 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You always give the people what they want, brought to you by People's Dispatch. That's Prashant and Zoe. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. It's the 156th episode, where knee-deep in January, just off the very interesting debate that took place at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. It's very important to understand that the International Court of Justice is an arbitration place, a dispute settlement court between states. So if a state has a problem with another state around an international treaty, the state can actually appeal to the International Court of Justice for arbitration. This is different from the International Criminal Court, where there's a special prosecutor appointed by the court to essentially indict individuals on the basis of the Rome Statute, a treaty signed by countries that are parties to the International Criminal Court. That's a separate body which actually indicts individuals. The International Court of Justice is where one state can complain about the behavior of another state, which is why on January 10th, South Africa, which actually opened the dispute with Israel in the International Court of Justice, presented its case first. And the South African jurist, helped by an important lawyer from Ireland, made a very strong case at the court. Adila Hashim, South African lawyer, told the judges, something that I'd like to share with you. She said, genocides are never declared in advance. But this court, she says, the International Court of Justice has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows, incontrovertibly, a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocide acts. Now, this is very important language as a plausible claim of genocide acts. Why do we need to emphasize that? Because this hearing is a prima facie hearing. This hearing is not a trial about Israel's behavior. This is merely a hearing for the 15-member judge panel to agree to accept the case that has been brought to them by South Africa. And then to open a trial at some later dates. That's why it's very important to take seriously what the lawyers are arguing about. They are trying to say there is a case here of genocide to be brought against the Israeli state. And that's what South Africa put on the table on the 10th, 11th of January. Very strong arguments. They put all the facts out there. In fact, the 84-page complaint against Israel, which was circulated prior to this hearing, is itself a very strong indictment of Israel. There's an entire section, which I think is extremely important, where they basically take the statements made by high Israeli officials and demonstrate that these statements have genocidal intent. In other words, not only do you have genocidal action, wiping out of families now close to 400 families have lost over 10 members per family. That itself shows a genocidal act, wiping out people, pushing them out of Gaza and so on. But the statements made by high officials prior to the violence, in other words, from October 8th onwards, were itself genocidal, using phrases like the second nakba, nakba being catastrophe, the Arabic word for catastrophe, the second nakba or the Gaza nakba, or calling the people of Gaza human animals. That language is all documented by the South Africans in the indictment, in the complaint that they put before the judges at the ICJ. And basically on the 11th of January, that's precisely what the four principle jurists, the four principle lawyers, that's the case they made before the court. Now, on the 12th of January, the Israelis responded to the complaint. A very interesting avenue they took. But before I tell you what exactly the Israelis said, it is important to bear in mind that after day one of the hearing, when the South Africans made their case, the United States government did not comment. They were asked repeatedly to comment on the South African claim. They didn't comment at all. I think this is important. We're going to get back to this in a minute because they commented in another way with a different language. Interesting case made by the Israelis in defense against the South African complaint. What the Israelis said effectively is yes, 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. That is, to use the words of Adil Hashim, that is incontrovertible evidence. Of course, 23,000 people have been killed. But unsurprisingly, just as Israel has been saying from the 7th of October, the author of those killings, they argue, is not the Israeli state but Hamas. Even though they acknowledge that it's Israeli bombs and firearms that have actually taken the lives of the Palestinians, they say that responsibility for the killings is not with the Israelis, but with the Palestinians. That has been the sum total of the Israeli case against the accusation from South Africa. What happens next is that the 15 jury panel, the 15 judge panel will consider this and they will basically figure out whether they want to take the trial forward. I must say, they can also put out there a provisional finding that essentially asks the country that has been accused of genocide to stop its actions. In other words, if the prima facie evidence is incontrovertible using their language again, if it's incontrovertible, the court can actually intervene to put out a finding, an immediate preliminary finding saying stop the violence against the people. This is interesting. It's widely anticipated. This may not happen because of the constitution of the jurists on the court. The president of the 15 jury, of the 15 judge panel is a US judge. Very unlikely that they're going to immediately put out such a finding, but the pressure on that court is very, very high. They are experiencing a lot of pressure from around the world. Number of countries signed up to join South Africa is important to say just for the record, South Africa is not a Muslim majority country. In fact, the Muslim population is quite small, negligible in South Africa. There is a Palestinian population negligible. They have taken this case to the international court of justice. In the words of Nalini Pandore, the head of international relations, the foreign minister, they have taken this case because of their special history with apartheid, because of their special understanding of apartheid and genocidal acts by the apartheid regime against the people of South Africa. Now, I mentioned earlier that the United States wouldn't comment Prashant. They wouldn't comment about day one of the proceedings. I doubt that they'll comment on day two either, but they commented in a different way, didn't they? Right. We're talking of course about the airstrikes and missile strikes that took place on Yemen early to