 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup brought to you every week by People's Dispatch. That's peoplesdispatch.org with Prashant and Zoe. And by Globetrotter, that's me, Vijay. Welcome. It's the first of October 2021. Interesting week, interesting stories. Perhaps the most startling story which prevents the people from getting what they want was the attempt by various agencies in the world. Let's leave that rather unspecified Prashant. Various agencies around the world to silence not only Julian Assange but to terrify journalists before they tell the truth. The truth which is what the people want. Prashant, what had been the new revelations around the story of Julian Assange's incarceration? Right, Vijay, we've been talking in this show very often about the Julian Assange case, about the absurdities of the case that is being filed against Assange the reason why he's still in detention. But the report by Yahoo News over the past couple of days actually paints a very horrifying picture as well. And that's because of course the headline itself is horrifying which is that at the CIA there were discussions to kidnap or what are they called rendition? Basically you take him out of where he was which is the Ecuadorian Embassy or even assassinate him. Now some of this may have been just speculation or these kind of proposals. The report does say that Trump did ask about the possibility of having Assange assassinated. But I think the report also shows a much larger picture which is the kind of workings within the US security establishment when somebody reveals what they did not want to be revealed. Now there's a long history of Julian Assange revealing many of these things. We know that he revealed war crimes in Afghanistan. He and WikiLeaks then the cables revealing a lot of very embarrassing secrets. In 2017 they released what is called the World Seven Files which actually exposed the extent of the CIA's surveillance capacities. And this was seen as a huge embarrassment for them. So following this what the report actually talks about is this extensive period following this where the US security establishment especially the CIA decides and this is very important to note CIA is that time head Mike Pompeo classifies WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence service. And I think this is something that every journalist in the world needs to sort of stand up and note. The fact that when threatened by information it did not want people to know the United States was comfortable and quick terming a media organization as an intelligence service. And this is not just a term of propaganda because what this permitted according to US law was for the CIA and other agencies to actually take far more offensive actions. And this report reveals many of those actions which is you know it is not only Assange who was targeted it is other journalists and people associated with WikiLeaks there are possibilities that their communication is completely intercepted. There is the report itself has officials claiming that we got good intelligence on you know all people associated with WikiLeaks where they were traveling what kind of communications they were doing. They were attempts to disrupt the organization by promoting discord that kind of stuff they chose not to infiltrate it but they were attempts to say so discord in the organization. So the whole gamut of operations that you read about in science fiction which you sort of or you watch in thriller movies all of this was deployed against Julian Assange the talk about assassinating him or kidnapping him was actually the height of it. And at that point US Justice Department decides what we need to speed up the prosecution of this case against him the indictment and it is in that context that the indictment is filed by the end of 2017. So what this report shows us is the very underbelly of the United States Security Establishment and this is especially important now because this is not just some historical fact. This has direct bearing on the case because this is the context in which this case you know the proceedings was sped up and there was talk about violating WikiLeaks freedom in every single way. So this is the context in which this case was sped up and I think the courts it's a open question whether the courts will take this into account but what really remains to be seen is you know the lawyers definitely are going to raise it whether the courts will take it into account is a question. Moving from the story of the silencing of Julian Assange a journalist an editor of a publication and you know very chilling evidence. We moved to Columbia where there has in fact been a report released recently which shows that there has been killing of social movement leaders and others who attempt to lift the voices of the people Zoe what is this report it's a one in a series of reports what's been happening in Columbia Well lots of things have been happening a lot of people are talking right now about Jay Balvin and his statements about reggaeton as a musical genre we're not going to go into that but we will be talking about the really pressing situation in Columbia which is that you know as we covered very extensively you know for several weeks the violence executed against the people in the streets during the national strike has been continually condemned by organizations across Columbia you know as we had been following over 80 people were assassinated in the period of about 10 weeks on the streets participating in protests all of these mostly carried out by members of Columbia's security forces and this was you know brought to different international bodies the Inter-American Human Rights Commission this was brought to United Nations the Colombian government you know still hasn't really you know taken this into account and at the same time it's interesting because this week what we wanted to point out is that they actually arrested one of the leaders you know who was very active in organizing this strike and has been really active over the past decade organizing with social movements with community organizations he was very active in an environmental committee to protect one of Columbia's most sacred ecosystems the Paramo from you know a Canadian mining company that wanted to do a gold extraction he's been active in urban movements trying to organize the cities poor and he was arrested this week accused of I mean he's been in the court hearings that have been taken place so far you know the judges have called him a terrorist a criminal you know accusing him of many things and it's interesting the way the justice works in a country like Columbia where you have security forces killing over 80 people broadcast on international television this was one of the