 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. It's the hundred and twentieth episode of Give the People What They Want brought to you from People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant. Your movement driven news source. The best place to get your daily news. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Interesting business. This U.S. bombing in Syria. Little remarked upon by the international press. In fact, you would be forgiven if you thought that the United States had actually left Syria. You'd be forgiven because nobody really mentions the fact that there are about a thousand official U.S. troops still holding sessions of eastern Syria. And it's not just a thousand U.S. troops. Those are formal troops. There are also lots of unnumbered military contractors who are in this area near and around these Syrian oil fields in Derazur. Well, periodically there are clashes. Certainly there are clashes because the United States continues to occupy this territory. Clashes take place. Most recently a drone firing at U.S. assets. Response comes from the United States. Hard response this time on Thursday evening. Several bombing raids ordered by Joe Biden, which hit the neighborhoods of Derazur, of Harabish, a densely populated neighborhood, as well as the town of Al-Mayadeen. A target of U.S. attacks. It's in the Al-Bukamal desert. Well, of course, United States comes in having had a drone come and strike a U.S. military facility and replies with massive assault on civilian neighborhoods. As I said, almost no coverage of this attack on the mainstream media. Now, the U.S. government itself, of course, by law has to say that they did do an attack. And the Pentagon therefore said that it struck facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. I'm reading from the Pentagon's own website. This is their claim that what they did was they were attacked by Iranians and they struck Iranian targets. In fact, if you look at Syrian media, if you look at Lebanese media, if you look at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London, quite the opposite kind of coverage becomes clear. It's very clear that these attacks hit civilian targets. Now, it may be that there were some militia groups operating in some of these areas. That is not inconceivable. That's exactly what militia groups do in the 21st century. They root themselves in civilian neighborhoods. But this was disproportionate bombardment of civilian neighborhoods. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that at least 11 people died including two Syrian nationals. But it doesn't really say whether these were exactly militia members or not. Iran's press TV said that many of those killed were Syrian soldiers. Again, very difficult to know exactly what was going on here. Very difficult to know. But it is clear that the United States has said that they will not abandon, a very interesting word, they will not abandon their hold on northeastern Syria. This is an occupation, an illegal occupation, because there is no UN Security Council resolution that provides the United States with legal cover to hold a large amount of territory in northeastern Syria. So it's an illegal occupation in that sense. And the US government is convinced, or at least is trying to convince other people that its adversaries here are Iran. And chilled by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's statement that Washington will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. A striking statement. This continues, of course, Washington's pressure campaign against Iran at a time when, just to remind you, Saudi Arabia and Iran had a meeting in China where they began to talk about procedures toward establishing some sort of bargain between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The temperature in West Asia seems to be decreasing at the same time as the chaos inside Israel is increasing. Is this a good time to attack Syria in this way to try to escalate the conflict, perhaps distract from what is happening within Israel? Hard to say. These are questions not for me, but for the US government to answer. Don't want to speculate too much. But then again, the US government has enough on its hands, Zoe, constant problem with what it considers a migrant crisis. Let's go to Mexico. Let's see what's happening there, Zoe. Well, on Monday night in the Ciudad Juarez, which is right on the border with Texas, you can look over and see El Paso, Texas, right at Ciudad Juarez. A terrible tragedy took place on Monday night when 39 migrants died in a fire inside of a migrant shelter facility of the National Immigration Institute in Mexico. It is unknown to this point how the fire started. Some reports have said that because people were facing imminent deportation, that they set fire to some mattresses and protests and that got out of control. Again, it's tough to know exactly how it started, but video footage from this tragedy has shown that the immigration officials within the facility did not do enough to essentially escort people to safety. And as such, 39 people perished in this fire from Venezuela, from Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. It is a tragedy, as I said, and it's indicative really of these horrific and perilous conditions that migrants face attempting to go from countries from across the world and make it to the United States. Interesting to point out that these days it's not only people from Latin America but actually people come from across the world, from Africa, from Asia and actually take this route, some of them even starting as South as Colombia, going through the Darien Gap and traversing horrific conditions just in an attempt to access the United States. And it's important to point out on one hand that because under the threat of economic sanctions, Mexico had to sign an agreement, the Safe Third Country Agreement, which amongst other things means that migrants have to register for asylum within Mexico before applying to the United States. So many people who are migrating to the United States do apply under this asylum clause saying that they have had to flee for their lives, et cetera, but they can't actually apply in the United States before applying in Mexico. This is part of the Safe Third Country Agreement. It also has, through these agreements, Mexico has also bolstered its own migrant and border control authorities. There has been increased kind of militarization of these borders on both sides, but that's to say in this tragedy, which of course took place on the side of Mexico, a lot of, there's been a lot of different statements from US officials saying that