The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Schiller Institute Internet Dialogue — ‘Need Creative Genius of the World to Bear on Haiti and Afghanistan’

September 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, Power & Energy, Space updates, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, World Land-Bridge updates

Sept. 25 (EIRNS)—Today the Schiller Institute held an international webinar titled, “Reconstructing Haiti—America’s Way Out of the ‘Global Britain’ Trap.” The two-and-a-half-hour discussion featured elements of a proposed development outline for Haiti, as well as immediate emergency action required, and brought together experts, with ties to Haiti, in engineering, medicine and development policy. Today’s deliberations stand in stark contrast to the events of the week, which included the U.S. forced deportation of thousands of displaced Haitians from the Texas-Mexico border, back to Haiti, to disaster conditions from the August earthquake and before.

The six panelists were Richard Freeman, co-author of “The Schiller Institute Plan To Develop Haiti,” which EIR will publish this week for its Oct. 1 issue; Eric Walcott, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Institute of Caribbean Studies; Firmin Backer, co-founder and President of the Haiti Renewal Alliance; Joel DeJean, engineer and Texas activist with The LaRouche Organization; Dr. Walter Faggett, MD, based in Washington, D.C., where he is former Chief Medical Officer of the District of Columbia, and currently Co-Chairman of the Health Council of D.C.’s Ward 8, and an international leader with the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites; and moderator Dennis Speed of the Schiller Institute.

Freeman presented both the dimensions of both the extreme underdevelopment forced for decades on Haiti, and also the essentials of a development program for that nation, in the context of development of all the Island of Hispaniola, and the Caribbean. He presented a map of proposed rail, nuclear power sites, safe water systems and other vital infrastructure. He showed maps of proposals that Chinese firms had made in recent years, but which fell into abeyance.

Firmin Backer pointed out that the USAID has spent $5.1 billion in Haiti over the 11 years since the 2010 earthquake, but what is there to show for it? Now, with the latest earthquake on Aug. 14, we can’t even get aid into the stricken zones, because there is no airport nor port in southern Haiti to serve the stricken people. We should reassess how wrongly the U.S. funding was spent. Firmin reported how Haiti was given some debt cancellation by the IMF years back, but then disallowed from seeking foreign credit!

Eric Walcott was adamant, “We need the creative genius of the world to bear on Haiti and Afghanistan.” He said, “leverage the diaspora” to develop Haiti. There are more Haitian medics in New York and Miami than all of Haiti. He stressed that Haiti is not poor; the conditions are what is poor. But the population has pride, talent and resourcefulness. Walcott made a special point about elections in Haiti. He said, “Elections are a process,” not an event. He has experience. From 1998 to 2000, Walcott served as the lead observer for the OAS, for elections in Haiti.

Joel DeJean, an American of Haitian lineage, was forceful about the need to aim for the highest level in that nation, for example, leapfrog from charcoal to nuclear power. He advised, “give China the opportunity” to deploy the very latest nuclear technology in Haiti—the pebble-bed gas cooled modular reactor. We “don’t need more nuclear submarines, we need nuclear technology!” He called for the establishment of a development bank in Haiti, and other specifics.

Dr. Faggett summed up at many points, with the widest viewpoint and encouragement of action. He served in the U.S. military’s “Caribbean Peace-Keeping Force,” and was emphatic about taking action not only in Haiti, but worldwide. He referenced President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying that “you can tell a lot about people, by how they take care of the health of their people.” He reported that, at present, aid workers in Haiti, are having to shelter in place, because of the terrible conditions.

But, he said, we should mobilize. Have “vaccine diplomacy,” and work to build a health platform in Haiti, and a health care delivery system the world over. He is “excited about realizing Helga’s mission,” referring to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, who issued a call in June 2020, for a world health security platform. At that time, she and Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General, formed the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites.

Afghanistan Is at “the Precipice;” More Than Half of Its People Now Face Famine

October 28, 2021by madeleine in Afghanistan, General, Healthcare, Healthcare, World Food Program

The latest “Food Security” report on Afghanistan released yesterday by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) raises the alarm that Afghanistan is becoming the largest humanitarian crisis in the world—beyond even the horror of the famines in Yemen, Ethiopia, Syria, and South Sudan. The facts, maps, and descriptions included in that report make clear that mass death has begun, and that the U.S.-led Western financial sanctions are playing a major role in this catastrophe. This is genocide.