first times where you know this kind of violence receives such you know widespread audience yet you know the focus of Columbia's judicial system is on the social leaders is on the people who are organizing the people that want to change the system also notably this week you know the national strike committee which is of course the platform of different trade unions social movements, political organizations you know that helped call for the 28th of April strike they were out on the streets again because you know not only is the Colombian government persecuting trade union leaders social movement leaders not only are they not you know trying the police officers, the army members who you know committed crimes but they're also not falling through on any of the commitments they've made with the people you know this strike that took place for over two months was of course about serious demands about you know closing gaps of historic inequalities I mean this the national strike committee basically presented 10 different bills that they want the congress to pass one is an emergency basic income you know free higher education the establishment of a free public healthcare system in Columbia that have extremely privatized very bureaucratic health system access to health is one of the key issues especially during the pandemic and you know others such laws that really would ensure a better life for Colombians so not only you know are they not engaging in these negotiations but they refuse to kind of push forward these laws and so of course people are going to take the streets again there were real concrete reasons for why the strike went on for so long why it saw you know historic participation of Columbia's youth of you know women of many different sectors in society and I think as the government fails to take action on the demands that they've raised we're going to see a lot more of these mobilizations you know in November coming up that will be the two year anniversary of the the strike that was began in November 2019 wherein you know a young man Dylan Cruz was you know killed in the middle of the street shot in the head by the police these are all very important milestones in Columbia's you know movement history in these last couple of years so we'll obviously be staying tuned to people's dispatch well that's an amazing story and it must be followed because after all Columbia is going to lead into a presidential election and this will have some bearing on the politics of the country and so on we saw recently at the CELAC meeting the community of Latin American and Caribbean states Columbia was missing in action in interesting situation I'm glad we're following it so closely at give the people what they want and at people's dispatch I've been following the story in Afghanistan over the course of well now several decades and I was very interested because of two developments one the Afghan government continues to have a very difficult time making its financial obligations because it's been cut off from international aid by and large some aid is coming in now it's been cut off from any IMF relief and of course the 10 billion dollars of Afghan's external reserves are being held in the New York Federal Reserve they're not able to access it well the economy minister of Afghanistan is an interesting man his name is Karidin Muhammad Hanif and he's the one Tajik member of the cabinet there are other minorities now in the redone cabinet of the Taliban the first I guess the first innings of the cabinet they were all Pashtuns then they brought in Muhammad Hanif who's a Tajik to run the economy Muhammad Hanif is a senior Taliban leader he had been in the planning he had been a planning minister in the first Taliban government well what's interesting is he comes from Badakhshan district in the very north of the country and I was interested in this because Badakhshan and other areas in that very northern part of Afghanistan is extraordinarily rich with minerals and metals including lapis lazuli some of the words best lapis lazuli comes there during the government of Ahmad Karzai sorry Hamid Karzai it was said by his ministers that there's about a three trillion dollars worth of minerals and metals and other resources under the soil of Afghanistan there's an enormous amount of money for a country the size of Afghanistan most of those minerals are smuggled out there's a lot of corruption in fact many of the high officials of the government of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani faced corruption charges during that time in power Muhammad Hanif has made some small remarks about that area and whether the Taliban government is going to be able to commandeer the resources of the country I doubted very much and one of the reasons I doubted is that the resistance to the Taliban is coming now largely from old commanders who have a Tajik background now interestingly in the last few days those 11 days those spectacular 11 days when the Taliban rushed through northern Afghanistan this area is a majority Tajik area and it fell to the Taliban without bloodshed in many cases including Badakhshan and the capital Fezabad went to the Taliban rather quickly it looks like there is not enormous support among the Tajik people of Afghanistan for another protracted war on the other hand across the border from Badakhshan in Tajikistan the government of president Rahman has allowed the group of at least three leaders to take residence in Tajikistan and they fashion themselves as a resistance committee this includes Ahmad Masood the son of Ahmad Shah Masood it includes Amanullah Salih who was a close asset of the CIA and of course had been the security chief in the government of Hamid Karzai later under Ashraf Ghani he was the vice president he considered washington's direct man in the Ashraf Ghani government he is there as well and with them is Abdul Latif Pedram who is the national congress of Afghanistan head Mr. Pedram has a big bounty on his head from the Taliban they accuse him of a range of things I actually cannot verify anything about whether he is guilty because the fact of the matter is 9 out of 10 of the people of the other well the fact is that I am afraid that a lot of the mineral smuggling particularly lapis lazuli and gold in the Badakshan area is going to be used now by these forces to finance their resistance and I am afraid that this is going to prolong the war in Afghanistan it is a bit of a surprise to see president Rahman give refuge to these groups and we haven't yet seen if he is going to allow them to start an armed struggle from Tajikistan into Afghanistan but this is something we have to keep an eye on let's see how far it goes and what kind of chaos is going to be created as a consequence a rich country of