this is a horrible tragedy. But of course, this is, this has to be pointed back to the United States. The reason that these overcrowded facilities exist, the reason that so many people are risking their lives in such horrific ways is because of US policies. Biden, despite saying that he would have a more humane immigration policy despite Kamala Harris, which we'll talk about her a little bit later as well, despite her going to Central America and saying we want to work with you, we want to make better policies, they actually haven't done so and they've reversed, they have maintained a lot of Trump era policies, but also with, for example, in 2022, which was a year completely under President Joe Biden, over 800 people died attempting to cross the border and these deaths are completely preventable. These happen, for example, in the very, very unsafe conditions, and these are only the registered deaths, by the way, I'll just say that, that the caveat is that these are the only the ones that have been recorded officially. People die from the conditions crossing the desert, not having access to food, water. They die in the unsafe conditions. For example, a truck that crashed last year and dozens were killed in this very, very precarious transportation. This is all to say that the U.S. forces people into these kinds of conditions. They force people to take the most unsafe routes, they force them to be in the most vulnerable places and hundreds of lives are lost because of this and the tragedy in Ciudad Juarez is another tragedy that we have to look at and say this cannot happen again and that when the U.S. says that it's going to have more humane immigration policies that I actually need to follow through on this. More humane policies. Well, that would be a really good idea for President William Ruto of Kenya, Prashant. The town of Kisumu on Lake Victoria, beautiful town known for its salubrious climate and so on, but not recently. Recently, gunfire in Kisumu, Tanupriya Singh has a piece on people's dispatch. Tell us what's happening at the town of Kisumu, third largest city in Kenya. Right. In fact, the incident in Kisumu took place on Monday that's earlier this week and there was when there was a major round of protests and there has been another round of protests on Thursday as well. So Kenya is going through what seems to be a series of rounds of protests. You know, say a re-emergence of an old political fault line, but also beyond that is actually a series of issues, especially those faced by the youth. So what's happening right now is President William Ruto facing a challenger, challenged from his opponent in the last year elections, Rayla Odinga, who Ruto defeated and Odinga has questioned the Kenyan presidential election results. Now, because Odinga is part of, Odinga was a successor to Uhuru Kenyatta, who was the last president and William Ruto's victory was at that point seen as quite a surprise because he kind of portrayed himself as an outsider, as a hustler, so to speak and you know, promised that he would give the youth new opportunities, although of course he was actually part of the political establishment and was very rich, but somehow he portrayed himself as this kind of outsider who came from nowhere and hustled his way to the top. Now, that worked with that election, but Kenya is going through extremely difficult economic crisis and the brunt of the economic crisis is being faced by the youth at this point of time when inflation has increased to around 9% electricity bills have increased. There are a lot of other kinds of issues that the people are facing and at this point of time, when Odinga now raised this issue of the electoral results it has somehow resonated among a large section of the people, especially the youth. Now it's interesting to note of course that especially for the left in Kenya and the article you referred to talks to Bukar Omoli of the Communist Party of Kenya, they are very clear that despite Odinga being some kind real Odinga being the face of this round of protests, he does not really have any alternatives to this kind of crisis that Kenya is facing because it's a far more structural crisis it's about how the economy has been managed for many years, issues of corruption issues of privatization for instance on March 21st there is a new privatization bill that the cabinet has approved 10 firms likely to be privatized this year itself and all these issues basically there is no real difference between what Odinga has been doing and what Ruto is doing in Odinga in the past, what Uru Kenyatta did in the past the role of the IMF for instance all this together so it's very clear that the opposition does not have a solution at the same time there is this moment where there are mass protests like I said the youth being very much in the forefront of the protagonist so we need to see how the situation pans out the police have responded like you said with repression you talked about the death on Monday there has been another round of protests on Thursday again the police were brought out and Odinga has now called for protests twice a week every Monday and Thursday so it's a very dicey situation in a very important country in the continent we need to sort of see how this pans out will the government continue its repression and if this continues is it likely even more youth take to the streets at this point is a very important question so can you are facing quite a bit of instability right now but issues are far more I think than the election that is being talked about they are far more structured can you have a very important country on the African continent we are going to have more stories from the African continent we are going to talk about Ghana we are going to talk about US Vice President Kamala Harris's visit to the African continent you are listening to give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatched that Zoe and Prashan I am Vijay coming to you from Globetrotter lots of interesting and important stories for you including from the island of Cuba 11 million people they just exercised their form of democracy Zoe tell us a little bit about the Cuban elections well on Sunday March 26 the Cuban people went to the polls to vote in the legislative elections and I think that just saying they went to the polls on Sunday is a bit of a misnomer maybe because for the Cuban people the process of elections is one that takes place over many many months it is part of a process especially being from a country like the United States where elections happen every two years the actual people's participation in the elections is only at the ballot box