General

February 14, 2018—The open letter below was sent by the Central Committee of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine from its meeting on February 9, 2018, in advance of a court hearing scheduled for February 20. The context of the hearing, and this appeal, is the following:

On July 6, 2017 the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) went to court, seeking a judgment that the decisions of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine with respect to the PSPU are in violation of the law. The decisions in question are a refusal to make formal acknowledgment of the Charter, Program, and composition of the governing bodies of the party, adopted at its XXXI Extraordinary Congress (March 18, 2017). Prior to that decision, two earlier congresses of the PSPU (in 2015 and 2016) were likewise ignored by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. As a consequence, full-fledged activity on the part of the PSPU has effectively been halted since 2015. Consideration of this matter by the court has been postponed twice. The next session in the District Administrative Court of the City of Kyiv is scheduled for February 20, 2018.

To the OSCE/ODIHR;

European Commission for Democracy

through Law (Venice Commission)

Defend democracy in Ukraine!

Defend the rights of an opposition party!

Appeal

of the Central Committee

of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine

February 9, 2018

The Central Committee of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine appeals to you, the members of an authoritative international organization, which regulates and affirms the fundamental values of European democracy, and European values, to review and evaluate the actions of the Ukrainian authorities in regard to the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, a Ukrainian political party.

The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) was established in 1996, and is one of the few Ukrainian parties to have won seats in Parliamentary elections. The PSPU twice nominated its leader, Natalia Vitrenko, as a candidate for President of Ukraine. The party also won seats in local elections and had its representatives in the self-government bodies of many regions of Ukraine.

Since its founding, the PSPU has acted in full compliance with the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, the norms and principles of international law, and in accordance with the PSPU Charter, voted up by a congress of the party. During the entire period in which the party has been active, government supervisory agencies have made no complaints against us, neither against the party’s activity under its charter, nor against the activity of its regional organizations. Throughout these years, our party’s activity has been monitored, as required by law, by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the Central Electoral Commission of Ukraine. The PSPU’s report-and-election campaigns, regular and extraordinary congresses, and procedure for the election of the party’s governing bodies have always been acknowledged as legitimate. The party’s candidates for deputies of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, local self-government agencies, and the Presidency of Ukraine have always been acknowledged as legitimate and lawful, and have taken part in electoral campaigns, exercising their rights to run for office.

Unfortunately, at the present time the Ukrainian authorities, in the person of law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, are conducting a policy of discrimination against our opposition party, which is unacceptable in a democratic society; it extends to informational and political harassment, and physical terror, directed against the party’s leaders and activists. The party’s activity has effectively been halted. It is kept out of the broadcast media, and its peaceful public actions are impeded by the dispatch of neo-Nazi bands against our supporters, with acts of physical violence against them as members of the PSPU.

We believe that a policy of discrimination, forbidden by both Ukrainian laws and the norms and principles of international law, is being conducted against our party. This discrimination hinders members of our party from exercising their political rights and freedoms in Ukraine, guaranteed under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (articles 10, 11, 14), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 19, 22, 26), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 19, 20), the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights (articles 12, 21), the 1990 Document of the Copenhagen Conference on the Human Dimension (point 7), the Guiding Principles for the Legal Regulation of the Activity of Political Parties, documents of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and documents of the OSCE/ODIHR and the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission).

We believe that the Ukrainian government is failing to fulfill its obligations to the citizens of Ukraine who have associated within the PSPU, with respect to the guarantees, under the Constitution and conventions, of freedom of association in a political party, the right to freedom of speech, and the right to participate in democratic elections. As a consequence of the actions of government agencies, the activity of the PSPU has now been effectively shut down for three years, and the rights of the party’s members are being grossly violated. This is confirmed by the following.