Afghanistan very poor people, a great tragedy another country with great riches awful poverty Sudan what is happening in Sudan right Vijay, Sudan again many of those countries we cover a lot also because the fact that in some senses, Marx it's a very good example of the conflicts and contradictions of a lot of processes in that region it's not only Sudan, it's Algeria, Egypt many of those countries so the news last week of course was that there was a coup attempt there were some movements as far as tanks were concerned some of the officers were arrested and this really brought to the fore some of the conflicts between say the ruling establishment in Sudan right now which is primarily two sections one is the military and who which really control the government right now whose representatives are led by the current president of the sovereignty council, General Burhan and there's a civilian government led by Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdoq so there was a lot of allegations on both sides, the military said in military ranks civilian government of course pushing back against it but I think what is more important to note is that rather than just seeing this as a coup attempt so many coup attempts take place and say a conflict between two sections we also want to look at it from the perspective of the mass protests which took place in Sudan from December 2018 those are the protests which overthrew the president General Bashir in 2019 and those protests and those protesters have continued so our colleague Pawan of course spoke to some of the protesters and protesting sections over there which is very interesting because while a lot of the conversation was about the coup there was actually another incident which took place a few days later which was on September 26th and this basically involved military and police officials being withdrawn from a very crucial government department and this government department was the one responsible for confiscating the assets of the old regime of Omar al-Bashir and his allies so suddenly one fine morning all these forces were withdrawn what was very interesting was that there was a massive mobilization to protect the building so you saw people living in the vicinity the neighborhood resistance committees which were the backbone of all these protests in Sudan over the years mobilizing quickly and there was this huge crowd which gathered in front of that building and that basically made sure that the building was safe by that type of officials had given calls for people to gather and soon after a while I think probably the military junta was taken aback security forces returned but this is of great symbolic importance to protesters on the ground there because they are very clear about what is happening in Sudan right now which is that even after Omar al-Bashir was overthrown there was a compromise between the army his old regime and certain political parties a civilian government was formed but the army still has the upper hand and not just the upper hand in terms of governance it also has the upper hand in terms of the economy estimates say that maybe even 80% of the economy could be controlled by the army in various ways according to at least one of our sources even in terms of professions like you know owning chickens and running poultry farms the army is involved so that's the extent of the army's role in the country and this is also meant that there's a huge amount of immunity for the army which means that the crimes committed by them at various points of time including in 2019 there has been no justice for this justice to happen there has to be a legislative council and I think that is one of the core demands right now of the people that legislative council be formed yesterday that is the 30th of September there were again mass protests called by all the organizations which had organized the Sudanese revolution then and they demanded that the transitional government be a civilian one that the military be moved out of governance and its structures and I think that core demand is what is going to animate and drive the protests in Sudan in the days to come because the people on the ground are very clear that they have learned from some of the mistakes in the past in their own country in other countries that they do not want to be demobilized in their own words they don't want to okay the dictator has been overthrown that is really not the way they are saying things they see this as a process as a process of continuous mobilization and this is something that they are very sure that they are going to continue so that's why we are with Sudan so very important story you are with give the people what they want brought to you every week from people's dispatch you can see people's dispatch follow stories in Sudan in Columbia places like that where you are not going to find those stories anywhere else peoplesdispatch.org I've been looking it's a little eclectic this piece of our show today I've been looking at the politics in the G7 countries that's the group of 7 countries set up in 1974 in Japan for instance Prime Minister Suga decided I've had enough he hung up his skates and said I'm not going to be on the ice any longer and then his party had to decide who's going to lead them well they chose a veteran they chose perhaps the dullest candidate of the lot Mr. Kishida is going to take over from Suga, safe hands for the United States no problem in Japan on that flank of Eurasia nobody in the White House is going to lose any sleep at least of all General Millie who has been beaten up a lot in the US Congress recently over his revelations made by Bob Woodward and Paul Costa in a book where Millie apparently called the Chinese and said hey listen Trump is not going to attack you well Millie will be very satisfied to hear that Kishida is the new Prime Minister of Japan satisfied because this means that nobody in Japan at least in the higher circles is going to question the role of the US military either its bases on Japanese soil including Okinawa or along the coastline of China so safe hands with the spectrum matters are more complicated at the other end of Eurasia we just saw an election in Germany where the result was entirely unsatisfactory for those who want to report a story because it looks like every year the German Chancellor makes a New Year's speech and the leader of the Social Democratic Party Olaf Schulz hoped to be the one to make the New Year's speech in 2022 looks like it might be Angela Merkel back I think Mrs. Merkel didn't want to be the one making the speech she was eager in fact like Premier Suga to walk away into the sunset but she may be she may have to wait a little longer and the reason is that very serious negotiations are underway between