 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. Vijay. 14th of January. Give the people what they want. They want to hear from us literally. Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. Your movement news channel at peoplesdispatch.org Most amazing place to get the news about what's happening around the world. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter coming to you again as we do every Friday. Your favorite show. Keep those selfies coming. We love them. Also hand drawn selfies. An excellent way to show that you watch this show and tell other people about it. Really important. Tell Boris Johnson. Good idea for Bojo as he's sometimes called to watch this show. Well, Boris, you're making a cameo. It's the first time we're talking about you and about, well, what's the name of that place? Great Britain. Not very great. United Kingdom. Not very united. Hard to really figure out what to call that country that sits just off the coast of, well, what it was once part of the big continent of Europe. Now sort of by itself. Bojo himself said, I didn't go to the party. Then Bojo said, well, I did, but I didn't know it was a party. Extraordinary graduate of some of the finest institutions in the world. He doesn't know the difference between a meeting and a party. I'm not sure what meetings are like in Downing Street under Bojo. If they resemble parties, what is it? The bubbly out every day for graph things like that. Is that how they do meetings? If that's how they do meetings, how do they do parties? Well, Keir Starmer, a limited man, certainly asked for Boris Johnson's resignation, but you can bet that the so-called 1922 committee, the committee of conservative MPs, they're not going to shake and try to move Boris Johnson. They have put the parcel in Bojo's lap and now that Omicron is surging in, I still don't have a name for it, Britain. Omicron surging in Britain, I don't think anybody else wants to take the seat at Downing Street. Certainly not another conservative, not even Rishi Sunak, probably the most ambitious person with limited talents around the planet. I have not seen anybody with so much ambition and so little ability to meet that ambition. Nonetheless, he's in line to be the next head of government in Britain. I don't think he wants the seat now, so Bojo is going to have to be in the fire for a long time. That's the state of the advanced countries in the world, friends. That's the state. Omicron going crazy, government debating whether a party is a meeting or not a meeting. Again, not clear what's happening. Great ally of Great Britain, Israel. Recently, Palestinian action was able to shut down in arms factory in Britain, in Oldham. I'd like you to watch the video interview I did with Huda Amori, which is at the People's Dispatch site. An enormous victory, Israel, out in the Negev again clashes with Bedouin in the heart of the desert south of the main cities in Israel. Zoe, what's been happening in the Negev desert? Well, over the past week and several weeks, there have been several eviction orders against Palestinian Bedouin villages in the Negev desert. This is not something new. This has happened historically. There's actually one village, one Palestinian Bedouin village that has been evicted over 150 times. These evictions are part of Israel's broader plan, of course, to completely wash all of what is Palestine of Palestinian people, to completely erase the existence of Palestinians in this land. I think the campaign in the desert is specifically atrocious because it really seeks to evict these villages and replace it with forests. So it's this bizarre kind of greenwashing campaign done hand in hand with one of the oldest Zionist organizations in history, the JNF, the Jewish National Fund. And in the last week, there were several villages that have been under attack both by the Israeli forces but also by settlers. And so the Israeli forces act as kind of the supportive wing to these settlers who go in and try to forcefully plant trees to kind of erect their presence on this land to completely say, you do not belong here. We belong here. We're going to come in and erase your existence. But of course, as we know, the Palestinian resolve the resilience to resist this decades long ethnic cleansing and forceful evictions from their lands has been quite astounding in the organizations in this region have been resisting quite strongly. You know, not only coming back after evictions to rebuild their villages to rebuild their, you know, communities. But in this case yesterday, a strike was held in villages across the negative in a lot of these villages that are deemed that are not recognized by Israel. So not only are they trying to evict them constantly, but these villages are considered or do not consider to exist. So they don't have running water. They don't have access to services. They don't have access to aid from the state of Israel. And of course, you know, that puts them in a very vulnerable position. So there was a huge, you know, mobilization carried out yesterday, primarily in these villages that are under attack by settlers by authorities for eviction. And there has been a strong response in solidarity from Palestinians across historic Palestine, which is, you know, another instance of what we've seen over the that happened over the past year of, you know, these these attacks that are seemingly against one area one group of Palestinians, whether it be in, you know, Sheikh Jarrah or whether it be in Gaza and people across Palestine and of course in the diaspora as