1. On Oct. 28, 2016, the central office of the PSPU and the editorial office of the party newspaper, Predrassvetnyye ogni, were illegally seized by force. For more than 10 years, both the PSPU and the editorial board of the newspaper had rented, on an entirely legal basis, non-residential premises from Siver Ukraina LLC, where their offices were located and they conducted their lawful political activity there. Without any court order or notification to the party or the newspaper’s editorial staff, after the forcible seizure of the offices the Security Service of Ukraine conducted a search of the premises, and confiscated archival material, computer equipment (including hard disks from desktop computers), party documents containing the personal data of PSPU activists, party letterheads, documents on financial operations and bookkeeping reports, party symbols, and the personal property of PSPU leaders Natalia Vitrenko and Vladimir Marchenko, including their personal libraries and laptops.

The illegal, forcible seizure of the premises and property of the party and the editorial offices of the newspaper Predrassvetnyye ogni led to the opening of criminal cases under articles 170 and 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Impeding the Lawful Activity of Political Parties, Impeding the Lawful Professional Activity of Journalists). Investigations related to these cases have been ongoing for more than a year. Thus, the lawful renters and owners have not been permitted access to the party and editorial offices, or to their party and personal property.

2. The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine refuses to acknowledge or register the amendments to the Charter and Program of the PSPU and changes in the party’s governing bodies, adopted by legitimate and competent congresses of the party, which amendments and changes the party was required to make, in accordance with new versions of the Law of Ukraine “On Political Parties in Ukraine” and the Law of Ukraine “On the Condemnation of Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) Totalitarian Regimes and Prohibition of Propaganda of Their Symbols.”

Three times, on September 8, 2015, June 25, 2016, and March 18, 2017, the PSPU, in complete accordance with the party’s Charter, held the XXIX Extraordinary Congress, the XXX Regular Report-and-Election Congress, and XXXI Extraordinary Congress of the party. Three times, we submitted a complete package of required documents from these congresses to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, and three times the authorized officials of the Ministry, in violation of the aforementioned norms and principles of international law, refused to acknowledge and register the decisions adopted by the PSPU’s congresses.

They are thereby interfering in internal party relations, insofar as, by interpreting the norms of the party’s Charter as they wish, they are giving illegal, tendentious evaluations of the legitimacy of the party’s congresses, and are failing to carry out the responsibilities they bear by law, to conduct an expert legal evaluation of the PSPU documents, submitted for purposes of registration.

There have been no instructions on holding congresses or on correct implementation of the legislative norms. It has been impossible to obtain advice from Ministry of Justice of Ukraine staff, concerning their demands with respect to holding congresses and to what, in their view, is the correct application of the norms of the Charter. The PSPU leadership’s numerous requests for clarification of these demands have been met with only one answer from the Ministry: “Find a good lawyer and he’ll write everything for you.”

As a result of this attitude toward the PSPU on the part of the Ministry of Justice, the party has twice been unable to take part in elections to local self-government bodies. The ability of the PSPU to take part in the upcoming Parliamentary and Presidential elections is threatened.

3. Central TV channels have aired direct threats to the PSPU by leaders of government law enforcement agencies (head of the Security Service of Ukraine V. Hrytsak).

4. On March 17 and May 9, 2017, Nazi groups under control of Ukrainian law enforcement physically impeded demonstrations and beat up members of our party who were taking part in legal, peaceful PSPU actions. Criminal cases have not been opened on the basis of these blatant violations of the law, and the guilty parties have not been called to account.

5. Harassment and physical violence continues against the leaders of the PSPU—Doctor of Economics, Academician, People’s Deputy of Ukraine in the II and III convocations, candidate for the Presidency of Ukraine in 1999 and 2004 Natalia Vitrenko and People’s Deputy of Ukraine in the I, II and III convocations, leader of the PSPU caucus in the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, III convocation, Vladimir Marchenko.

On May 9, 2017, a group of neo-Nazis blockaded the apartments where N. Vitrenko and V. Marchenko live, smashed their doors, threatened physical assault, and defaced the hallways with offensive graffiti and threats. The police, although called repeatedly, took no action to protect the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian political and state figures N. Vitrenko and V. Marchenko. The police found no provocations in these acts by the Nazis. Court decisions requiring the authorized personnel of the National Police of Ukraine to open criminal cases on the basis of these facts have, in effect, not been implemented by the police. A proper investigation is not being done, and the guilty parties are not being called to account.