the morning, earlier Friday morning. It is by local time and that's very important. It's an unfortunate but also interesting moment because all this while the United States has been sort of asserting, claiming that it does not want to encourage a regional escalation of this conflict. In fact, that is a shout of morality. They sort of try to cover themselves with saying that they're being brokers of peace and they're trying to de-escalate, etc. But what we see is that these strikes were launched in Yemen territory and it was apparently in response to Houthi attacks. Important to note, of course, that the Houthi attacks were specifically on commercial shipping bound to air from Israel as they had announced a long time ago and that it was part of that operation. And in fact, people of course pointing out that they were doing their own bit to sort of prevent genocide. But more importantly, it is a principle stand taken by the Houthi movement by Ansar Allah in solidarity with the people of Palestine and a kind of warning that shipping would not be allowed to and from Israel because of this genocide and offensive that Israel has been carrying out. Now in response, what we see is that the United States, the United Kingdom and a couple of other allies have launched these strikes inside at the territory, hitting the capital, hitting Hodeida. Definitely civilian casualties have been recorded. The very escalation that the United States has supposedly been claiming that it's trying to refrain from or try to prevent others from indulging in is what it itself has indulged in. So that's actually a very important point to note. And equally importantly also to note that this is Yemen, a country which has really suffered horrendously over the past few years in repeated episodes of the show we talked about the humanitarian crisis and it did seem for quite some time that there was last year provided some amount of hope in the sense that a lot of the armed conflicts subsided considerably and there was a possibility of aid reaching etc. But this kind of an aggressive position that the US and the UK have taken now really through doubts as to what will happen to that country itself. And once again, important to note that it's not just the United States, it's also Israel which has got into the act. In the past few weeks we have seen attacks, two attacks in Lebanon, one of course that led to the killing of a senior Hamas official, one led to the assassination of a Hezbollah commander. So all around we see that these attempts at escalation are being made by the United States and Israel that really sort of throws into question all these statements that are being made. But more importantly, I think the point that the people of Yemen are being dragged into this conflict and once again that question of who is dragging them in comes in now. The US would like to say that the Houthis are the enemy etc. But it's they who have launched their strikes inside US territory. So I think the situation is very delicately poised, a great amount of risk at this point of time for a large number of people. And the question really is that, is there any attempt to sort of say, or will the US and its allies continue to go on this policy in the region which could even lead to greater risks. Now we know that there's been this, what is called the axis of resistance which has consistently been pushing against US and Israeli military presence. You've seen attacks in Iraq for instance. And again, when you're talking about Iraq, very important to sort of remember that the attacks in Iraq have been against US bases which are extremely unpopular. There have been multiple, multiple demands that the United States withdraw from Iraq from all sections of society including from parliament itself at some point of time despite the fact that there are at least 2,500 foreign groups in Iraq. Now keeping all this in mind, there have been attacks like has been attacks in Iraq, in Lebanon we have seen that kind of an impact. So the entire, the whole region as a whole is in a very difficult position. Again speaking about Yemen, important to note that even Saudi Arabia which actually was at the forefront of this war against Ansar al-Ali against the Houthis for so many years has responded, has been very cautious in its responses called for restraint at this point of time. So even the countries which were part of that coalition have been hesitant in endorsing, in full-pleasuredly endorsing this act. And I think right now there's a massive choice before the US administration, the administration, the UK, those of their allies that whether that will they have the courage or the conviction to even stick to the words that they've been sort of flaunting and the kind of pretence of peace that they've been putting up. Will they actually have the courage or conviction to stick to it or will they just continue with these aggressive policies which are clearly against not only, you know, which are also against the will of a large number of their own people. I'm pretty sure that there is no segment of the US population which now wants to go to war against the people of Yemen as well. But will those in power listen to these demands, the kind of protests that are taking place, I think very important to sort of look at this point of time. We're going to come back to those protests in a second. You're listening to Give the People What They Want brought to you from People's Dispatch that Zoe and Prashant, by the way, we're not going to talk about it today. But if you go to the People's Dispatch website, there's an excellent story on the issue between Somaliland, Somalia and Ethiopia. A detailed report very many years ago, Edward Said wrote about covering other parts of the world and said, one of the most interesting antidotes to Orientalism is to take the details of people's politics seriously. And this essay, this report at the People's Dispatch site on Somaliland and a dispute about a pot is I think a very good example of excellent reporting on a place that people don't often, you know, follow, learn about and so on. The politics of Ethiopia, Somaliland and Somalia are highly recommended. Zoe, coming back to this business, the United States didn't respond to the South African case at the International Court of Justice, but they responded very few hours later by bombing once again Yemen, which the US has pummeled for 20 years. There have been demonstrations, not only about that, but there are demonstrations continuing around the world on the war that Israel is prosecuting and there will be big demonstrations coming up. Tell us a little about this world marching against both the war against the Palestinians and its escalation. Well, it's been about three months since the