well mobilizing to say not again, and we will all come together and to resist this. Yesterday there were, you know, brutal, brutal repression by Israeli occupation forces, quite harrowing stuff, you know, young children being arrested, beaten, elderly people being beaten, tear gas, you know, indiscriminately fired at the protesters. But of course they're coming back out again. I think tomorrow there's another mass mobilization plant. They continue to resist efforts to, you know, wipe their existence off from this area. And, you know, I think the village of Al-Arqib is really this example of this very strong resilience. They keep coming back. They keep rebuilding. And they say no more of this greenwashing, no more of this, you know, forcible ethnic cleansing. It's a very important story, Zoe. I'm glad you're on it because this is of course the existential situation in in Palestine. It's not just in the negative, it's the existential situation. Last year the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawler from Ireland released a report in which she said that between 2015 and 2019, at least 1300 human rights defenders had been killed in 64 countries. You know, I looked at that earlier today, several of them of course in Palestine, we know that the Palestinian people constantly put in prison into administrative detention and so on. Mary Lawler and other UN special rapporteurs recently wrote a letter in the Philippines Prashant. What was that about? Take us into that story. Right, Vijay. So it's actually a letter that was written in a few months ago towards late 2021 to the Philippines government and the rapporteurs concerned they afforded them release this letter because the Philippines government did not respond. So it was actually a public call, you know, a public expose, so to speak, in some senses of the fact that the government did not respond. And this actually had to do with an event known as Bloody Sunday in March last year, where the Philippines believe the law enforcement security forces in the Philippines conducted a number of raids, which led to the death of nine people, nine many of them trade union activists, many of them activists of various sorts, and you know the arrest of many more. And this letter by the rapporteurs was really a question about what had happened in the investigation into these killings into these very brutal killings. And it's important to know that of the nine people killed, only the charges have been filed only about regarding the killing of one such person, Danny, essentially on the killings charges were filed in December 2021, 17 police officers, the cases were filed against them. After the release of this letter, the, you know, charges were filed on, similarly, the killing of a husband and wife couple, similarly, on that very same day in March 2021 against 17 police officer police personal indict or charged under this. So, the letter really I think sort of gives it gives us context about what has been happening since the rollercoaster they came to power in 2016, which is a large scale violation of human rights in every sense of the term, under the pretext of what has been called red tagging and red tagging is where of course we talked about this before, where you automatically alleged that activists of a whole variety and somehow associated with the band communist party in the Philippines, and then so they're fair game. And they're fair game in every sense of the term because it's not only the law enforcement which is hunting them. It is also the courts which issue warrants, which are almost for lack of better word copy paste warrants. The same warrant is issued multiple times by a judge with just the name change, nothing else changes, right? So, you know, so this has actually been continuing for many years. I think the latest estimates by human rights organization say that around at least 400 activists have been killed in such attacks since 2016. And 200 activists have been killed since 2016. And this of course is part of a larger much larger death toll, running to over close to 5020,000 according to certain estimates of people who have been killed in the so called war on drugs launched by the administration, which is of course being brought by the International Criminal Court. And it's also important to note who are the people who are targeted here in what is called Bloody Sunday in March 2021. For instance, Danny Assunzi on whose case is being held. He was a multi sector labor activist people really looked up looked up to him as a hope for this community, the husband and wife couple for whom, you know the cases have been filed recently they were who are nonetheless, you know, coming into the forefront fighting for their rights and many organizations again have described the vital role they played. So these are people who are resisting big mining projects. These are people who are resisting, you know, the intrusions of corporates in various sectors. All of these are all of them people who have, you know, despite the massive risk given up large parts of their lives sacrificed large parts of their lives for the cause of their fellow human beings. All of them just, you know, be crushed under the machine of the Filipino state. And each time there has been calls for accountability the Philippines is of course, the government is of course refused to answer properly does not respond to this letter. When the International Criminal Court sought to you know investigate the war on drugs it responded by withdrawing from the Rome statue and the International Criminal Court