertaking any operations in South America, not to make the U.S. into a colonial power, as is now taking place.
