Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

CEC leaders represent Australia at Eurasian Women’s Forum in St. Petersburg, promote peace through economic development

Citizens Electoral Council Executive Committee members Gabrielle Peut and Elisa Barwick represented Australia at the 24-25 September Eurasian Women’s Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Initiated and hosted by Chairman of the Federation Council (upper house of Russia’s Parliament) Valentina Matviyenko, the Forum was worldwide in scope, with nearly 750 delegates from 80 countries—“including the USA, Western Europe, and Australia, despite the sanctions,” as a Federation Council release noted.

Due to the ongoing conformity of Australian foreign policy to the present Anglo-American hostility to Russia, the CEC delegates were the only Australians to accept an invitation to attend; they took with them the vision of a new international economic order, based on peaceful economic cooperation among sovereign nation-states, which the CEC shares with the international movement led by American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, the founding editor of Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) magazine, and his wife Helga-Zepp LaRouche, the founder and president of the international Schiller Institute.

“We do not presume to replace the tribune of the United Nations,” Senator Matviyenko said in one of her conference interviews, “but this is a very serious platform, where some of the female members of the world elite have assembled.” The Forum’s importance, she added, is defined by its occurring “when the world is experiencing the greatest tension in international relations since the end of the Cold War.”

In her keynote speech to the forum, Matviyenko pointed to the Islamic State as “a horrific threat to the entire world,” which in turn has generated the migration crisis in Europe. IS is “fascism in a new format,” said Matviyenko, and she openly attributed its growth to foreign support and “interference in the sovereign affairs of nations.”

Matviyenko highlighted the necessity to establish global collaboration for development to benefit the whole of mankind, not just a portion of it. She stressed that war cannot be eliminated in a unipolar world such as we have today, nor can the flight of countless refugees be ended.

As head of the Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko is a permanent member of the Russian Security Council. She previously worked as a diplomat and was a deputy prime minister in 1998-2003, starting in the Yevgeni Primakov government and continuing into the first years of President Vladimir Putin’s tenure. She was the governor of St. Petersburg in 2003-11.

At a press conference on 24 September, after the opening plenary session, Senator Matviyenko called on Gabrielle Peut to ask “a question from Australia.” Peut publicly presented Matviyenko with a copy of EIR’s 2014 Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the Land-Bridge,” citing it as the work of Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche of Germany. She thanked the leadership of Russia and China for the initiatives of the BRICS—the alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—then asked her question, which centred on Russia’s war-avoidance moves in the context identified by Zepp-LaRouche in her appeal “The UN General Assembly As a Last Chance for the World!” which warns about the danger of a nuclear world war, if the U.S.-NATO confrontation against Russia and China continues.

Matviyenko, noting that the question would require a lengthy reply, promised that these issues would be discussed throughout the remainder of the conference. She also asked Peut her own question, about why Australia had joined in imposing sanctions on Russia, since sanctions are “a vestige of the past.” Peut responded that Australia’s actions, dictated by the British Crown apparatus that still controls Australia’s political institutions, are opposed by many in Australia, and that the CEC had distributed 400 thousand copies of its newspaper, calling for cooperation with Russia, China, and BRICS. “That is the correct answer!” said Matviyenko, adding with a smile, “We love Australia!” She later urged the Australian delegates to communicate back home Russia’s great desire to avert a world war. The exchange at the press conference was reported in a Federation Council release and by several Russian media, as follows: “During the press conference held on the sidelines of the Eurasian Women’s Forum, an Australian journalist reported that in that country, which adopted the sanctions policy under pressure from Great Britain, there is much controversy about it, and a broad movement for lifting the sanctions.” (The press conference has been posted in full on the Federation Council’s YouTube channel.)

During her press conference, Matviyenko announced that she has received a visa from Switzerland to attend the upcoming Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting there, whereas the United States had barred her from an IPU meeting in New York. On 23 September Matviyenko had a bilateral meeting with the American delegation, led by retired University of Wisconsin professor Sarah Harder, who had met her at a Soviet-American peace conference in 1990. Russian media reported that Harder apologised to Matviyenko for the State Department’s denial of her visa, and quoted Harder calling it “crazy, just crazy” not to conduct dialogue at this time in history.

Gabrielle Peut’s presentation on “The New Economy and Nuclear Power,” given during a Forum panel on “Women in the New Economy,” was well received, especially by delegates from Africa, one of whom commented, “This is the kind of political approach we need!”

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