The number of Afghanistan’s people suffering “acute food insecurity” has risen, even after this season’s harvest, from 14 million to 18.8 million people—47% of the nation’s population. That’s a 37% increase since the last assessment carried out by these agencies in April. The FAO and WFP now project that, come the November to March winter months, at least 22.8 million people—more than half (55%) of Afghanistan’s people—will be starving to death. Be clear: “acute food insecurity” is not chronic hunger; it is defined as “when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.”

“Economic decline” stemming from the imposition of international financial sanctions is identified right up front as a “key driver” of this catastrophe, along with conflict and drought. “In the wake of Afghanistan’s political transition and the consequent freezing of US$ 9.5 billion in national assets, the economy plummeted,” the report acknowledges. “The banking system suffered severe disruption, and the national currency lost 12.5 percent of value, leading to high unemployment and food prices.”

In large part because of the sanctions, “for the first time, urban residents are suffering from food insecurity at similar rates to rural communities…. Across cities, towns and villages, virtually no family can afford sufficient food, according to recent WFP surveys,” the World Food Program reported in a press release. “Rampant unemployment and a liquidity crisis are putting all major urban centers in danger of slipping into a Phase 4 emergency level of food insecurity, including formerly middle class populations,” the report finds.

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises—if not the worst—and food security has all but collapsed,” WFP executive director David Beasley warned in releasing this report. “This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated…. Hunger is rising and children are dying … the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control.”

The WFP press release cites one of the authors of the report, Jean-Martin Bauer, on how one million Afghan children, right now, are in danger of dying of hunger. Bauer asserted that “no one wants to see Afghan children die as a result of, you know, politics, essentially.”

Prove him right; join the Schiller Institute’s international campaign to end the financial strangulation of Afghanistan, and sign and circulate its “Call to Release the funds of the Afghan people.”

Two Former US Surgeons-General Respond to Helga Zepp-LaRouche Afghanistan Initiative

September 22, 2021by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, COVID-19, General, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Two former Surgeon Generals of the United States responded to Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s initiative on Afghanistan.

Dr. David Satcher, who served as surgeon general from 1998 to 2002, had the following to say:

“Dr. William Foege, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1977-1983), in his book, House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox, about the successful effort to eradicate smallpox disease, describes how relationships were prioritized, including assuring that credit for successful interventions was appropriately shared. On the other hand, when we came close to eradicating polio in the last decade of the 20th Century, it was the fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan which prevented our success in eliminating polio in those countries, and thus eradicating it in the world. In other words, we were not willing to allow the immunization of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan to take priority over the killing of people and the winning of the war. But, in fact, nobody won the war in Afghanistan, and we failed to eradicate polio.

“Ultimately, we will eradicate polio, but unfortunately it will be after many lives have been lost and trillions of dollars have been spent.

“We can do better! We can invest in lives rather than deaths! We can bring new thinking into our relationships. We can care about each other and value lives beyond our own and beyond our own culture. We can work to make science work for us and for future generations.

“I am impressed with the idea and the statement. We’re talking about a whole new definition of winning and what it means to win, especially winning together, and supporting the healthy development of children as a priority. What is needed is a new paradigm, relative to what we value and what we are willing to do to bring it about.”

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as surgeon general from 1993 to 1994, responded:

“I agree with Dr. David Satcher’s response to Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s statement regarding the needed approach to the dire health and humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan and many other nations around the world. When we speak about the need for basic necessities for life, such as healthcare, food and water, that is the same for people everywhere, regardless of where you are or what type of government you have.

“The COVID pandemic is exasperating the crises in previously food and health-deprived countries. It is clear that the only way this will be defeated is with a modern healthcare system, in every nation. The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites has emphasized the need for comprehensive, not piecemeal solutions. Infrastructure, food, energy, and clean water are crucial, combined with modern hospitals and trained personnel. I have long championed the training and deployment of community health care workers, especially recruited from among the young, to augment the resources of trained medical personnel. These workers would now be invaluable in assisting in this effort. Also, here is where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), a branch of the uniformed services of the U.S. which does not bear arms, and which I and my colleague Dr. Satcher directed, could play an important role.

“Now is the time for us to end confrontation and engage in cooperation to address the basic needs of humanity.”

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For more on The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites — founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and Dr. Jocelyn Elders — and the need for a world health platform – see the Founding Statement:

Statement to Form The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites (Coincidentia Oppositorum)

See the most recent statement by Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the need for food and public health in Afghanistan, and a policy of Peace through Development:

Can ‘The West’ Learn? What Afghanistan Needs Now!

Global Health Security Requires Medical Infrastructure in Every Country:

Global Health Security Requires Medical Infrastructure in Every Country—Major Industrial Nations Must Collaborate Now!

Haiti Stands “at the Gates of Hell” Where Human Life Is Unbearable

October 28, 2021by madeleine in Haiti, Healthcare, Healthcare

This was the headline in today’s edition of the Haitian online daily Haite Libre, describing the unbearable existence that citizens of Port-au-Prince and other cities face every day, because of the ongoing work stoppages and gang activity that have affected every aspect of human life. The armed gangs which make transportation by road of gasoline and diesel fuel impossible, also block trucks’ access to the main petroleum storage facility at Varreux, holding hostage 25,000 barrels of gasoline and 50,000 barrels of diesel fuel that should be going to gas stations, hospitals, communications companies, state water and electricity companies, etc. Yet, there is no functioning police force to deal with the gangs. As the Miami Herald’s veteran Haiti expert Jacqueline Charles pointed out in an Oct. 25 interview with Slate, the gangs are far better armed than the police and, as many observers have pointed out, act like a quasi-state, in the absence of a functioning state or functioning state institutions.

So today, most hospitals in Port-au-Prince are not open except for perhaps a skeleton crew of a few doctors and nurses or a couple of medical students. There is no fuel for the power plants that keep the generators going that provide electricity for operating rooms or oxygen tanks. At Haiti’s largest cancer treatment center, X-ray machines and other equipment lie idle—there is no power to run them. Hospital director Kedner Pierre told CNN’s Matt Rivers that refrigerators have been packed with ice to try to preserve some chemotherapy medicines. The National Ambulance Center can’t deploy ambulances, because there is no fuel. The nearby Hospital Universitaire de la Paix is turning away pretty much every patient because, aside from fuel shortages, there aren’t enough doctors or nurses on staff. Personnel can’t get to work, or sometimes sleep at the hospital, as kidnapping is a risk for anyone traveling on the streets. Rivers concludes, then, “that one of Haiti’s largest hospitals simply isn’t functioning.” This is the case at every healthcare facility in the capital..

But the damage doesn’t stop here. Fuel shortages are also affecting mobile telecommunications services whose antennas are powered by generators that can’t function without fuel. Digicel, Haiti’s largest mobile network, reports that 433 of its 1,500 antenna sites are not operational because there is no fuel for generators, Le Nouvelliste reports. The Haitian government department in charge of potable water and sanitation, DINEPA, warns of water shortages as it lacks the diesel fuel needed to keep operational its powerful generator that in turn supplies energy to the stations and pumps that supply drinking water. The state electric company, EDH, warns of blackouts. A former Haitian consul in the Dominican Republic, Edwin Paraison, who has lived in Santo Domingo since the 2010 earthquake, told Dominican TV yesterday that, obviously, Haiti needs the help of the international community to deal with the gangs and security situation. But, he warned, the solution must not be one imposed on Haiti by the international community, but rather the result of a dialogue between the international community and Haitian authorities and civil society to determine together a strategy to deal with the current untenable security situation.

Afghanistan’s Drought and Water Crisis Worsening; 2,000 Health Facilities Close

October 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, Finance, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Power & Energy

Afghanistan’s Drought and Water Crisis Are Worsening; 2,000 Health Facilities Close –

Oct. 25, 2021 (EIRNS)–Afghanistan’s collapse in physical economic and agricultural production, the implosion of its health system, as well as the threat to human life, has gotten worse over the last two months. The nationwide drought is intensifying, while the West applies a tourniquet to the flow of necessary funds.

Physical economic conditions never stay in a “metastable state;” they either get better or worse.

In June of this year, then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani officially declared a drought in Afghanistan. This was based on information from several agencies, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which declared that “80% of Afghanistan is exposed to serious drought”—30% to “severe drought,” and 50% to “serious drought,” comprising 80%—and the remaining 20% part of the country was exposed to “moderate drought.”

Richard Trenchard, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization director for Afghanistan, stated in late September, “This is the worst drought in 35–36 years. Many public institutions which provide a safety net, have ceased to function. Farmers have very little to fall back upon.”

Farming is being destroyed. The UN reported August 25, “Some 40 percent of [Afghanistan’s] crops have been lost to drought in the second massive water shortage in three years—further heightening food insecurity.” The World Food Program already reported that 14 million people in Afghanistan are food insecure, a number that is doubtless rising.

But the shortage of water is affecting not only agriculture, but the whole economy and society, which depends on water. A 2008 report reported “that drinking water supplies reach only 23 percent of Afghanistan’s total population… The country’s total sanitation coverage [is] only 12 percent.”

Two critical infrastructural sectors expose some of the crisis.

Afghanistan has only a combined approximately 100 private and public hospitals for a nation of 40 million people, a meager amount. The nation’s health system is run through a network of 2,200 “health facilities,” about 200 of which appear to be primary health clinics; it is not clear how large the other facilities are. These 2,200 facilities are run through an institution called Sehatmandi which is administered by the World Bank through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. It is funded through the World Bank, the European Union, Canada and Global Financing Facilities.

When the Taliban came to power in the period of August 17–18, these funding institutions cut off money. On September 30, Alexander Matheou, the Asia Pacific director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies stated that “over 2,000 health facilities have closed.” He added that more than 20,000 health workers in the country were no longer working or were working without being paid; more than 7,000 of them are women. “People might agree to work without salaries for a few more weeks,” Matheou stated. “But once medicines run out totally, if you can’t switch on the lights, if you’ve got nothing to offer somebody who comes to your clinic, then they’ll shut the doors.”

Under intense pressure, on September 20, the Global Fund and the United Nations Development Fund signed an agreement to supply $15 million to the 2,200 health facilities. This is a drop in the bucket.

International donors pledged in October $1.2 billion to Afghanistan. But there are three roadblocks: 1) it is not clear how much of the pledged money will be really delivered; 2) it takes sometimes months for the money to get into the system; and 3) above all, the clinics are greatly inadequate, Afghanistan needs hundreds of new advanced hospitals, tens of thousands of skilled doctors and nurses, and so forth.

In the meantime, COVID is looming. Nine of Afghanistan’s 37 COVID hospitals have closed. Afghanistan has put a reported only 2.2 million COVID jabs into people; it has 1.2 million doses of vaccine waiting to be distributed, that haven’t been. They will expire by the end of the year.

This is pure and simple genocide.

As for water, Afghanistan has an annual surface water runoff water volume of 57,000 million cubic meters per year, which comes out to approximately 1,425 cubic meters/year per capita. This is insufficient, but would be a start. However, Afghanistan does not have an adequate water basin catchment system, and precipitation is not evenly distributed geographically.

In 2016, India spent $275 million to complete what is now called the “Afghan-India Friendship Dam” in Herat province on the Hari River. It will irrigate 75,000 hectares of land. But otherwise, new dam construction and broader water management hardly exists.

The U.S. is blocking more than $9 billion in Afghanistan’s central bank that belong to the Afghan people. The World Bank, IMF, and EU are blocking hundreds of millions more. (See the Schiller Institute’s demand for release of the Afghans’ funds at this link.)

These more than $10 billion, were they deposited in a fund under sovereign Afghan control, could be used to build hospitals, administer the COVID-19 vaccine; begin emergency food and water distribution; make down payments on dams and water management projects; build power stations, etc. Immediate building in Afghanistan must start.

World Food Program’s Beasley in Haiti: ‘We’ve Got to Help These People’

September 22, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti, Healthcare, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, World Food Program

Sept. 18 (EIRNS)–The Executive Director of the World Food Program’s David Beasley has been in Haiti for several days to work with aid teams and publicize the need to take action. On Sept. 16, he sent a video tweet from Maniche, showing how “house, after house, after house, after house in Maniche was completely destroyed… you can see how bad it is, and we’ve got to help these people.” There have been four weeks of clean-up, but there is destruction all over the place. He wrote, “This is why these families need our support to recover and rebuild.” On Sept. 17, he visited a cooked-meals operation run by the World Central Kitchen.

Brazil: Will the Next Coronavirus Variant Be Vaccine-Resistant?

April 16, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare

Brazil: Will the Next Coronavirus Variant Be Vaccine-Resistant?

April 15, 2021 (EIRNS) – Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) sub-director Jarbas Barbosa warned in remarks this week that, if COVID-19 is not controlled across the world, there exists a worst-case scenario in which a new vaccine-resistant variant emerges. One of the likely places that could happen is Brazil, where the already dangerous P1 Brazilian strain, which is believed to be as much as 2.5 times more contagious than the original coronavirus and more resistant to antibodies, has wreaked havoc in the country and brought the country’s public health system to near-breakdown.