Thus the government encourages violence by neo-Nazis against its political opponents.

Analyzing what is happening in Ukraine with regard to our party and the above-described actions of law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, we believe that they are carrying out a general plan of reprisals and political repression against their ideological and political opponents—members of the PSPU.

We ask you to analyze the facts outlined above and to evaluate them from the standpoint of European values and the norms and principles of international law.

Chairman of the PSPU Natalia Vitrenko

John Sigerson

A detailed working-through of the latest scholarly edition of Beethoven’s stupendous Missa Solemnis (published by Bärenreiter in 2019), reveals many aspects of the work which have yet to be performed in the way Beethoven clearly specified.

One aspect of Beethoven’s specifications that has been generally ignored, is the relation of the soloists to the chorus. In the “Sanctus” movement, for example, a sloppy copyist’s error resulted in most printed scores indicating that both the opening “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,” and also the following Allegro “Pleni sunt coeli” section, should be sung by soloists only. Most conductors have more or less instinctively concluded that the latter “Pleni” section was obviously meant for the full chorus, yet they have left the opening to be sung by soloists only. However, the new scholarly edition’s notes clearly demonstrate that the opening “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus” should likewise be sung by the chorus, and not soloists.

Even more revolutionary is how Beethoven deals with the soloists and chorus in the great profession of faith in the Creator and in human creativity, the “Credo.” In four of the main source manuscripts—namely in (a) Beethoven’s own working manuscript, (b) the version he presented to his benefactor Archduke Rudolph, (c) the version sent to the publishers for engraving, and (d) the subscription copy he sent to King Frederick VI of Denmark—Beethoven clearly specifies that the soloists should join with the chorus in singing all those sections that do not include separate solo parts! I.e., the soloists must sing everything in the “Credo” and must never be sitting idle as mute “specialists” while faith is being professed.

To quote from the scholarly note on page 278 of the Bärenreiter edition:

“The solo voices are marked ‘Col coro’, written across the four staves, in the first few bars in BCDE [the four aforementioned manuscripts], though not in A or M [the autograph score, and the first 1827 published edition by Schott]. In NGA [Neue Gesamtausgabe published in 2000 by Henle] the annotation is noted in the Critical Commentary but the solo voices are given rests in the main score [!]. The instruction ‘Col Coro’ must have originated with Beethoven, however, and so solo voices should be asked to join with the chorus for the relevant sections of the Credo, as indicated in the present edition, in any performance that is attempting to follow Beethoven’s instructions [emphasis added].”

The Schiller Institute NYC Chorus continues to rehearse the Missa Solemnis via Zoom during this socially-distanced Year of Beethoven, and will definitely follow Beethoven’s instructions at the earliest opportunity, in the hopes that many others will follow.

COVID-19 is now spreading through the vast rural heartland of India, after it struck hard at large urban centers. India has the third largest number of COVID-19 infections in the world, at nearly 1.3 million, and just passed France for the rank of country with sixth most COVID-19 deaths, at 30,601. What is particularly concerning is the rate of new novel coronavirus infections; with 47,520 new infections on July 23, India ranks only behind the United States for new daily infections.

It is reported that the vector of migrant workers, who were working in larger cities until the work dried up, brought COVID-19 to India’s rural belt, home to 900 million Indians—70% of India’s 1.3 billion people. This rural region has health and hospital infrastructure that ranges from moderately to considerably inadequate.

West Bengal, a state of 100 million people—whose capital is Kolkata—has a rural town called Dokangora, The village has been distributing thousands of bottles of sanitizer and bars of soaps and masks, often limited to two masks per family—one family of eight shares two bars of soap—and basic food supplies including rice, dal and cooking oil. The local ambulance is little more than an SUV with no special medical equipment.  The driver ferries people with symptoms —  sometimes more than five at a time—to get testing and help. The July 23 {Wall Street Journal} reports that the regional health centers have “148 beds, but none equipped to look after coronavirus patients.”