beginning of Israel's Genocidal War on Gaza and three months of mass protests as we've seen across the world and especially in the United States. And this is especially interesting in the US because this is an election year. And you know, to be honest, when does the campaign season begin? When does it end in the US? There's no regulations on that because this is of course a corporate run politics. But this is having the mass protests against the war, against the US policy in Israel is having a massive impact actually on Joe Biden himself and on the Democrats' chances in this upcoming election. And it's really interesting because yesterday after this unhinged attack on Yemen, many people brought up an old tweet because you know, again, January 2020, if people remember this four years ago, the US launched again an illegal drone strike an illegal attack on in Iraqi territory against Qasem Soleimani. Assassinating him and again, really escalating the possibility of a regional war. A regional war which is very unpopular and Joe Biden tweeted around this time while there's you know, the possibility of again escalation. I think people will remember that it was it was a couple of weeks where it was really touching go. Is this going to escalate? Is this going to turn into something bigger? Joe Biden and I guess the Democratic debate tweets, no president can take our country to war without the informed consent of the American people. So just four years ago, Joe Biden who now you know, of course, is lovingly called genocide Joe was saying exactly what people are trying to tell him now which is that you know, this air strike these bombings in Yemen strikes in Iraq supporting Israel's war. This is completely against the will of the of the American people. And opinion polls after opinion polls have confirmed this fact. The majority of young people actually support Palestinians right to self-determination. They support Palestine being in the hands of Palestinians. The majority of both Republican and Democratic voters support the ceasefire. So the U.S. sort of wantonly and stubbornly moving forward with its policy of unbridled, you know, complete support to Israel on all levels is getting very, very unpopular. And again, U.S. is standing alone. Just the fact of all of the nations that rallied around South Africa's case is testament to this. Many countries in South America, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba countries in Africa countries in Europe we saw parliamentarians from many, many different European countries actually come to the Hague to express their support to this case. We saw, of course, the Irish lawyer who joined the South African team. This is not an isolated this is not just one state doing some action against Israel. This is the entire world community rallying around this you know, heroic action trying to actually bring make Israel accountable while the U.S. kind of hangs back with its extremely backwards policy of genocide and of murder and of death. And that's, of course, being met with a lot of resistance from the people in this country who are also seeing their own conditions to great and saying why is the U.S. continuing to support this while making many cuts to people's daily lives and survival. So once again, tomorrow in Washington, D.C., people are going tens of thousands of people will descend on the Capitol to bring this demand of a ceasefire and end to the siege on Gaza and really calling for an end to this military escalation. Many Democrats have said no more forever wars you know, no more wars in the Middle East yet we're seeing once again that's exactly what they're trying to do trying to escalate war at any cost just to support their ally Israel. So we're going to see a massive demonstration once again it's going to be very important that people are going to be taking to the streets reflecting this huge seismic shift in public opinion in support of Palestine and really rejecting Israel's genocidal policy. It's very important to highlight this world upsurge there's a world on the march but also there were marches in India I think of great importance hundreds of thousands of people close to a million people perhaps from the youth of the state of West Bengal in Western India gathered in the capital city Kolkata you know several of them march to almost 3000 kilometers from one end of Bengal from Kuch Bihar down to the Sunderbans this was a 50 day march called the Insaaf Yatra Justice march where people came to the city of Kolkata to demand employment you know better basic protections for ordinary people from violence you know given the context in Bengal the violence has risen gangsterism, hoodlamism etc. I know Zoe we're going to come back to this when we talk about Ecuador but hundreds of thousands of young people marching to demand a better future Mohammed Saleem one of the leaders of this left resurgence that's the phrase he uses he said we're looking forward to a people's resurgence in Bengal it's quite an extraordinary event but Prashant where you are in Delhi there was another march a march of students just recently tell us a little bit about that and then I'm really keen to hear from what happened in Ecuador which is puzzling a lot of people at first let's stay with this the world on the march in Bengal but also of course in Delhi actually the two marches in some sense is very closely connected because the kind of demands that were put forward by youth in both these marches by students by youth both these marches actually very much in consonance very much with each other the demand for proper education the demand for work the students march for instance was it had an 8 point chart beginning with the rejection of the national education policy a highly controversial policy pushed by this current BJP government without due consultation despite the opposition of all major student organizations many intellectuals despite that this kind of a policy pushed forward which kind of encourages privatization and corporatization the demands that this march also important note of course that this march comprised student organizations of a variety of ideological hues which may often have disagreements but all of them coming together united on this issue of rejecting the NEP of a more inclusive education policy of better fellowships of more investment education very significant demands of an urban employment guarantee scheme for instance again something quite similar to what the youth in Calcutta were demanding and I think both these sections sort of highlighting or pushing the fact that whether it be the state government in Bengal or the national government in Delhi there has been very little emphasis placed on both inclusive and comprehensive education and an