itself. Then later it said that it was investigating all these cases, which automatically means that the ICC cannot intervene. So all this I think poses very important questions about the Philippines, especially considering the fact that while the elections are scheduled to be held this year very important elections, the Duterte regime might actually continue. Duterte's daughter Sara Duterte is going to combine with, is going to work together with Ferdinand Marcos, the son of the brutal dictator, an alliance which is, you know, there are very few parallels to what this kind of alliance means. Imagine the son of Ferdinand Marcos, historically responsible for all these atrocities. Of course, the son himself has been involved in many of these atrocities or has planned them and Sara Duterte the daughter of Duterte himself again. So it's basically a combination of these two political legacies. A lot of danger as far as the Philippines is concerned. Duterte himself planning to stand for a senatorial seat after stepping down from the president probably to sort of try to gain some kind of immunity as well. So I think Philippines, for instance, remains and your written about this before many others have written about it before in terms of these the kind of rule of strongmen who have basically subordinated all kinds of democratic rights were subordinated. You know, who have kept the process of democracy per se, there are elections that are voting processes, but to ensure that the space for democratic process itself is so drastically reduced as to almost being meaningless. So, you know, a lot of you know, salutes to the human rights organizations in the Philippines who despite all these adverse circumstances continue raising these voices continue pointing these out. And it remains to be seen if this kind of pressure can make sure that those responsible for that support of these activists are actually brought to justice. You see, we're seeing this all over the world, you know, whatever one thinks of Mr. Ehsan Untu in Kashmir in the, you know, in Jammu and Kashmir whatever one thinks of his politics and so on he was booked and arrested today in Srinagar, taken in part of a real project to silence voices in Jammu and Kashmir. We saw last year Khurram Parvez was taken in and so on a real silencing of voices. This is the kind of activity that one has got used to in countries like Philippines and countries like India and so on pressing problems facing the world. And yet we see governments trying to silence people who are lifting up their voices. A good reason to lift up your voice in Kashmir you know it's entire democratic rights have been surrendered for well for how long for decades really not not you know even for this year that year five years for decades. Yes, people being arrested harassed, no, you know, no attention, Mary Lawler pay attention to what's happening with Mr. Parvez and Mr. Untu and so on, like to see some attention there perhaps. Looking north to Afghanistan as I said, you know, we're in the middle of real problems, genuine problems there, $10 billion roughly seized by the United States to pay off victims of 9 11, you know, those assets not frozen not unfrozen. The UN Secretary General was quite clever yesterday he said unfreeze those assets because Afghanistan is freezing and people need to have food and so on, you know, 90% of the population, likely in starvation, lots of interesting meetings happening. Mohamed Abbas Stanekzai met Deborah Lyons who's the UN Special Envoy in Afghanistan they had a very long conversation. Mr. Stanekzai interesting man you know he was one of the top seven leaders of the Taliban. He's called for the United States to come back and open its embassy in Kabul. He said the United States is responsible for a lot of problems, come back and help us fix them very interesting attitude actually. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Amir Khan Mutaki was in Tehran. He has been traveling around the region. Aid has been coming across from Turkmenistan. Aid has come across from Uzbekistan and so on. We're seeing a lot of interesting activity take place around Afghanistan. The Iranians made it clear two or three days ago. They said look we don't recognize the Taliban government but we're going to provide assistance because that just needs to happen. It's a very interesting attitude. I've just finished the story. It will come through Globetrotter. It will be there at People's Dispatch. I welcome people to go and take a look at that. We're going to move on. You know we're just stuck on this idea of human rights defenders being killed. We've talked about the Philippines. I mentioned the situation in Kashmir and here we go back to Columbia. Zoe back to Columbia again. What's happening? What's the latest report? Well this story has not really gotten a lot of mainstream attention or been covered too much but starting in the beginning of 2022, there have been some clashes in the region of Arauca between the National Liberation Army and dissident groups of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. To put it in context, Arauca is a department in Colombia that's on the border with Venezuela. It is one of the most militarized places in Colombia. It looks similar to what Kashmir or Palestine might look like, tanks all over the highways, military personnel, checkpoints everywhere. This is largely due to the presence of transnational oil companies. For the past couple of weeks there have been violent confrontations between these two groups. In response, the Colombian government has increased the already very militarized zone, the already very violent and tense situation. 