Were coronavirus to spread through this area, the medical barriers for resistance would be minimal.

In the larger state of West Bengal, its capital, Kolkata,  has announced a bi- weekly lockdown, which appears to mean, in this setting, two days per week. Banks, post offices, and ration shops are not allowed to open. But in three districts—North 24 Parganas, Birbhum, and Bardhaman—total lockdowns have been imposed.

The success of these operations will depend on enforcement of the lockdowns, but also on a build-up of all the features of health and hospital infrastructure, greatly insufficient, which needs to be built on an emergency basis, as per the LaRouche plan to create 1.5 billion productive jobs.

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

July 17—Not only will 2020 go down in history as the year in which the world was hit by the worst pandemic in 600 years, it may also be the year in which the Chinese economy overtakes that of the United States—and if things go wrong, it could also be the year in which humanity wipes itself out in a nuclear war. There is still time to take a different path, but it will require a dramatic change of course in international politics to avoid the trap of geopolitics, which led to two world wars in the 20th century.

The changing numbers are more than just economic data: after China’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter as a result of the pandemic—the first time this has happened since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976—the Chinese economy grew in the second quarter by 3.2%. Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce, commented “China’s GDP for 2020 could be slightly lower than that of the United States.… But if the domestic chaos in the United States escalates, China’s whole-year GDP could exceed that of U.S. this year.” 

This probable development forms the background against which U.S. Attorney General William Barr just gave a fire-breathing talk about geopolitical confrontation at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum. That presentation definitely brought him into the ultra-Sinophobic company of Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Esper and FBI Director Wray.

For Barr, the phenomenal rise of China, which Deng Xiaoping initiated with his reform policy, that allowed China to lift 850 million of its citizens out of poverty, is not proof that the government is serving the common good, but rather it is only due to the Communist Party’s wish to prove that socialism is superior to capitalism. Barr could have asked these 850 million Chinese or U.S. citizens of color in Alabama and Mississippi for their opinions.

Barr calls China’s “Made in China 2025” program to become the world market leader in ten technological areas, such as artificial intelligence, robots, and telecommunications, the ultimate threat. This program of the People’s Republic of China was announced years ago. China has now achieved this status in some areas, such as 5G technology, high-speed rail and maglev systems, nuclear fusion technology, and aspects of space technology. These technological breakthroughs alone demonstrate the absurdity of Barr’s argument that China has only been able to accomplish all of its economic achievements by stealing them through industrial espionage or by influencing American companies.

China’s rise could have something to do with the fact that while this 5,000-year-old civilization has consciously revived its best cultural traditions, it is, at the same time, fostering innovation in production and excellence in education. It should come as no surprise that this successful combination, after 40 years of reform policy, has led to this nation of 1.4 billion people now claiming an equal rank among the world’s leading nations.

Definitely Not ‘The End of History’

The neoliberals’ calculation that China would also adopt the western model of democracy and free market economy when it joined the World Trade Organization has obviously not worked. Behind it was the idea of the “end of history” that Francis Fukuyama had expressed after the demise of the Soviet Union.

But instead of all states submitting to the dictates of the financial markets and the associated maximization of profits for the caste of speculators, there has been a tremendous counter-movement worldwide. Especially since China in 2013, with its offer of cooperation in its Belt & Road initiative—the New Silk Road—for the first time gave developing countries the chance to overcome their underdevelopment, and the poverty left behind by colonialism, through the development of infrastructure and industrialization. The secret services controlled by the City of London and Wall Street have increasingly characterized China as a threat.

China has repeatedly emphasized that it has no intention of replacing the United States as the sole superpower. China is, however, committed to international relations based on cooperation among sovereign states, which neither interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, nor attempt to change the others’ social systems.

