 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You're with Give the People What They Want brought to you from People's Dispatch that's Prashant and Zoe. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Yesterday was the 14th of July, which is Bastille Day. When the French Revolution began, large numbers of people went and stormed the Bastille, the prison near Paris and opened this period of liberty, equality, fraternity. In the year 2022, we don't quite have the storming of a prison, but we had the storming of a presidential palace and extraordinary surreal scenes of people having stormed the presidential palace in Sri Lanka, watching themselves on television storming presidential palace from within the presidential palace. What I'm saying is confusing. Events in Sri Lanka have been confusing. Prashant, what is happening in Sri Lanka? It's one of those places where like we keep saying in some of our shows, things seem to change every hour. By the time some of our viewers watch this episode, who knows what happens? Quite a historic moment there. What happens is a different question, but in the future is a different question. In terms of the president, Kotabaiaraja Paksa being forced to flee the country, just a few years ago, he and his family were at the peak of their power, having returned to power their consulate and elections. They held the presidency, the prime ministership, six portfolios I believe in the family. They were consolidating power at a massive scale. And then come 2022 and one by one, the pillars of their support fell. The prime minister, the older brother, Mahindra Rajapaksa, forced to resign in May. And all this happening because of a very severe economic crisis. And then what happens is over the past week, we see massive protests taking place last Saturday specifically. And people are just saying that they're tired of the misery, the day-to-day misery that they're experiencing in terms of living conditions where people have to wait, spend days and nights to get fuel. Essentials like, you know, basic food essentials are difficult to get. I think I believe a BBC report saying that in an island nation, there's no fish because their boats have diesel to go into the sea. Milk powder, for instance, completely off the shelves. This kind of day-to-day misery, you know, people, and this protest we know I've been building for months from about March and April onwards. They've been occupying a spot in the area of Colombo and last week, there was a snapping point. People just searched towards the centers of power, the president's house, the secretary of the prime minister's residence, for instance, and just took it over. And it was just that. There was this large surge of crowds and when people come in such numbers, even security forces, nobody stands a chance really, I mean, after a point. And we see that there's a complete collapse of, or seeming collapse of the power structures. The president flees. The prime minister, Ranil Vikram Asingar, who's an ally of the president, says that I'm ready to resign. You know, there's complete power structures to stand for a day. Now, what has happened in the intervening period, went to Maldives, he's now got to Singapore, and he officially submitted his resignation. There was an interesting moment where he was trying to flee and he was blocked at the airport because people were just so angry with him, but he somehow managed to flee. But now we see that the prime minister has become the acting president. There's a lot of political jockeying going on for who gets to become the new president now, who gets to become the new prime minister, the political elites that is over there, you know, indulging in a lot of negotiations. But the unfortunate thing about all this is that there is no real solution in sight for the economic crisis because this political class does not have an answer. Their only solution has been to go to the IMF and you know what the IMF brings. The IMF brings more conditions. For every dollar it gives, it makes sure to extract its pound of flesh in the form of austerity policies. So the IMF is not really it might immediately solve a very short-term problem, but Sri Lanka has had 16 IMF agreements in the past couple of decades and those are a huge factor in the crisis it is today. So how is this IMF known going to solve Sri Lanka crisis in the long term? Definitely it's not going to happen. Now people on the left have suggested a very different path like, you know, say reduce dependency on imports, you know, create a universal public distribution system, strengthen public services in general, use those services, make sure that there is more emphasis placed on self-reliance on productive activities. This is a very different path of development and we can be very sure the IMF does not want this. We can be very sure that these kind of agencies don't want this. But will a new government have the guts to actually take this path? It doesn't seem very likely at this point because all the political forces are wedded to this kind of notion of, you know, the only option being the IMF. We have seen this in Sri Lanka, we have seen this in Pakistan in countries in Africa, Latin America so many other countries. So in some senses Sri Lanka is a very emblematic crisis for the rest of the world because I think it kind of it's a nutshell, it's a nutshell what the kind of crisis many other countries are facing in terms of hunger, in terms of inflation, in terms of political paralysis all these are in a more concentrated form in Sri Lanka. So very important to watch what happens in the coming weeks and months there, especially how they're trying to go address the economic question. In other words it's not that the presidential palace was the best deal but what you're saying is that Sri Lanka itself might be the best deal for developments around the world. You know, it's interesting because these kind of uprisings produce a great deal of repression in many societies and then after the repression has been pushed back there's always the question of justice. We see now in Bolivia and Argentina questions of justice on the table again being second being pushed aside, being made secondary. Zoe in Argentina, Bolivia, what is this question of justice that has come back on the table? Well this is something we've discussed before on this show and when such great atrocities