27 people have been killed in what human rights organizations are calling a humanitarian emergency. It's a very challenging situation but I think it brings to light some very crucial elements about what human rights really means in Colombia and especially in a place like Arauca where you have a very militarized zone. You have one of the largest U.S. oil companies, Occidental Petroleum, which has a very large oil fields in Arauca. It has documented to support monetarily the armed forces of Colombia has been involved in extrajudicial assassinations of human rights offenders in the region. Organizations are really raising the alarm because they once again are being put in the crossfires of a situation where the government, the only response that has to these tense situations is to ramp up militarization, ramp up the stigmatization and criminalization of leaders who are fighting for peace. And within these confrontations, the FARC dissidents bombed a community-run water treatment plant. And this water treatment plant is kind of one of the cornerstones of this community that lives in Arauca that has been organizing for decades to resist these projects of death, of militarization, of also state abandonment. It's a region that has been completely excluded, completely abandoned by the Colombian state in all respects except of course the military aspect. So it's a very worrying situation. They have been for months trying to call attention to the fact that tensions have been rising, that there are increased skirmishes between these groups and they have made it very clear that the only way that there will be peace in Colombia, the only way there will be peace in Arauca, a place that is militarized, occupied by foreign oil companies, is if the communities are respected, is if there's guaranteed two basic demands that they have, which is that the militarization be decreased, which is that the oil companies which have destroyed the well-being of plants, of the animals, of the people, be not there anymore to decrease the military budget in the region. And I mean, really, it's a really tragic situation that I had to come to this. It's a humanitarian emergency. They're calling on international organizations to denounce the situation, to shed light on it, and calling on the Colombian government to work to pacify instead of increasing tensions, increasing militarizations. The region has also been where over 100, just in the Department of Arauca, 100 social leaders and human rights offenders have been assassinated over the past decade. It has been a region where so many of the leaders who work in these organizations, these community-run organizations which provide health care, which provide clean water, which provide many other services to these underservice population, have been put in prison because of this activism that they do. So we really need to extend our support to the people of Arauca who continue to resist, despite these gross human rights violations against them. I suppose, say its name, Arauca, important that we remember these places. There are maps of suffering and struggle around the world and give the people what they want. We illuminate that map. We're going to move to another place. The problem is well known, the Bronx. Not so clear that people know what happened in the Bronx recently. It's not far from Arauca, Prashant. It's not at all far from Arauca. What happened in the Bronx? Right, Vijay. So the fire that broke out in the Bronx, at one level it's what in newspapers would be called the city story. Like it's something that happened in locality. People died, tragic deaths of course. But we also think that I think the fire itself sort of seems to be something that actually speaks for what not only New York City represents, but what American capitalism represents itself. Because this fire broke out in an apartment complex. The immediate response to the state was of course to blame those living in the complex. People in shut their door. There was a heater that was used which was an electrical heater. People in properly take care, et cetera, et cetera. But what goes much beyond this is actually I think decades of neglect, decades of neglect of housing in one of the richest countries in the world in the center of US capitalism in New York City, which people across the world I think see as a beacon of capitalism. And we have this excellent story by our colleague Natalia who went to the Bronx region who spoke to people who were affected there. And time and again what they said was this pervasive sense of neglect by city authorities when it came to how these apartments were maintained. The fact of course the thing which has been widely reported that while many of these apartments were supposed to have automatically closing doors they didn't. And now of course the residents are being blamed for the doors not closing. But the fact that nonetheless these apartments were supposed to have automatically closing doors. And there's been like this entire industry which has got a massive amount of subsidies from the state for maintaining and repairing these apartments. But the fact that this kind of fire broke out these many people died. And you know if you look at this section particular section of the Bronx if you look at the region around it. It is actually one of the most poorest parts of the country. Again one of these contradictions we talk about often on the show the fact that in New York City we have probably one