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To Break Free, Germany Needs the New Silk Road Marshall Plan!

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
January 2016

Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

January 9, 2016 (EIRNS) -- The assaults on women on New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany, and the ongoing controversy over the refugee policy, were addressed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Schiller Institute and of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party (BüSo) in Germany, in an article written Jan. 9, 2016 for Neue Solidarität. She denounces in particular the vicious policy of Finance Minister Schäuble and of his Deputy Minister Jens Spahn. We quote from the beginning of Zepp-LaRouche's statement, which can be read in German at: http://www.solidaritaet.com/neuesol/2016/2/hzl.htm

"In the highly charged national and international debate about what happened in Cologne on New Year's Eve and about what the refugee policy should be, most people forget the context in which these developments are playing out. In the trans-Atlantic region, the financial crash is fully on, and since several countries have already implemented the 'bail-in' policy, which means the expropriation of the creditors of insolvent banks, speculators shied away from buying bonds in the first week of January. Directly linked to the collapse is the growing danger of a global thermonuclear war.

"Regardless of what a thorough investigation of the attacks on the women in Cologne by ''North African looking'' gangs of men will bring to light, these incidents are grist for the mills of right-wingers, from Cameron to Trump, to the Alternativ für Deutschland and all those who have attacked Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy and hope to reduce the number of asylum seekers as much as possible. Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn, who has written a book strongly attacking Merkel's policy, has launched a populist call for a 'social outcry.'

"Such an outcry is indeed necessary, but not against the barbaric culprits in Cologne, but especially against those responsible for the refugee crisis, the Bushes, Cheneys, Obamas, Blairs and Camerons who have blanketed South-West Asia with wars based on lies, and who have knowingly and willfully built up terrorist organizations from the Mujahideen to al-Qaeda, Al Nusra and ISIS to bring down elected governments for geopolitical reasons, and have provided them with weapons. The ''failure of the state'' that Spahn decries in Merkel's refugee policy, is in reality the 'failure of the policy' of the Anglo-American Empire, which has laid waste to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and now Yemen, making survival impossible for the people there, who are fleeing to places where they hope to have a chance to survive.

"The police were unable to control the chaotic situation on New Year's Eve. Why there was no heightened state of alert for all main train stations, when the Munich and Munich-Pasing stations were closed down twice, raises a number of questions. In any case, Germany now has the 'ugly images' which Spahn, in his book, believes has to be 'accepted' in order to crack down on refugees. But instead of the screaming women and children being expelled which he evokes, this time we only saw the temporarily lawless area around the Cologne main station.

"Those responsible are, among others, the advocates of the 'black zero' deficit policy, i.e., of a monetarist austerity policy under which the debt incurred by the state to save the speculators and bankrupt banks is foisted onto the population, and which plans to seize the accounts of depositors to cover the current banking debts. In order words, those responsible are Finance Minister Schäuble and his Deputy Minister Spahn, whose policy led to 16,000 layoffs in the police over the past years, just as demands on the police to ensure the security at soccer games, rock concerts, border controls, etc., were increasing. The police trade unions have repeatedly warned about the consequences of the staff downsizing."

Zepp-LaRouche goes on to denounce the mixture of "hostility and social indifference" shown by Schäuble and Co. in the case of Greece and towards the refugees, which has nothing to do with the true European "community of values." The alternative, she writes, lies in the extension of China's New Silk Road policy to Southwest Asia and Africa.

"If we, in Germany, are to assume the historical responsibility which has more or less fallen into our laps, we have to take the initiative now and commit ourselves to the 'Silk Road Marshall Plan' before the possibility to act is taken out of our hands by the escalating events.

"Since New Year's Eve at the latest, it should have been clear for all thinking people that we have come to an historical point which Friedrich Schiller described as the 'punctum saliens', or as the crucial point in the drama. Should we fail, the story ends in tragedy, but should we seize the occasion to establish a new paradigm, we will usher in a new era for mankind. The New Silk Road, as a program to develop the destroyed and under-developed regions of the world, is the opportunity that we must now seize."