attempt to provide employment to millions of young people across the country India's demographic dividend what they call demographic dividend what's happening to it is actually very unfortunate situation right now because you have an entire generation of people who are who may not receive the kind of education that is needed to propel India to become you know a much more powerful or a super or a great power in that sense and secondly do not have the jobs or have very low paying jobs or part time jobs to various extents and are just struggling to make ends meet and I think this is really a question you know to both these governments and to governments across the country that what exactly are they doing to provide to answer to the aspirations of these millions of young people so what the students in the country today are saying when they are saying rejecting this national education policy and they are giving a call against the religious polarization of the education sector for instance a very important aspect again something the youth in Calcutta are also marching against how what is in India is called communalism the use of religious polarization the politics of religious polarization how it has been used to you know target minorities how it has been used to target critics how it has been used to in many ways distract from the failures of these governments I think all of it the fact that it's inspiring to see these tens of hundreds of thousands of youth marching across the state from across the country highlighting these issues and sort of you know making a clear point that despite all these attempts to by the media by those in power to distract from these issues by to create conflict based on religion these issues are still front and center for youth and student movements in the country if you want to learn more about what Prashant and I were just talking about you must go to news click at the website that a hundred days ago was raided by the Delhi police founder of news click Prabya Purkayastha remains in prison but at news click despite this pressure from the government including the income tax office Ravi Kaushal has an excellent report on the student march in Delhi and Sandeep Chakrabati has a terrific report on the big insaf rally in Calcutta so make it your place to go to get news about India despite all the pressure newsclick.in still in action still giving you reports from the ground but Zoe when Ecuador suddenly exploded and literally bombs everywhere people rushing into television stations with guns and so on my gosh what's happening in Ecuador where have we come from in the days of Raphael Correa it is it was definitely a dramatic week in Ecuador many people would have seen again this a group of 10 or 15 members of an armed gang rush into a TV studio take the presenters take the cameraman hostage while live on air and you know large guns pointed at a group of this TV station extremely dramatic and shocking images of course for anyone to see and at the same time numbers of explosions bombings and also this had been preceded by really a state of emergency in the prisons in Ecuador but it's important to note that this crisis like most crises that we see don't act it was not actually escalation but it was not a surprise and it's been something that's been building for the last several years and seeing there were of course live streamed images of prisoners taking the prison guards hostage and and summarily executing them one by one extremely violent situation in the country President Daniel Novoa had after the prison rise took place and the prisons were essentially taken over by inmates from different gangs he declared a state of emergency and when this rupture of all these different taking the TV station and execution started he declared an internal armed conflict and declared different drug trafficking groups and gangs as terrorist groups and as military targets and so this is a huge escalation we're talking about a country which used to be one of the most safe in Latin America to have to being the most violent there's a 800% increase in the homicide rate in Ecuador I think since 2019 that is a significant number so we're not this is not a minor thing this is a serious situation and again this has to do there's a lot of factors and so it's not just for example that the neoliberal governments of Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso who as we remember ended his term early because of accusations that he had links to drug trafficking groups in the country that's an important detail and they you know in their different policies and through the agreement with IMF dismantled many state institutions defunded even security forces so the army, the police much less well funded than they were during Rafael Correa much less ability to act because of that dismantling the social safety net in the country so this of course has an impact on not only you know people's perhaps propulsion to actually join criminal armed groups but also the capacity of the state to respond and have a proper response but also we have to remember Ecuador where is it located right between two cocaine producing countries Peru and Colombia and Ecuador is also strategically located because it's right on the Pacific it's a major drug trafficking group and so its position has always been one that's been strategic for criminal groups and that's why there's many there's not only Ecuadorian gangs but also cartels from Mexico and cartels from other countries so this is and over the past couple of years as the institutions have been wearing down as the sort of de facto control over the border with Colombia broke down with the peace agreements when the FARC demobilized who had really controlled that area for many many years we see this kind of power dispute emerging between gangs trying to take over this area which had been for decades controlled by the FARC so all of these sort of factors create the situation where gangs see an opening armed groups see an opening and the prison takeover start happening we've seen over 500 people killed in these prison massacres and we're at the situation today where it's extreme insecurity for the people of Ecuador a state of fear, a state of terror and almost all sectors of the political spectrum have kind of rallied behind this call to kind of restore order in the country but it's going to be a long process as I said because of all of these different factors long process, difficult process tough for them we're also keeping an eye on the international court of justice whether there'll be a provisional ruling not sure if it'll come by next week but join us next week 157th show give the people what they want brought to you by People's Dispatch and Globe Trotter see you next week