take place such as the civic military dictatorship in Argentina where over 30,000 people were detained and disappeared and more recently the coup d'etat that we saw in Bolivia almost 40 people were killed by military officers. Democratic rule and order was disrupted for a year and only restored because of determined people's struggle. The question of how to deal with those who committed these crimes how to process the complaints and the testimonies of these victims that suffered during this period. How do you deal with these? In the case of Argentina it's very interesting because of course now it's been several decades over four decades since this dictatorship was in power so many crimes that were committed and since that period there's been a real back and forth depending on who is in power as you said the question of justice gets pushed aside it even gets suppressed. For example there were several laws passed by governments in Argentina to essentially give impunity to military officers to police officers who were serving during the time of the dictatorship. There's an active will suppress that these stories come out and in many cases victims want to know what's happening and so it's very interesting to look at these two examples especially because there have been updates in the past couple of weeks in the past week so in the case of Argentina for example as I said a very very long struggle for justice for truth. 19 former military officers were convicted for crimes committed during the dictatorship and this was met with a lot of celebration because with these trials not only is it set in an example in saying that we still remember these crimes that were committed but also many of the much of the information about what happened to people's family members what happened to for example in Argentina the case of the children who were disappeared and so this is a huge and important advance and victory that took place this case was specifically about the Campo Mayo detention center where thousands and thousands of militants were detained, disappeared thrown into the ocean extremely key that this remain on people's consciousness especially as these sort of repressive patterns return and looking over in Bolivia which is a more recent case where the coup that took place in 2019 was only in power for a year democracy was restored the government of movement toward socialism has really put justice first and foremost as soon as they got into power through elections through popular struggle they said that they would make sure that the crimes committed during this dictatorship whether it be repression whether it be corruption and the embezzlement of funds of the Bolivian people they were going to hold these people to account however this week one of the trials and the testimonies of one of the key coup plotters who was really behind so much of the violence Luis Fernando Camacho who is from the Santa Cruz department extreme right wing ideologist but also leader in Bolivia who's actually governor of Santa Cruz department his trial had to be suspended because of death threats to the prosecutors and so as they advance and as they're trying to make these advances towards justice for the people truth Janine Agnes is in prison she's given testimony there's a long struggle over her involvement however when you have these forces that still maintain power in a certain sense like Luis Fernando Camacho this is not a question of just what will happen in the courts but really it's a constant struggle and so hopefully there will be a chance for him to testify to explain how he plotted this criminal act who was he working with and all of that so I would say that's where we're at with these different cases it's a very serious issue begs the question about democracy and political violence and so on across the Americas from the north to the south there's been fixation on what had happened on January 6 in the United States regarding the what some people are calling an attempted coup data by Donald Trump and his government against the US Constitution well one of the international observers at the coup data in Washington DC was Eduardo Bolsonaro the son of Yair Bolsonaro of Brazil Mr. Eduardo Bolsonaro came there as an international observer they're very troubling signs taking place in Brazil now where comparisons are being drawn regarding the second of October presidential election the first round to be held in Brazil and the events of the 6th of January in the United States the attempted coup data in the US well what is the evidence for that concern well Mr. Bolsonaro himself last week in his radio show told his supporters go ahead and do what you must do well his son then Flavio the other son not Eduardo who was the international observer in Washington Flavio Bolsonaro told the press that his family the Bolsonaro family cannot be held responsible for what their supporters do this is chilling language in one sense you have Mr. Bolsonaro sitting president far behind in the polls against Mr. Lula who is the candidate of the left in the election against Bolsonaro Mr. Lula is leading in most of the polls Mr. Bolsonaro comes out there as a sitting president and essentially riles up his support base and says do what you have to do and then his son comes in and says well we are not responsible for what the people do it's a curious act of duplicity on offer in Brazil at this time this is not all the defense minister former military man has come out in public and said that he has serious doubts about the electoral system in Brazil he has questioned the election commission he has questioned the machines that will be used and so on setting in motion in a way a dangerous precedent against the the question of the election that is interesting is that in the United States building upon what Zoe said regarding Bolivia in particular in the United States they have been hearing about the the question of the January 6th events there is absolutely no satisfaction given that questioning the reason I wanted to bring all these things together is that the discussions about democracy that are taking place in the world now democracy particularly in the western countries these discussions around democracy seem not to consider the extraordinary act of subversion of democratic institutions that are taking place simultaneously the subversion of democratic institutions