 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. You're with Give the People What They Want. We're coming to you live from Kathmandu, Nepal. This is the month of MAG. It's Friday. It's a 113th episode. Happy to be with you. Happy to actually start with some pretty good news because from the beginning of the arrest of Ola Binni, we've been on the case. People's dispatch has been on the case. And now startlingly good news from Ecuador. Prashant, what's that great news from Ecuador? Right, Vijay. So the good news, of course, is that Ola Binni has been cleared of all accusations and allegations against him. It's been a very long, a very taxing trial for the digital rights activist who's been, you know, who's quite well known in that sector. He was, of course, arrested in Ecuador in 2019, April 11th, I believe on the same day that Julian Assange was arrested. And from the very beginning, the case against him has been, there have been two aspects of the case against him. One is that the complete cluelessness of the prosecutors who kept changing charges, who kept, you know, making all kinds of allegations and accusations, raising the bogey of him being this kind of underworld hacker who was out to destroy the security of the country. That was the kind of narrative that from the highest levels of the Ecuadorian government, that was kind of, you know, continued. Despite the fact that there was no evidence about it. And point number two was from the very beginning of the case, there were innumerable procedural lapses starting from the very first raid at his home, the way in which his devices were seized. And from then on, you know, irregularity after irregularity, at some point, the judge was forced to accuse himself because of the kind of positions he had taken. They were, you know, there was persecution of the expert who he had summoned in his defense, for instance. All that continued for close to four years. And during all this time, Olabini and his lawyers and people in solidarity with Olabini across the world kept making the point that this was not just, you know, an attack on one activist. This was the, this was an attack on the entire, an entire ecosystem, an entire world of digital rights activism which seeks to actually protect the privacy and integrity of users online. And, you know, there could be, it's a heights of irony that somebody who spent his life working to protect computer systems, working to protect users privacy was being accused somehow of unauthorized access into a computer. So in that sense, it's absolutely not surprising that these charges have collapsed because unanimous verdict by the three judge tribunal. And in the interim, we've had organizations across the world like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Article 19, for instance, releasing multiple reports which chronicle all these violations and reading some of these reports makes a very interesting reading because it shows that the Ecuadorian authorities, you know, had really no idea what they were doing at all. And this was definitely clearly a case of political persecution. We know that at that time, Lenin Moreno was in power, Lenin Moreno, of course, you know, making a so-called pivot to the United States, completely succumbing, completely agreeing to the U.S. agenda that showed when he basically gave up Julian Assange and Assange, of course, facing the worst kind of prosecution, one can persecution, one can imagine, and the attack on Ola Bini was something very similar. So it's a great news for, I think, digital rights activists and when he was released, Ola Bini made a very significant point. He said that, you know what, it's a great victory for me and my team. But it also for Ecuador, you know, it's a sign that cybersecurity activists can work in peace in Ecuador. And this is what the judgment proves, because otherwise it would have meant a very difficult day, a very sad day for digital rights activism in Ecuador and across the world. So of course, great news for Ola Bini, but I think at this moment, we also should remember Julian Assange, who again, in a very similar manner, the charges against the absurdity of those have been proved time and again. The procedural lapses and violations have been made clear time and again across the world. You have seen politicians, journalists, all standing up in his defense, but the British and US governments have just completely ignored all these demands, all this evidence and are continuing to persecute him. So in some senses, it's bittersweet because while it was a great day, it's very important. We also can't but remember Assange, who even now is facing the risk of deportation to the United States. Ola Bini is innocent of charges. It is unlikely that Julian Assange will experience the same situation. He's still in Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom. His health has been in a difficult situation for a long time. Unlikely that even his own country, that is Australia, would act on his behalf. I mean, his own country could claim his body, but they are not doing so. Stunning how these English speaking countries, Britain, United States and Australia, not able to take the path of justice in these cases, not take the path of justice. Well, more news actually going back to South America from Colombia, more findings, more cases, more verdicts. Zoe, what's the latest of the cleanup operation in terms of justice in Colombia? Well, there was a historic ruling this Monday by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and they recognized that the Colombian state was responsible for the extermination, physical extermination of members of the Patriotic Union Party. This was a party that was formed out of the peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. And essentially after this party was formed in a very systematic way, state forces and paramilitary forces essentially assassinated 6,000 members of this party, again, in a very systematic way over a period of 20 years. Even a presidential candidate was assassinated. It was a very long struggle for justice. It's been 30 years that the survivors of this genocide have been fighting for justice for this crime to be recognized for what it is, which is the genocide against a political party, which is extermination, attempt to essentially politically eliminate these people from political life in Colombia. And finally, this ruling came on Monday, January 30th by this international body, which is extremely important. And this comes after, of course, a ruling by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, which is the legal instruments that came out of the Havana Peace Accords of the 2016 peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. So once again, this is reaffirming that this horrific act of genocide did take place. And for the survivors, it's a really important moment of vindication of being able to recognize those horrific crimes that took place against them, a moment to remember what happened in this horrific chapter in Colombian history, and especially today as, you know, with the new president of Gustavo Petro, who is committed to really make good on these promises for justice, make good on the promise for peace. It also marks a very important step and a vote of confidence that his government is continuing to kind of put forward this path. And so that's a really tremendous piece of news. But of course, Colombia does continue to face these challenges. Paramilitary forces are still extremely active in the country. This will be one of the biggest tests of Gustavo Petro's government. Of course, paramilitary forces have been active in Colombia for decades. And so with just a couple of months under his belt, it's going to be a lot longer road ahead for Petro's government to really attack this problem, which was created by the right wing in order to carry out their dirty politics of exterminating left wing, exterminating people who are fighting for change, people who are fighting for peace. So this is a remaining challenge. And it's important to highlight these verdicts because these are living cases. For example, the minister of culture, Patricia Arisa, she is one of the survivors of this genocide. And she wrote on Twitter afterwards that she received the news with tears in her eyes and that this was such an important message for all of her comrades who were killed in this moment that it really marks a step forward in Colombia's history. So important to keep these victories close to us and also remember that the path for justice is a very long one. And I think as we're looking at so many injustices being carried out across the continent and of course across the world, that justice is a long one, but it does come. And there's a famous quote by Bertha Cáceres that says impunity is not forever and the people know how to do justice. Yeah, and Colombia is an interesting place to look at this because Carlos Pizarro, for instance, was murdered on an aircraft while he was running for president. Well, here's justice. His daughter is a senator and is working to build a new Colombia. An interesting moment for a country that had been wrapped in a war since 1948. A terrible war. Speaking of terrible wars, the Pope went to Africa and made a very important comment while he was in Kinsasa. He said that essentially hands off Africa. That was the comment that the Pope made, Pope Francis, hands off Africa. He was reflecting on the idea that mainly western corporations and governments and so on have made it a practice to enter the African continent and to essentially utilize their force, their power one way or the other to take its minerals, its metals, its well. He was reflecting on the fact that there's an increased interest in exploiting the Congo region. Now, in fact, this exploitation of the Congo is part of what is called the New Cold War between the United States and China, where the US has been attempting to, in a sense, set aside Chinese commercial entities from practicing their business on the African continent. This New Cold War took on a rather chilling manifestation in the Philippines recently when the United States opened at least five new military facilities, three of them strikingly on Luzon Island in the north of the Philippines. Now, the word strikingly is not used by me just because it's the first word that came to my head, but because Luzon Island is within striking distance of Taiwan. It is actually a very valuable location for the United States to have its military jets positioned in case they believe there would be a threat to Taiwan. Now, that's an interesting idea that there'd be a threat to Taiwan. First day, just to go back a little bit to the Philippines itself. The Philippines was conquered by the United States in 1898 during the so-called Spanish-American War when the United States took advantage of the Filipino nationalists as a front line in the fight against Spanish colonialism and once having defeated the Spanish, the United States supplanted them and became the ruling imperial power, setting up bases across the country. After World War II, during which U.S. soldiers fought valiantly to defeat the Japanese in places like the Philippines, playing a very important role to defeat Japanese imperialism, United States set up bases in places like Subic Bay, a very large base which had tens of thousands of U.S. troops circulate in and out of Subic Bay. In 1992, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States decided