sometimes it's confusing to look at a country like Cuba and try to understand a process that actually sees participation of the people in a much more prolonged way and so on Sunday people voted in these legislative elections to elect the members of the National Assembly which is the highest decision-making body in the country this is the body that decides who is actually going to be in the executive or vice president president the leadership of the National Assembly as well as elected by this body and interestingly enough or rather quite predictably a couple days after these elections took place conservative legislators from the United States from of course the great state of Florida have essentially attempted to pass a law that would make the designation of Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism lists a law it is currently a designation that was made by the executive this was made by Donald Trump when he was president and has been maintained by President Biden but legislators now are attempting to make this a law and they say essentially the only condition from which Cuba would be able to be removed from this list is if the Cuban people overturn their government it's interesting because they point to the fact that allegedly they say Cuba does not have a free and fair electoral process and it's a funny accusation coming from the United States to give people an idea in this country the amount that is spent on elections the election cycle really never ends you have elections every two years on a national level and the campaigning it is essentially a constant cycle billions billions are spent on campaigns not even just the presidential campaign but congressional campaigns in order to even get in this cycle of 24-7 campaigning and fundraising you really have to have you know upwards of millions of dollars this system is of course dominated by two parties and so when we look at Cuba which is a system that has no money in politics actually these legislative elections did not have the participation of formal political parties the way that people are elected is actually through a process of grassroots consultation that takes place over the span of months within I was actually able to speak to one of the candidates who is now of course a confirmed member of the National Assembly and she explained to me this extremely long process of being first nominated by the municipal assembly which is done in a consultation process with the people in that municipality they make up a list of maybe if you're going to have nine people from your municipality serve on this national assembly you have maybe a list of a hundred people those hundred people have to then meet with the municipal assembly they meet with the people the constituents then there's an interview process from that list of a hundred people a select amount pass and then the whole municipality ratifies their candidacy and it was shocking to me coming from again from this experience of the United States so called democracy hearing this process that really has full participation of the people in the territories for such a prolonged amount of time there's also candidates who are elected from the different mass organizations of the presence of women of youth and it's such an interesting process because finally actually the day that people go to vote and this was last Sunday 76% of the electorate actually participated in this process and ratified these candidates it's almost the last step in your participation in this political process it's saying we've done all of this prior work and now we're ratifying this process it means a lot to think about in terms of people's participation over a longer span of time what does it actually mean to have a say in the way that things happen and so now once again conservatives in Florida trying to kind of respond to this process they've raised this bill it will be voted on in the next couple of weeks in the congress in the senate if it gets passed this means that Kamala Harris' list is going to be a lot harder so this is something we're definitely going to be following and it's very important to stay tuned to this Democracy reminds me this word democracy United States hosting another summit for democracy it's co-hostess South Korea in the ranks Ghana Prashant just before US President Kamala Harris arrived in Accra the United States armed forces conducted a military exercise together very interesting message lots of stories in Ghana you are in Ghana tell us what's going on right this is quite the bit of a lot of discussion happening here with the role of the US we know that and in fact I think in the coming weeks we will have something on the extent of the US military involvement I believe you also written a story about the kind of rights the US military has there but today we're talking about the other side of the if one arm of US imperialism is military the other arm of imperialism is often the financial structure and it's really about debt we're talking about among the results of Kamala Harris' visit was that the announcement that a debt advisor would be dispatched to Ghana to help them deal with their debt this is a story we've been writing covering for a while in January we had a very extensive story by our colleague Tarapria on precisely the question of how Ghana ended up with so much debt and now it's the issues kind of heating up because the country is desperately trying to get a 3 billion dollar loan from the IMF this is its 18th package with the IMF by the way and for that it needs its debts to be restructured both its domestic ones and its international ones the Paris club is back in the picture discussions are going on interestingly the socialist movement of Ghana and other leading left voices in the country had a recent statement which talked about the domestic debt adjustment program we often talk about the foreign international domestic debt exchange program as well which was launched a while ago and what happened with that is basically that it really didn't work out at all for the government because the government tried to exchange some of the domestic debt for more longer term bonds people were encouraged to take more longer term bonds but individuals were also included in the program there were protests all these people who a lot of people were very unhappy including pensioners the government had to withdraw and the scheme didn't really work out so without going too much into the technical details while the scheme has been completed its impact is still being evaluated but what the socialist movement of Ghana is asking is a more fundamental question that why does a country like Ghana