in the United States not only January 6th but also the US Supreme Court and it's verdict on the right of women to choose the people in the country opposed to what the Supreme Court had put forward and yet the court's verdict stands now in Brazil deepened conflict and confusion around this election the sowing of confusion in anticipation of the election we've seen what this does to electoral processes in India for instance studies have shown that the more of this kind of confusing language that one hears the lower voter turnout the more violence that takes place the lower voter turnout this could have a great impact on the election on October the 2nd we're going to come back to this question of democracy right now with Prashant talking about Biden's tour of the Middle East but I just want to remind you you're listening to give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch and globetrotter Mr. Biden as you know had held a summit with the Americans around democracy now he seems to be enjoying himself talking about shared values with the Israelis and with the Saudis and others emblematic democracies I suppose Prashant right absolutely I mean I think for it is quite rare to see a oped by the US president justifying his trip to another country so that I think really shows that even thick-skinned people such as US political establishment are you know feeling a bit of the heat to actually have to justify why I am visiting X country but yeah I mean I think that is pretty much it shows the absurdity of the whole trip in the sense that the number of ways they've tried to spin this trip is quite exemplary in the sense that first there was this whole thing about we're doing it for energy security then there was then they tried to say we're doing this for the security and protection of Israel and you know whereas all this really is I think and everyone has called it out this is just an attempt to sort of give more strength or put more meat on the bones of the Abraham Accords which was a Trump era initiative so so much for you know the Democrats being very different from the Republicans on this matter Biden going to the West Asia and then trying to push more countries to get into the Abraham Accords and we know that Biden's position really isn't any different for all his pronunciations it's not any different on this issue we know that for instance the US embassy is continuing to be built in Jerusalem where apparently on stolen land there has been a lot of reports on that we know for instance that when it comes to issue of settlements they're not reversed any of the policies that the Trump administration is including recognition of these illegal settlements Biden has gone to the region and announced measures economic measures for the Palestinians but even that isn't continuation of the Trump era policy where they sought to say that we'll give you money just don't talk about your freedom or aspects of self determination or whatever so that seems to be the larger policy on this line that it's cool if you ask as much money as you want we'll give you economic incentives etc etc we'll give you a bit more humanitarian aid but just don't talk about say your sovereignty or your independence or anything of that sort so that seems to be the entire line as far as Palestine goes in Saudi Arabia the idea is now that Saudi Arabia and Israel already have always had very strong clandestine links now they're coming a bit more into the open we know that the Saudi airspace has now been open to Israeli flights that's the latest announcement in between all this of course he also found time to sort of do this meeting of the I2U2 that's India, Israel the United Arab Emirates and the United States what is called the Quad of West Asia why we are the Quad again nobody knows what benefit this is except you know just to sort of it sounds nice and there's some economic thing but actually what does it bring to any of these countries of course Israel and UAE benefit but what does India benefit out of this no real clarity so this is on the one hand this is a fairly bumbling agenda so to speak but on the other hand the harm it continues to do is irreparable and I think this is one thing that especially has characterized Biden's administration that there is there are these statements of good intent and this spectacular failures of policy and what accompanies both of this is actually real harm on the ground for instance we just saw a report which recently said which talked about for instance a number of children killed in Palestine last year in Baba Israeli soldiers and I believe in terms of the number of deaths that's the highest in the world and this was largely due to the bombing of Gaza that took place in 2021 after Biden came to power and there was no stopping Israel as it continued brutalizing Gaza for so many days so no criticism on this no questioning of this and just going to the region talking about economic assistance of course Biden also claiming that he's a great Zionist so that's kind of the cherry on the cake so all together I think nothing is surprising at all and I think is one last point many people have pointed out just months after or two months after Shireen Abu Akhle a Palestinian journalist but also a US citizen was killed by Israeli soldiers again no questions of justice or accountability or rather the idea is that this is unfortunate there must be justice but we will not talk about who killed her that's the notion of US justice across the world it's always I think like we talked thoughts and prayers for the victims but no question of justice at all no question of justice at all I too you too another acronym to remember India, Israel, UAE and USA wow thanks Prashant for that add that to the people's dispatch acronym list well strange story once again about the denigration of democracy very strange story dirty text type story in Spain about Pablo Iglesias who is the leader of Podemos Zoe revelations in a right wing newspaper have you listened to the audio I listened to a bit of it quite interesting so about five six seven years ago there was a Spanish newspaper ok the audio published an exclusive story you know with bank account statements and everything to back it up essentially claiming that Pablo Iglesias the founder and leader of Podemos a left wing party in Spain that rose to prominence after the movement against austerity