to wind up Subic Bay in a process of cost-cutting effectively and left the region. The moment the U.S. felt that there was a rising challenge, an economic challenge from China, they returned to Subic Bay and now are expanding their military footprint in the Philippines. Well, Pope Francis' comment is not extraneous to what's happening here. I didn't bring that in just because I wanted to put in the comment, which I think is a very significant statement from the Pope, hands-off Africa. In fact, one could as well say hands-off Asia because this contest that is being driven largely by the United States in East Asia around Taiwan threatens to make Taiwan effectively the Ukraine of East Asia. There's an attempt by the United States through a series of provocations, including visits, congressional visits, high officials of the U.S. government going into Taiwan, high officials of the U.S. government talking about the need to quote-unquote defend Taiwan, more weapons deals with Taiwan, and now these three bases on Luzon Island in the north within flying distance of Taiwan, all of this is seen in Beijing as a provocation. Now, what has Beijing done in response? In fact, having gone back and looked at each of these provocations and tried to understand what has been the response, the only aggressive response Beijing made was that after Nancy Pelosi's team left Taiwan, the government in China closed down the airspace over Taiwan. Now, it's interesting, one could say, well, what gives them the authority to close down the airspace over Taiwan? Well, the international community in a very strange situation recognizes the sovereignty of Beijing, that is to say the People's Republic of China over Taiwan. That is something recognized by the international community, including by the United States. In other words, the United States understands in law that Beijing is the capital of Taiwan. So if Beijing wants to shut down the airspace over Taiwan, that's its prerogative. But in a classical mode of provocation, in a very dangerous mode of provocation, the United States continues to hold the view that Taipei is the capital of Taiwan and Taiwan is an independent country. This creates a permanent situation of instability in the region. Now, it's not a question of is Taiwan part of China or what do the Taiwanese people want? That's not even on the table. Actually, around the world, there are many, many examples of these kinds of disputes. There's a dispute in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India or in Pakistan, what's known as Azad Kashmir. That's a very serious dispute, a dispute between two nuclear armed countries. This is a similar dispute, this one over Taiwan, between the United States, which in a sense claims Taiwan and China. Again, two nuclear armed countries. The fact is that between the United States and China, the temperature is extraordinarily hot. And that's why the Pope's statement, hands off China, is applicable to what's happening in the Philippines. Perhaps the slogan should be, hands off the Philippines. You're listening to give the people what they want. We're coming to you live from Katmandu, Nepal. Well, near Katmandu, Nepal, an undisclosed location, shall we say, in Nepal. Well, very happy to be with you as we are contributors. Exactly. To additional, are they contributors? Give the people what they want. They gave the people what they want. Percenturies. Exactly. Well, we're going to move back to the African continent where I began this little segment. We're going to go to Abaklali based Majandolo in South Africa. Prashant, what's the latest from ABM? Again, a social movement that is covered by people's dispatch on a regular basis. You're not going to get coverage of social movements or political movements like Abaklali anywhere else. Prashant? We began the story, of course, and talking about Ola Binni's release and in what was a bit of positive news for the movement at last. We saw that three of their leaders, Mahavira Ghaseela, Sini Komiya and Lindo Shasi were released on January 31st at Tuesday. Now, these three leaders were accused of being involved in the murder. And this has become a very common tactic against the leaders of Abaklali. We see that every once in a while, some of the leaders are summoned. They're accused of some act of violence with the other. They're put in jail. There are a lot of constraints and restrictions placed on them getting bail. And after a few months, the charges completely vanished. They dissolved because it becomes evident that all this evidence that is supported, that basically the prosecutors brought against these activists was completely bogus. So in the case of these three leaders, we know that they were arrested in November. And so they've got bail and it's pretty much expected that these charges will also collapse. Each of these leaders has also faced similar charges in the past. Now, one very important thing to note, of course, is the fact that at some point, the prosecution presented arguments or statements from community members, which said that releasing these three leaders would be dangerous. But later when it was investigated as to who these community members were, these were community, these were so-called community members were actually people who were implicated or who were associated with others who had indulged in violence against members of the ABM and their commune. So this really goes to show the extent to which people who are already facing charges or whose relatives are facing charges of the ones testifying or providing community information against the leaders of the ABM. So this in a nutshell actually represents a lot of these cases against members of the, of Abalali and their communes. Now, these communes, for