have a debt crisis and I think this is a question that many of the countries in Africa especially are facing right now Ghana rich and extremely rich in resources the sixth largest producer of gold but two things that have been noted one is the structure of the international economy which has treated countries in Africa as merely sources of raw materials which means all and of course ruling elite in these countries which has continued that principle which means that the large amount of dependence on commodity export and once commodity exports commodity prices fall the value of their currency falls and then that creates a huge crisis itself so that's one aspect of it and the other aspect of course is also the question that of the fact that debt forgiveness is nowhere on the agenda as far as many of these countries go we have talked about it time and again I think globally the left has continuously made a demand to re-examine the debt of countries like Ghana countries like Zambia for instance all of whom continue to face this crisis right now debt in Ghana is over 100% of the GDP as well and it takes a huge chunk of the government spending so Ghana in a really tough crisis right now desperately negotiating both internally and externally to somehow get that 3 billion dollars from the IMF but again the trade unions say this the leftist parties are saying this IMF deal is not going to solve the problem it will at the most delay the problem for a couple of years and we are again going to be back with Ghana may be again asking for a 19th package from the IMF so very difficult time inflation has increased inflation has been quite brutal at this point in Ghana unemployment rates have increased as well this past year has been really really difficult for the country people really struggling even to eat so while while debt and restructuring all might sound like technical terms this is really having a very concrete impact on the people. Well in April in a few days tricontinental institute for social research is going to release a text called life or debt which is on the sovereign debt crisis on the African continent looking at western bond holders Prashant like the Euro bond market and so on that have played a very big role in impoverishing the public finances of the African countries you know it's wrong you're quite right to talk about impoverishing the country countries continue to have vast amount of resources Ghana has gold Zambia has copper two countries on US Vice President Kamala Harris's tour the third being Tanzania a country also with a lot of internal resources but their public finances have been impoverished largely because of this debt austerity cycle driven by the international monetary fund loan so we'll come back to that text which will come out in a few days from tricontinental institute for social research on the sovereign debt crisis on the African continent Kamala Harris arrived in Ghana met with the president immediately said they're going to back off from an anti-LGBT law that was to be passed in Ghana that was on the table big victory at the same time Ghana's military accepted its role as a subpartner with the United States in exercise flintlock which were conducted few days before Kamala Harris arrived of course the United States now has access to airport terminal in the civilian airport in Akra where they basically walk into the country without even showing their passports that's the situation of sovereignty of the country of Ghana then the vice president in Tanzania met with her counterpart first woman president of Tanzania and in Tanzania it was important when she met president Samia Hassan to put on the table this question of women's empowerment already in Ghana vice president Kamala Harris had pledged a billion dollars for women's empowerment although more than almost 600 million of that was to come from the private sector which is part of the kind of women's empowerment agenda the kind of lean in feminism for the elite women of the African continent very little here for women who have to walk kilometers to get water and so on there is no money here to maintain water supplies in small towns and villages that's a real feminist issue there is no money here for children schooling for crashes and so on that's a real feminist issue this money is largely for scaling up the potential of women to become executives in corporations and so on there is a lot of money for that kind of training it's all very well for those women but it's not going to help the bulk of women on the continent particularly if the debt crisis deepens and these women are going to find it hard to access welfare support from governments or infrastructural construction for instance with the question of water and electricity being two primary ones you know as women's like water and electricity collapse the burden of substituting for that is on women they are the ones who walk kilometers to get the water and they are the ones who have to find a way for their children to study for school and so on in the dark so that was not on the table this was a lot of flash has to be said US Vice President Kamala Harris visit to the African continent is the first high official of the United States but it's the senior most official of Biden administration she follows Janet Yellen who was the Treasury Secretary has been there before she follows Lloyd Austin Defense Secretary she follows US Ambassador to the United Nations she follows the US Africa Leaders Summit held in December in Washington DC right after that Anthony Blinken Secretary of State made his visit to the African continent you might remember that it was both at the US Africa Leaders Summit and during Blinken's entry onto the continent that Zambia and the Congo effectively ended their bilateral agreement on building a battery an electric battery and bringing the United States in effectively privatizing and multinational cooperationizing their agreement with each other. Kamala Harris on the continent not reading UN women documents that show the actual needs of people on that continent indeed we're not seeing that at all what we're seeing is a different kind of full press advantage here once again the United States using the African continent to push back against what seems to increasingly be its principal anniversary and that's China much more on that later we're going to deepen our sense of what is happening on the African continent you're only going to get these stories and give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch where you can read many of them and from Globetrotter where you can also read them thanks a lot for joining us see you next week