stating that Pablo Iglesias had received over 200,000 euros in an offshore bank account in the Grenadines from another then this news was spread all over Spain it was used to delegitimize him, delegitimize the party just a web of stories emerged from this one that Podemos is a Venezuelan front you know anything you can imagine from that beginning of this seed of news and this continued Pablo Iglesias actually took Eduardo Inda who's the founder of ok the audio to court and said that this was a false information that it was not correct and that the spreading of this information had done personal injury to him as a person the court held up Eduardo Inda and said no this information that's published is factual the journalist has the right to inform the public about information everything you can imagine freedom of press etc and now as you said just this last week these revelations came out in a different newspaper basically saying that the entire thing was a plot between the police and this media outlet and that it was not true they knew it wasn't true and they said let's go ahead with it because it's important this news is important to their political project to their political ends and that's exactly what happened and so I don't fully know how these audios were obtained they're from 2017 from 2017 this was published on La Sexta and essentially completely undermining this story that they had spread across the media that really spread like wildfire as of now I don't think there's been any official apology or any sort of you know settlement that's been come to it all a lot of different Latin American leaders have precisely come to Pablo Iglesias defense and said that this is reprehensible comparing it a lot to what happens in their own countries as well there's really a web of conspiracy between corporate-owned media media that's allied with the ruling class with the courts to defame populist leaders to defame leftist leaders and essentially denigrate their political project it's a undermining of democracy by other means this is a new form that we're seeing in many countries in Latin America now we've seen it in Spain and it's a quite shocking story the fact that the police could really I mean this police officer was later accused of corruption and he was brought to court for other charges but I think it really shows the extent to which these groups of power will go to achieve their means and I think Vijay you say this a lot but people call us conspiracy theorists but this is what's happening these are things we can't we can't make up this is really what people are doing and until it's really come to light until these phone conversations get published get shared with the public it just seems like something that's crazy it is crazy and I think there's no doubt that it's exactly crazy not so crazy is the terrible suffering injected on the European public as a result of the sanctions against Russia in Germany now there's even talk of going back to wood-fired power plants you know you have the situation where Germany under pressure because of sanctions to stop importing Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline there is already talk despite the fact that it's a green coalition government of maintaining nuclear power there's talk about coal being reintroduced and now of course wood-fired winter for the people in Germany well the crisis of living standards and the energy crisis that we saw in Germany and of course in Sri Lanka at the head of the show has taken out in a way a government in Italy Mario Draghi who was the head of the European Central Bank was known as Super Mario had been asked to lead a unity government in Italy in 2021 to help Italy recover from the pandemic and then when this crisis took place around Ukraine to stabilize Italy's terrible situation which is why the Draghi government proposed a 23 billion euro package to help sections of the public not all it should be said it's quite a modest package actually 23 billion euros to help in this cost of living crisis this crisis occasion by the sanctions on Russia well the five star movement led by Mr. Conti Giuseppe Conti was not interested in this 23 billion package said this is insufficient the Draghi government is not really looking directly into the scale of the crisis and so five star said that they are walking out of the parliament this left Super Mario without his super majority in parliament and for which he went to the president tended his resignation now it's interesting because the right wing in Italy is keen on an election but so are the five star movement people they're all in a sense jockeying to say they are concerned about the cost of living crisis in fact this is not really merely a domestic problem it should be quite wrong to see it like that this is a much broader Europe quite conflict around the fact that in a stroke of a pen Europe can actually solve some of its problems which is to say to put pressure on the United States in particular to no longer block negotiations between Ukraine and Russia already the Russians have said that their ability to export grain from in Mario Paul and so on it's very close to being possible which could mean that there'd be grain supplies going out through the black sea to the rest of the world this can be solved actually it's not a big economic crisis such as the kind of terminal crises occasioned during the collapse of the US housing market in 2007-2008 that was difficult they needed to be an infusion of capital coming from places unlikely places like China and India to rescue western financial institutions that's what took place in 2008 that doesn't seem to be necessary here here merely if the Europeans are able to settle the conflict in Ukraine and if they can restart purchasing cheaper and well on balance cleaner energy from Russia some of these costs of living crises will not disappear or evaporate but might lessen which means the political crisis which is now ongoing in Italy need not be what defines the country but here we are it looks like Mr. Biden on tour in the Middle East prefers to see the government fall in Italy chaos once again in Rome that chaos again not entirely unpredictable but here it is listening to give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that's Zoe and Prashant boy what a tour we've had of the world today I'm Vijay from Globetrotter see you next week