instance, especially the one in Durban, a very inspiring story, a story of resistance of people who have not been given land, people sort of taking over land, building their own houses, how to scrap sometimes, setting up shops, setting up modes of livelihood, setting up a political education school. And like we have pointed out time and again on this show, I think this is something that, you know, in today's age many states cannot tolerate. They can tolerate the poor sort of surviving. They can tolerate the poor being recipients of welfare, but the poor, the homeless, the landless, actually being political agents is something that is extremely dangerous for the ruling elites across the world. And the leaders of Abalali I think have been faced massive amounts of persecution. We know that over 24 leaders of theirs have been assassinated in the past many years. 2022 was an especially deadly year. Some of them significant leaders, leaders who had taken a huge played an important role in building up this commune were targeted one by one. The impunity that the impunity that you can, the impunity is quite, you know, it's quite scary because it was evident that for most of these leaders who were killed, they were threats to their life. The time in, again, Abalali had flagged the fact that these leaders' lives were under threat. It was common knowledge, but the fact that nonetheless they were assassinated so brutally, assassinated so openly indicates that, you know, the state has basically in some senses abdicated its responsibility completely. The state can no longer really claim to be protecting human life, which is its ultimate duty. So the release of these three leaders, of course, is a good bit of news. The movement has always, you know, kept on repeating the fact that its struggles will continue, and I think we'll be seeing more of that. What did Prashant say? He said that a state's responsibility is to protect people's lives, human life. Not the situation in Peru right now where you have a state who seems to be committed to the very opposite. Zoe, what's the update from Peru? Well, the death toll now from the repressive action against protesters is at over 60. This is a horrific number, but I'll get back to that and the protests in a bit. Right now, the biggest issue right now is that the Congress has been debating two separate bills about whether or not to hold elections in 2023. In December, a couple, a week and a half after the coup against Pedro Castillo took place, the Congress had ruled to hold early elections in April 2024, but for many people on the street, this was not enough. They wanted the immediate disillusion of the Congress and they wanted immediate elections. And so that has continued to be the demand on the street, along with the immediate resignation of Dina Boluak, who is the de facto leader of Peru right now, the release of Pedro Castillo. And so left members of Congress have been pushing for Congress to consider bills that would hold earlier elections. And finally, actually, this was brought forward by a center right politician. He proposed a bill that would call for elections to be held in December 2023, having people start their mandate in April 2024. However, the important aspect of this is that his bill and he publicly stated that he would not include a referendum on the constituent assembly, which has been another key demand of people on the streets. They want complete political reform. They want to rewrite their constitution, make it a fair state for all. And so this bill was put forward to hold early elections 2023. However, with the condition that there would be no referendum on the possibility of holding a constituent assembly. And this bill was defeated on February 1st. The very far right in Peru was against this. They see no problem with what's happening right now, except for, of course, the protests that are disrupting their daily lives. And leftist senators in Peru's Congress also had drafted their own bill, which called for elections to take place in 120 days. So this would be as early as June, July. And they also said that there must be a referendum on whether to hold a constituent assembly. And they say this is one of the biggest demands of people on the streets. And it's not, and in many cases in Latin America, we've seen that even the possibility of asking people, do you want to rewrite your constitution becomes such a divisive issue. And it's interesting in a lot of the members of Congress and people on the streets have pointed out that, why is it such a problem if you're just consulting people whether they want to take something forward? And of course, all polls and all major opinion polls in Peru have showed that the majority of the population actually does want this constituent assembly. So unfortunately, this bill was also struck down. They are going to vote to approve the bill that was passed in December for holding elections in April, 2024. But with these results of this Congress, which as we've mentioned in prior episodes has a 90% disapproval rating of the population. People are angry and they're going to continue to be on the streets. They're going to continue mobilizing. I know that there's new national strikes that have been called. And Dina Baluarte has also repeatedly and reiterately said that she will not resign. She continues to support and justify the actions of the armed forces, of the police, these atrocious acts of violence. There's many videos that are circulating on social media, which is so how police are using allegedly non-lethal weapons such as tear gas canisters and pellet guns and just aiming right at the bodies of protesters. So they're not, they're really aiming to maim. They're aiming to injure, aiming to