Report (part 2) Panel I, Berlin Schiller Conference July 12: Cooperation Between the BRICS and Europe
July 18—This is the continuation of the report on Panel 1 of the Schiller Institute conference on July 12, 2025. The first part of the report appeared in the briefing for Sunday, July 13.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern (U.S.), co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), was the next speaker, telling the conference “good news” of the personal meeting between the U.S. Secretary of State Rubio, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who discussed an interesting roadmap on Ukraine. While details of that meeting have naturally not been disclosed, it is to be assumed that the focus was on the prevention of a big war—and that is a great thing. The U.S. has to realize that the world has changed, an unipolar world order is no longer possible, there are two other powers—Russia and China—on the scene, the Chinese with a special role, it is now 1 against 2, and the Chinese know that if Russia loses [in Ukraine], China will be the next target of the West.
The problem is, and Russian leaders are admitting it, that Russia trusted the American promises that NATO would not extend to the East—a promise given verbally but not in writing. So, NATO did extend to the East. Were the Soviets naive, as Putin has said? At least, President Donald Trump can be trusted so far that he wants to prevent a big war. McGovern told an anecdote about a church rebuilt after the war, but with the statue of Christ had no hands. The statue was put on its place nevertheless, with the priest saying: “Now there are no other hands than yours….”
This presentation was followed by one given by Prof. PLO Lumumba, former director of the Kenya School of Law, who pointed out that Africa consists of 54 states, all suffering from colonialism and, after World War II, U.S. hegemony. Africa still is a playground for other powers, there is at best sweet talk but an opposite reality; Africans must overcome their own weaknesses that have developed in this system, it must make its weak institutions strong, this is a reality of struggle. There are solutions possible, but diplomacy consists of niceties that do not correspond to a reality like the sanctions the U.S. has just launched against five African states.
What Africans need is governance, not some unrealistic schemes of democracy in which others decide one’s fate. The rule of the strongest must not be accepted, nor atrocities such as Tony Blair’s games in Gaza, Prof. Lumumba said. Africa must sit at the tables where decisions are made, not accepting to be excluded; there must be decisions in the interest of Africa, including on the debt issue. Will the BRICS work with a new hegemon, or without?
South African journalist Abbey Makoe, who said he learned a lot from George Bizos, the legal counsel of Nelson Mandela, who succeeded in saving the latter from death by hanging as it was practiced under apartheid, helping Mandela and his comrades to get life imprisonment instead. Journalism has undergone a profound change since the time of U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, when “embedded” journalism served the invasion of Iraq and its orchestration through lies. Embedded journalists follow the rule: Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil. Thus, no report that Netanyahu is evil, that Hamas is evil, but that even after its destruction by Israel, the war would continue.
True journalism is obliged to follow the truth. This has also just been addressed by Brazilian President Lula at the BRICS summit: “International law has become a dead letter.” As for LaRouche’s “rebuilding the global economy,” the “next 50 years,” it seems to be far away, due to the fact that Europe wants war, that for NATO, “it is easier to invest in war than in development,” as Lula just charged. Watching things from Heaven, LaRouche might be dispirited, Makoe mistakenly guessed, as LaRouche found strength in doing the difficult and what others thought impossible.