The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

My name is Ramasimong Phillip Tsokolibane. I am the leader of the LaRouche movement in South Africa. But I make this urgent appeal not as a citizen of my country, but as a spokesman for all those who are now starving or who will soon face starvation in Africa, and have no one to speak on their behalf.

Right now, many millions of my fellow Africans are starving. They are starving thanks to a combination of deliberately enforced underdevelopment of my continent—enforced by the neocolonial power of the British Empire, acting through their financial power in the City of London and Wall Street—now intersecting both a global pandemic and locust plagues and other natural disasters affecting food production on the continent. To use the technical language, they are suffering from “Acute Food Insecurity Phase 4: Emergency,” one step away from “Phase 5: Famine.” If you drop the polite jargon, they are already starving, while millions more will also face starvation unless food is made available to them quickly.

“Humanity is facing the greatest crisis any of us have ever seen. It’s time for those who have the most to step up, to help those who have the least.’ That warning came from David Beasley, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme, on 17 September. He wrote that 30 million people are now in danger of dying from starvation. Most of them are in Africa.

I want to stress that this is not a matter of what will happen—it is already happening. And unless something is done and done soon, millions and millions of people will die in the immediate weeks and months ahead, as David Beasley warned. He had already addressed the UN Security Council in April, warning that 300,000 people could die every day.

While various charitable and other organizations have sounded alarm bells and have appealed for money, the issue we face, if we want to save lives, is securing massive amounts of food, as soon as possible, to hungry and starving people. Given the state of infrastructure on the continent and the fact that much of this starvation is occurring in isolated, rural areas, the distribution that must take place is well beyond the means of individual governments and those of relief agencies.

I believe we must mobilize the logistical capacities of the world’s most capable military forces and design a strategy to bring food supplies from such food-producing nations as the United States and Canada, and bring them directly to those who need them. Let allies and adversaries alike, join forces, in this greatest of all humanitarian efforts. In his most recent encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship), His Holiness Pope Francis wrote that it is finally time for mankind to give up the idea that war is justifiable—any kind of war that takes human life. But this is rather a war—or more precisely, an international battle—to save that most sacred of things, human life.

I appeal to the American President, Donald Trump:

Take up this challenge. Give America’s farmers the mission to produce the food to feed the starving, while deploying the vast resources of the U.S. military on this mission of mercy to bring food to those who need it on my continent. Do this, in the spirit of your wife, the gracious First Lady Melania, who pledged to help Africa and especially its children in any and every way possible, while visiting the continent in October 2018. By emergency action, take whatever steps are necessary to make this happen.

This should be sufficient reason to convene that international great power summit called for by the great lady, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Schiller Institute.

We can save lives, but it will take an international effort to do so. The U.S. did this once before. I am reminded of that great effort to get food to the starving people of post—World War II Europe, that involved a mobilization of the noble and good American people, who sent those CARE packages and food supplies.

My African sisters and brothers can be saved if the will is there, and if people see themselves as acting in the spirit of caritas (agapē), rising above petty differences to do something good and great.

This statement was released on Christmas Eve, December 24. The Committee, initiated in July 2020 by a call from Helga Zepp-LaRouche of the Schiller Institute, involves many medical professionals, educators and retired U.S. military officers.

As the year 2020 draws to a close, let us fervently hope and diligently work, that the new year will bring about a great transformation for the health and well-being of all humanity.

This year has seen a sea of troubles, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already killed over 1.7 million people worldwide; which has exacerbated a famine crisis in large parts of the world, and which according to World Food Program director David Beasley, now threatens the lives of 270 million people; which has created mass unemployment and increasingly desperate conditions throughout the globe.

The COVID pandemic is not under control. We are now seeing new and more infectious strains of the coronavirus, as in Great Britain, which is creating economic chaos. This catastrophic situation can be remedied, but it requires the urgent mobilization of the population, including emphatically the implementation of public health measures, that have proven to be effective in containing the virus. We cannot simply wait for the vaccines to be administered. This emergency requires that nations work together to accomplish these solutions. Pandemics don’t discriminate. Any nation, any region, any group of people not treated in the course of this pandemic will come back to harm us.

The following measures should be undertaken by national, regional, and local governments. Community organizations, universities, medical institutions, religious groups, and others can begin to implement aspects of this immediately. This will spur broader action and save lives in the interim.

• Public health measures should be strictly adhered to and enforced. These measures were recently reiterated by Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, appearing on Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” December 20th: “We need to wash our hands, wear a mask, watch our distances, keep our household gatherings small.”

• Get vaccinated. While this cannot be a mandatory requirement and is not without legitimate questions and concerns, it is highly recommended, as the best option, at present, to beat the COVID pandemic.

• Rapidly recruit, train, and employ thousands of young people to work as community health care workers to educate people regarding the public health measures cited above and to overcome “vaccine hesitancy and fear,” and, where viable, to assist medical personnel with vaccine administration.

• Conduct mass testing, especially in areas of vulnerable populations, i.e., the elderly, the impoverished, and “hot spots,” etc. This should be done with a rapid test, so that people get results immediately. This testing should be done regularly, once per month, until the area has a 65-70% vaccinated population. Testing sites should be established in areas where the vulnerable populations live, i.e. neighborhood churches, supermarket parking lots, etc. Mobile medical/clinic vehicles should be utilized wherever possible to reach out-of-the-way areas.

• Isolate and quarantine infected individuals. A safe, secure environment should be provided where people can recover and receive good food and medical treatment, while doing so.

• Begin public protocols immediately on promising prophylactic treatments, including Alpha-interferon and Vitamin D-3 supplements. These promising treatments and their results have generally been unreported. This may also address and build trust among the medically underserved communities, who have in many cases legitimate concerns about their general health conditions, independent of COVID-19.

• Get everything moving as rapidly and on as large a scale as possible. What would it take to get everyone in the U.S. and in most of the world vaccinated and COVID-free by Independence Day, July 4, 2021? In this regard the expertise of the U.S. military including the National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers, should be utilized.

It is often said that hindsight is 20/20. Let the year 2020 be remembered as the year the population woke up, realized our past mistakes, and changed, in order to create a better and healthier world for all mankind.