When it became clear in March and April that China was not only much more able to curb the coronavirus pandemic, but also to get its economy going again faster than most western countries, the geopolitical attacks against China increased, but also against Russia. In his speech, Barr claimed that hackers associated with the People’s Republic of China were attacking American universities and companies with the intention of taking research results on vaccines and drugs against COVID-19. 

The British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), for its part, claims that the Russian group APT29, also known as “Cozy Bear,” is trying to gain access to academic and pharmaceutical research facilities of all states that are researching vaccines.

The Roger Stone Case

An explosive turning point in this secret service war has now emerged from President Trump’s decision to commute the sentence of his former campaign advisor, Roger Stone. Stone submitted a Declaration from William Binney, the former Technical Director of the NSA, in his court case. Binney and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former U.S. intelligence agents, have provided forensic evidence that there were no Russian hacking attacks on the computers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the leadership body of the Democratic Party, to account for the publication of extremely damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign by WikiLeaks. Rather, these files appear to have been leaked by an insider using a thumb drive. This evidence challenges the entire basis for Russiagate and the three-and-a-half-year coup attempt against President Trump, as well as the charges against Roger Stone. 

Immediately after his imprisonment was prevented by the President’s action, Roger Stone highlighted, in an interview on Fox, that he had tried to prove in court that Russiagate was a hoax by seeking a hearing on Binney’s evidence, but was prevented from presenting the full story by a corrupt judge. 

The explosiveness of this story lies not least in the fact that the identity of the supposed hackers of the DNC servers had been the basis for the Russiagate affair. This Russian hacker group called “Cozy Bear” was originally named by the CrowdStrike company as responsible for the hack attack, and has now been blamed for a new alleged hack attacks in search of vaccine research. 

The very public surfacing of the statement by Shawn Henry, CrowdStrike’s main cyber-attack expert, who admitted on December 5, 2017, to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, that CrowdStrike had no concrete evidence that any files ever left the DNC as the result of a hack, is another big factor. That testimony was only made public in May 2020. 

An additional element of the fraud of this outrageous conspiracy underlying Russiagate has now emerged from a British court, in a lawsuit against Christopher Steele. As the investigative reporter John Solomon reports,  the trial documents prove that the FBI was guilty of criminally deceiving the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court, by keeping silent on the fact that the person who ultimately commissioned the Russiagate story was Hillary Clinton. And that Steele closely coordinated his activities with Victoria Nuland of the State Department, who was a key figure in the Maidan coup against the Ukrainian government in February 2014.

Who Colluded with Whom

Taken together, all of these secret service operations that have been made public show that the “collusion” did not take place between Trump and the Russian government in 2016, but between the Obama administration’s secret service apparatus and the British secret service, first against presidential candidate Trump, and then against President Trump. And some of his cabinet members, who are now leading the campaign against China and Russia, have suppressed this information. Pompeo, at the request of President Trump, was personally informed by William Binney in detail about the forensic impossibility of the Russian hack attack story on October 24, 2017.

It remains to be seen whether Attorney General Barr will finally take action against the conspirators of the Russiagate affair, about which he has all the necessary information, or whether he will only advance the confrontation against China.

One thing is certain: the representatives of the old paradigm—the geopoliticians of the British Empire—will do everything possible to sabotage the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council proposed by President Putin, by continuing to make such accusations against Russia and China. This summit has the potential to lay the foundation for a new paradigm—one of cooperation among the world’s major nations, the United States, China, and Russia—and that would be the end of geopolitical manipulation. As you read and hear the hate speeches against Trump, Putin, and Xi in the media, keep that in the back of your mind.

A chorus of voices answers the call from Theo Mitchell, former State Senator of South Carolina, concerning what can be done to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche and correct the injustice rampant around the world. Leaders from the International LaRouche Youth Movement addressed the June 27 Schiller Institute conference concerning the urgent requirement to recruit a new generation of leaders to think at the level of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche.

Sign the petition to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche