LaRouche visits Khartoum,
briefs Sudanese leaders
Executive Intelligence Review, Jan. 10, 1997, pp. 46-47
Muriel Mirak Weissbach

One of the questions looming large in the minds of leaders throughout the developing sector is: What will the shape of United States foreign policy be, under the second Clinton administration? The nomination of United Nations hatchet-woman Madeleine Albright to the post of secretary of state, sent a clear signal, that the "Third World" could expect only more of the same arrogant, one-worldist bullying that she had come to symbolize in her previous incarnation. Yet, at the same time, the nomination of Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), to replace Albright at the UN, has sent a signal 'of a different sort. Richardson, though less prominent on the international stage, is seen in many foreign capitals as a man who has undertaken a series of delicate foreign policy missions for President William Clinton, in North Korea, Iraq, and Sudan, and has been successful, without making enemies.     

Which nomination designates a trend? Will personalities be decisive? Who is running policy, and along what lines?  These are the kinds of questions raised in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, Africa's largest nation, during the visit in December of Lyndon LaRouche and his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. The American economist and political figure, who had himself just completed a vigorous primary election campaign inside the Democratic Party, and had continued his policy intervention through programmatic initiatives of the FDR-PAC political action committee, was in an excellent position to contribute to the debate. Judging from the response to his two public lectures, held at the University of Khartoum on Dec. 19 and at the Friendship Hall on Dec. 22 (1996), and from the intensity of the exchange during his private seminars and meetings, his input was most appreciated.     

LaRouche, who first visited Sudan in 1994, was received by the President, Gen. Omar al Bashir; the Minister of External Affairs, Ali Osman Taha; the Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Hassan a] Turabi; and, the Secretary General of the National Congress, Dr. Ghazi Salehuddin Attabani. In addition, he held closed sessions with a group of diplomats at the Foreign Ministry, and with a dozen political and military leaders of the rebel forces associated with John Garang, who have, since April 1996, signed a Peace Charter with the government, in an effort to end the war. He was interviewed by the media, including national television.

Discussion in the public domain focused on LaRouche's analysis of the current collapse of the world financial and monetary structures, presented against a review of the last four centuries of European and world history. The thrust of the American economist's presentations, was that the ongoing disintegration of the International Monet" Fund system, brings an entire historical cycle to a close, and with it, the symbiotic relationship between the sovereign nation-state and financial oligarchical, imperial power.      

LaRouche explained the process by which, over the past 30 years in particular, the productive economy which had been the pillar of the successful nation-state, had been undermined and destroyed by the parasitical structures of financial oligarchism. Now, in the collapse process, he said, that same oligarchy, cognizant of the breakdown, is making a world-wide grab for control overall non-monetary wealth, raw materials, strategic minerals, food supplies, and so forth. In this context, he situated the ongoing genocide in the Great Lakes region of Africa, and the continuing UN drive for sanctions against Sudan. Both assaults, he said, were run by the top echelons of the British oligarchy.

The question of British control over this renewed "scramble for Africa," was a central theme in LaRouche's speeches, and in the debates that followed. For many people in Sudan, as for other victims of the one-worldist dictatorship run under the auspices of the United Nations, the United States appears in the forefront, whereas the British maintain a low profile. In dealing with the frequently encountered misconception, that the British are, at best, the junior partner to an American imperial monster, LaRouche reviewed the historical record, time and again: how the British, following Franklin Delano Roosevelt's death, succeeded in manipulating Harry Truman, and, through the inauguration of Bertrand Russell's age of nuclear terror, succeeded in establishing a de facto world government. LaRouche summarized the entire succession of American Presidencies since Abraham Lincoln, and reviewed them, in detail, since the assassination of William McKinley, to establish the historical record of British sabotage, control, and manipulation of U.S. policy, even through recourse to assassination.    

To stress the point, that British imperial control still deter- mines, to a large part, U.S. policy regarding the developing sector, LaRouche went through the case of Operation Desert Storm, which was officially baptized as the birth of the so- called "new world order," to show how the British called the shots, and the faithful minions on the U.S. side, such as George Bush, followed the orders. To drive the point home, he recalled for his interlocutors the fact that all the leading protagonists on the nominally American side in that "splendid little colonial war" against a sovereign nation, Iraq, were re- warded with aristocratic titles, and are now "Sirs."     

Of course, in Sudan, the role of the British has been much less covert, from their notorious bloodbaths of the last century, to their recent machinations, aimed at imposing UN sanctions against the country"; all the campaigns against Sudan have been pioneered and run by the likes of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox. The British oligarchy's hatred of Sudan's determination to be an independent, sovereign nation, is well known.

From this vantage point, of an understanding of history as the history of a struggle between the two opposing world-views and social systems-that of the republican nation-state, and that of the oligarchical empire form-the issue of diplomacy in the modem world could be addressed. LaRouche urged his listeners to realize, that, because the system is reaching its end, the possibility exists for a radical, total change in the ordering of affairs among nations. In this context, he outlined his 1989 proposal for the "Berlin-Vienna-Paris Productive Triangle," and the Eurasian land-bridge program, as the context for the transition to a new, just world economic order. He identified the strategic significance of this program, which the Chinese and Iranian governments have been implementing, also for Africa, because the development corridors envisioned in the Eurasian transportation networks, would according to LaRouche's approach, reach down into Africa through Egypt; from there, an entire transcontinental rail line could be built, which would revolutionize the economy of the continent. LaRouche also presented his proposals for the, monetary and financial structures, to be created through new "Bretton Woods-style" conference, which the America Presidency should convoke.     

The debate sparked by this approach was wide-ranging, and intense. On the economic plane, the question which was raised several times in different forums, was, whether or no this "Western model" should be acceptable to African nations. The so-called "Asian Tigers" were referenced by Sudanese economists, as the model that has been presented to Sudan for emulation.    

LaRouche's response, again grounded in historical fact was that, although financial profits may have been realized it the Tigers' economies, especially by those interests in the West which had outsourced their activities to these regional considered pools of cheap, or slave labor, in reality, for the populations in the Asian Tiger countries, there has been economic development in physical economic terms, comparable to what Germany, America, or any other advanced economies experienced in the process of industrialization.     

On the political plane, the question was, of course, whether or not the "powers that be" would accept a transition to the kind of world LaRouche was projecting. Here, most obviously, the question arose, as to what U.S. foreign policy would do? In short: Would a second Clinton administration support a new Bretton Woods conference, and join forces to develop the Eurasian land-bridge? How could relations between the second Clinton administration and Sudan, be placed on such a footing?

LaRouche's response was not prophetic, but programmatic: He said, the aim of his political activity in the United States, and the purpose of his visit to Sudan, was to contribute precisely to this kind of change in Washington's foreign policy outlook. But, what LaRouche emphasized most, was the revolutionary nature of the current situation: "We are in a revolution," he answered one questioner at his last public address, "and revolutions are something that the Sudanese know quite a lot about." He specified what he meant, by considering the potential of the country: "Sudan is an enormous country, it has the largest land area of Africa. What are you going to do with it?" he asked. Outlining the projects for infrastructure which are part of the Eurasian land-bridge economy, including advanced technologies such as magnetic levitation trains, and nuclear energy plants for desalination systems as well as power sources, which should be applied in Africa, LaRouche gave concrete form to the vision which such a revolution will realize.