of the most poorest parts of the country. We have people struggling for housing. We have people living in housing which can barely keep them safe. And the slightest tragedy will you know lead to laws of life. And you've seen this before as well. We talked about it I think recently when there was a massive winter stop people again dying in New York apartments because of the lack of adequate care provided to them. So I mean investigations are going on. There's been some good journalism around it. Of course people pointing out the number of regulatory problems that took place in these apartments people pointing out that repairs were not adequately done in time. That multiple complaints have been filed. Many of these complaints have been addressed not quickly enough. But I think the larger question that we need to realize here is that like I said the number of people who are facing this kind of neglect on an issue as basic as housing. And these are struggles which are taking place across the world in terms of housing. But a number of people who are facing unbelievable amounts of neglect when it comes to housing and have really no option to do much about it. People who are faced to compromise with the worst circumstances when it comes to the issue of housing. So I think that is what this issue that is what this crisis really shows. That is what this issue really shows. And it would be wrong I think to see this as just a mere local news item. And I think it's part of a larger systemic crisis which ails the United States as a whole which ails many capitalist countries as a whole when poverty, hunger, housing, education. These are all not seen as basic or essential necessities at all. I mean this reminds me entirely if you cross the Atlantic to London of the Grenfell fire. Very similar Bronx to Grenfell one and the same story. Meanwhile of course in Europe if we stay there for the last few minutes in Europe in Geneva the Russians NATO held a very important meeting the European Union the United States to de-escalate tension along the Ukraine-Russian border. Those talks failed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow is running out of patience. That's just a few hours ago. Then the attention went to Brussels where the NATO Russia Council met. These are men in uniforms sat across the table. Jens Totenberg who's taken a very hostile attitude towards Russia. They're talking about de-escalation protocols and so on. Russians have said look here's the thing what we want is we want NATO not to expand to the Russian border. That's a promise made actually at the time of the unification of Germany when the West under George H.W. Bush and his great advisor James Baker made a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev not to advance NATO beyond the border of East Germany and Poland. Now of course the border is far closer to Russia. In fact they are claiming if Ukraine comes in it will be on Russia's border. Lavrov repeating again that they want assurances that NATO will not move into Ukraine. The second thing is that they are saying they've put two deals before the EU and NATO for the safeguarding of Russia's security. That's very interesting move by the Russians. Meanwhile Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was quite aggressive again saying that Russia better get in line. They better de-escalate on the Russian-Ukrainian border. There are reports today of live fire at the border. Things are very tense friends. I must say the last thing the world needs right now is a live conflict between NATO and Russia on the Ukrainian border. Any kind of conflict restarting in the Donbas region inside Ukraine would be horrible for the people who live there. The dark skies of war impact everybody and they impact the people most where the firing takes place. So it's easy for Wendy Sherman and even Sergey Lavrov to play in a sense chicken with the people of Ukraine, the people who border Russia, the people of the Donbas. I hope that some sobriety will come in here but the language is very strong. There have been discussions whether they should return to the table in Geneva, whether the Brussels protocols with the NATO, Russia Council discussions will continue. I very much hope the talking will continue and it actually is not clear what's going to happen. Everybody is looking at the border but in fact I would say the border isn't the only place to look at. The other place is NATO office in Brussels. What will be the decision? Will they accept Ukraine's application to join NATO? Is there another way to seek common security in Eurasia? Is there another way? I've often wondered allowed friends and here I'm completely editorializing. I've wondered allowed what would it take if Russia applied to join NATO? What would that look like? That would make a mockery of the Gorbachev-Bush agreement. But on the other hand, very interesting. You want interesting ideas, you come to give the people what they want. What you want is for us to bring you the news from around the world, lift up the voices of human rights defenders, people who are suffering, struggling, tell you things that nobody else is telling you. Come and join us every Friday. peoplesdispatch.org that's Prashant and Zoe, the two best co-editors of a publication such as that. Give them a lot of love. They need it because they are also under pressure from all kinds of places. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Again, we come to you every week, give the people what they want. We need those selfies. We need those selfies. See you next week.