Christian Linder of the free democrats and Annalena Baerbach of the Greens the Greens and the Democrats are completely antithetical political parties in many respects not all in some respects they are quite similar they are different in terms of how they want to use the state to tackle climate change in terms of other things they are quite similar it looks like the most possible or most probable coalition will be between the Social Democrats the free Democrats and the Greens although never ever underestimate the power of the Christian Democrats in Germany to come back in again no worries in the White House regarding the outcome in Germany no worries because the outcome in Germany is going to be entirely pro-Washington and will follow the Washington line as much as possible in fact in fact they are probably relieved that Angela Merkel is no longer in charge because Mrs. Merkel had in the last few years had been quite forthright with for instance Nordstrom too the pipeline deal with Russia she had been quite forthright in saying that Germany if not Europe needs to craft its own foreign policy real sleep will be lost in France well news comes again that Nicholas Sarkozy the leader of the center right is going to be in house arrest for a year found guilty of campaign in the 2012 election nobody is talking in France about the money he took from to fund his previous election but we will keep that aside meanwhile on the far right matters are grim for Marie Le Pen as the television personality Eric Zemur who I had never heard of before has made a run and might in fact come into the presidential contest challenging Marie Le Pen wait for this friends Marie Le Pen as you know the far right politician Eric Zemur might be challenging Marie Le Pen for her right so in France we are going to have a politician even more to the right of Marie Le Pen will take some of her votes is this good for Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Macron bruised up very unhappy petulant because he feels France has been treated badly by the United States over the orcus deal will France push for Europe to have an independent foreign policy from the United States will the White House be losing sleep about the election in France we will look and see and follow this carefully but as of now Germany in relatively safe hands Japan relatively safe hands France who is to say who is to know South of France in Portugal there is a tussle over money Venezuela put that money into Portugal for Portugal's sake what is Portugal doing about that Venezuela and money Zoe well Portugal is doing what many European countries and countries that are close to United States are doing which is they are keeping it and not allowing Venezuela to access it you know we discussed this it's been happening in several occasions you know there's over I think 7 billion dollars of Venezuelan money that's being essentially held hostage they're unable to access it they're unable to use it they're unable to make payments with it you know back a couple months back Venezuela attempted to make its final payment to the Covax initiative to buy vaccines and a bank in Switzerland block the payment and they were unable to get these I mean they engage in negotiations after but you know these very important payments were blocked what happened with in Portugal with the Banco Novo is that you know they've had money in this bank for a while they've been trying to engage in negotiations to get this money it's about 12.7 million dollars US dollars a lot of money and they've you know repeatedly asked they actually attempted to use this money to make a payment to the Pan-American health organization again the Covax you know supplies such as syringes such as masks other elements in order for Venezuela to combat the Covax 19 pandemic and support its other public health initiatives and this once again has been blocked but in response to this you know a group of 37 European parliamentarians wrote a letter to the CEO of Novo Bank acting you know asking him to respect international law and release these funds because you know as Venezuela and other countries have continually pointed out who also suffer from these sanctions is that you know while sanctions and you know unilateral coercive measures are justified by saying that these were are only used to target politicians that it's really just about making statements these politicians and businessmen and other people who the US wants to target of course the people who suffer are the Venezuelan people are the Zimbabwean people who are unable to have access to food to medicine you know this is a clear case where Venezuela wants to use these 12 million dollars to buy health care supplies and they're unable to do that this you know again is in violation of international law it's in violation of the UN Charter and so this recent letter hopefully will put more kind of steam behind this necessary demand to lift you know lift unilateral coercive measures release specifically these funds so that Venezuela can you know make sure their public health system is as effective as it can be and that people can get vaccines that people can get that supplies that they need so this is a really important move by these European parliamentarians and we'll see how it advances there are also other under way in other parts of Europe for example in England with the Bank of England and Venezuela's goal that's being held there so you know Venezuela has been quite proactive on several fronts trying to make sure they get access to this money and that it can be used to serve the people and in that case it you know it shouldn't it shouldn't be blocked well you have a little announcement to make before we close out our show today Zoe would you like to make the announcement I would love to so not only is today the anniversary of establishment of the People's Republic of China but also it is the day that the International People's Assembly is publicly launching its website its social media pages we at People's Dispatch are partners of the International People's Assembly we're very proud to be partners in this process which is it is a platform of you know over 200 social and political organizations trade unions people's movements from all six continents and regions of the world working together under united common platform against imperialism against you know the forces that threaten the future of humanity in the future of the planet so we invite everyone to check out these pages support the International People's Assembly and all the important work they're doing you've been listening to give the people what they want brought to you from People's Dispatch a partner of the International People's Assembly IPA-AIP.org and from Globetrotter great to be with you see you next week