New research conducted by Brazil’s public health institute, Fiocruz, is focusing on an even newer variant. “We believe it’s another escape mechanism the virus is creating to evade the response of antibodies,” said Felipe Naveca, one of the authors of the Fiocruz study. “This is particularly worrying because the virus is continuing to accelerate in its evolution.”

On Tuesday, France suspended all flights to and from Brazil to try to stop the new Brazilian strains from spreading into that country.

Schiller Institute Leaders Zepp-LaRouche and Askary Join Pakistan-Based Online Forum for Afghanistan Development

September 20, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Pakistan, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Sept. 16 (EIRNS)—The Asian Institute of Eco-Civilization Research and Development, a Pakistan-based think tank, held an online seminar today to launch its “Kandahar Dialogue.” The event, titled “Afghanistan in Search of Peace and Prosperity,” brought together some half-dozen speakers, including Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute; Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council; and Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia Coordinator for the Schiller Institute. It was moderated by Pakistani political economist Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, who had addressed the Schiller Institute’s international conference on “World at a Crossroad: Two Months into the New U.S. Administration,” on March 20-21. His March 21 remarks were on “CPEC, Connectivity, and Future Prospects.”

Afghanistan’s neighbors, Pakistan emphatically included, are eager to create conditions for stability, development, and predictability, to create a welcoming environment for long-term development. EIR magazine will make further reports available in the near future.

India: a Belated Mobilization Begins

May 1, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, India, Russia, United States

Apr. 30 (EIRNS)–Friday was yet another new record with over 386,000 official new cases. New Delhi hospitals are beyond capacity and patients are sharing beds and using the floors of corridors. In the next two weeks, 1,200 more intensive care beds are to be added, but New Delhi has about 24,000 new cases/day with approximately 3,600/day needing hospitalization. The Army Chief, M. M. Naravane, opened the military hospitals and invited those in distress to approach a military base. One military hospital with 500 beds was opened, and three hours later was all filled up.

Also on Friday, two planeloads of equipment arrived from Russia, including 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors and 22 tons of medicine. The first U.S. shipment arrived with some oxygen cylinders, N95masks, and rapid antigen tests. Bangladesh provided 10,000 vials of anti-virals and 30,000 PPE kits. On Saturday, the German Air Force will arrive with supplies, and Taiwan is delivering 150 concentrators this weekend. Finally, Friday also saw China’s head, Xi Jinping, call India’s Prime Minister Modi, offering condolences and expressing willingness to strengthen cooperation with India. Global Times reports that China has sent 26,000 ventilators and oxygenators, 15,000 patient monitors and about 3,800 tons of medicine to India so far this month.

UN Secretary-General: ‘So Far, We Have Failed’

April 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Finance, General updates, World war danger updates

UN Secretary-General Maintains, ‘So Far, We Have Failed’

April 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday delivered a grim review of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related hunger, poverty, and unemployment crises, telling a gathering of the UN Economic and Social Council’s Forum on Financing for Development that “no element of our multilateral response has gone as it should.”

Speaking as the current head of the post-war international institution par excellence, the United Nations, Guterres’s speech almost reads like a funeral oration for the demise of the entire Old Paradigm. This is what a systemic breakdown looks like, from the inside.

Guterres said that during the last year more than 3 million have died from the virus. Around 120 million have fallen into extreme poverty, and the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs have been lost. “The crisis is far from over,” he stated. The crisis is “putting multilateralism to the test, and so far, we have failed.” He went on to say that a “paradigm shift” was needed.

The President of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkır echoed Guterres’s grim report, stating that the COVID-19 pandemic has “precipitated the single largest economic contraction in 90 years, devastating lives and livelihoods in the process.”

Guterres ripped into the suicidal immorality of hoarding vaccines, in which a mere 10 countries globally account for around 75% of COVID-19 vaccinations given. He said that the estimated cost of this is more than $9 trillion—without explaining where that figure came from. “To end the pandemic for good, we need equitable access to vaccines for everyone, everywhere.” Guterres then focused on the debt crisis, saying that “we need to go beyond debt relief,” and strengthen the “international debt architecture to end the deadly cycles of debt waves, global debt crises and lost decades.” But that is as close as he came to actually proposing a solution to the crisis. The best he could muster was to protest that “there has been a $5 trillion surge in the wealth of the world’s richest in the past year” of the pandemic, and that governments should therefore “consider a solidarity or wealth tax on those who have profited during the pandemic, to reduce extreme inequalities.”

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