kill. It's extremely worrying. Many international human rights agencies have widely denounced this called for an immediate end to this repression and the government shows no signs of letting up. So we'll definitely be continuing to follow this story as well. Well, imagine this. Imagine a people being consulted about the form of government that they should have. Because we well know that if you have a bad system, you need not have a good result at an election. This was exactly the case in Israel where there's been election after election and election after election has voted in more right-wing governments, more right, further right than the previous government. And in which the government has a mandate to rule over people who have no say in who is going to govern them. And that is the Palestinian people. Now, recently there's been a cycle of protests in Palestine, a very important developments in Palestine that the Israelis began to respond to with even greater force. This cycle of protests escalated to a killing in Jenin, which I had talked about last week when eight people were killed. Right after that, desperately a man went and shot innocent people outside a synagogue in Jerusalem. That then led to its own set of reprisals. This is the character of the political contest between the Israeli state and the occupied Palestinians. This is the character and has been so since the Nakba of 1948. Well, interestingly, US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv. And he met with various concerned parties. Now, the reason I want to focus a little bit on Blinken's trip to Israel and Palestine is to show the kind of exhaustion of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people. There is an exhaustion to this occupation. There is no path forward. So this is what Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State said. The first thing was he reiterated the Oslo agreement. He reiterated the idea of a two-state solution, that there's an Israel and then there's the Palestinians. He reiterated this despite the fact that all evidence shows that Palestine is increasingly unviable and is no longer even exercising the kind of authority granted it or granted what was called the Palestinian authority by the Oslo agreements. For instance, after the Israelis began operation, break the wave in 2022 and particularly after the horrendous killings in Janine of eight people. After that, the Palestinian authority suspended their security coordination with Israel. So Mr. Blinken arrives in Israel and he tells the Palestinians. He tells Mohammed Abbas and the other Palestinian leaders, you have to restart your security dialogue with the Israelis. But in fact, the Palestinians quite correctly say, we don't exist here. We don't have a role to play here. They come in whenever they want to the West Bank, which is an occupied territory according to the United Nations. They kill people, they leave. There's complete impunity. There's no role for the Palestinian authority. So there's one element of the exhaustion, which is the cliches that are intoned about the two-state solution by the United States. Now, Mr. Netanyahu, Prime Minister for the seventh time in Israel, went on CNN where he basically said, I don't need to deal with the Palestinians. This interview Netanyahu gave to CNN is extraordinarily consequential. What he said was during the administration of US President Donald Trump, the Israelis were able to conduct the so-called Abraham Accords, which is they were able to make a deal with several Arabic speaking countries without the Palestinian issue at the center. And what Mr. Netanyahu said to CNN was that Israel's game is to go to all the Arabic speaking countries and make deal after deal with each of the countries and then eventually at the end settle the question of the Palestinians. In other words, isolate the Palestinians politically in order to make their situation even more negligible than it is now. So the two-state solution completely off the table. Blinken, US Secretary of State, seemed to acknowledge this because in Tel Aviv he said that the horizon of hope, that's his phrase, the horizon of hope for Palestinians has narrowed. Mr. Blinken, US Secretary of State says the horizon of hope for Palestinians has narrowed. It has narrowed, but the United States government, which is a principle, political, diplomatic and military backer of Israel, is doing nothing to expand that horizon of hope. During the time of the massacres in Janine and while Blinken was talking to Netanyahu, the United States and Israel conducted the largest military exercise called Juniper Oak that they've had thus far. You see, if the United States wanted to signal that this horizon of hope should remain intact and that a two-state solution was possible, they could very well have in the middle of Juniper Oak suspended the military training as a message to the Palestinians. They did not. The message the Palestinians received, both from Blinken and from Netanyahu, is the three-state solution. In other words, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Palestinians have to leave and Israel is going to claim the entire territory. That's what the United States and that's what Netanyahu is saying to the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people thus far through their resistance are saying, no, we don't accept that. Well, you're going to read all that stuff at People's Dispatch because that's where you go to get your news. You're listening to give the people what they want brought to you from People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant and our friends back there, Freddie and Carl, the old man. And I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. See you next week.