 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Welcome to Give the People What They Want, brought to you from People's Dispatch. That's Prashant and Zoe and Vijay from Globetrotter. It's the 19th of August. You still have some weeks to contribute if you live in Japan. The National Tax Agency in Japan has put out a competition asking people to help young people drink more. The competition is called Viva Sake. And the Japanese tax authorities are extremely upset that tax revenues are down as a consequence of liquor consumption dropping by 25%. So, well, here we have it friends. You have many countries worried about alcohol consumption. The Japanese once again on their own tangent on this one where the government is saying, drink young people, drink. Well, it's August 19th. Give the people what they want. You want us to bring you movement-centered news. Prashant is going to take us right to South Africa the commemoration of the horrible massacre at Marikana. Right, Vijay. Of course, August 16th marking that day that in 2012, 34 striking workers were killed and 44 in that overall period. And it was a remarkable incident because these were workers who were striking workers, of course, mining platinum, one of the most precious metals in the world that adorns the rooms of the richest people in the world. And these workers were striking for a wage increase of a wage of about 12,000 rams, which is just really just basic wages. They were striking for the most basic conditions. And what they got in return was bullets. What they got in return was repression. Like I said, 34 people gunned down. And this was happening under, of course, the ANC government, the ANC which had fought for decades against the apartheid state and was also grounded in a very strong labor movement, was also grounded in a very strong organization by people from the working class. And the fact that under ANC government, under such an ANC government, black workers, for instance, could be shot down by the police for demanding their basic rights, I think was something that struck a lot of people. Then it continues to strike a lot of people today because we do see that 10 years down the line, there's basically been no justice really delivered. Nobody has been arrested. There's been almost zero accountability for what has happened. There's been some amount of financial compensation. But the ghostlinger in the sense that if you read the reports of those who are affected, the families of the victims, what you consistently see is a sense of the feeling that they're not been dealt, they're not been given justice. The feeling that nothing really has been resolved or settled, even to whatever extent the government could have done. The fact that there's been no apology. The fact that some of the demands regarding reparations have not been met. It's important to note, of course, that Siddharth Ramaphosa, who's the president today, was a non-executive director of Lawnmine, which owned the mines in Marikan at this point. Today, the mines are owned by Sivaniya Stillwater, which is one of the world's largest producers of platinum. And if you look, for instance, from May 2022, you can see mine workers. Just as recently as May 2022, you can see mine workers still protesting, gold mines, platinum mines, still protesting for very, very basic increases in terms of their salaries, which can at least render some amount of relief to them. So 10 years down the line, no justice on the one hand, of course, no doubts about that. But the fact that the state of workers remains so atrocious and the fact that mining capital and the government are so closely interlinked, these are two facts, really, that sort of stare at us in the face when we think about South Africa today. And important to note that, of course, this week also marked the, you know, one year since the assassination of a very young activist from Noomsa, Malibu Amdazo, who was assassinated last year while organizing, again, organizing platinum workers at Ipala Mines. And, you know, we have carried this amazing article from one of our friends at Noomsa, who was written very poignantly about what that young organizer represented, what that young organizer sought to do in his life, was doing when he was gunned down. So these are the stories that characterize South Africa today, the fact that justice is not delivered, the fact that people, even despite all these struggles, people continuing to organize, continuing to fight for what are their basic rights. So Marikara, I think, again, even today is no longer just an incident that happened 10 years ago. It's, in some senses, an open wound. There's no doubt about it. And it's also a reminder of what needs to be done to improve the situation of workers in that country. Well said, Prashant, because for people who don't know this, platinum is essential in the modern economy. It's one of the key metals in catalytic converters. It's there in a lot of electrical equipment, including I learned this in a previous visit to a dentist in a lot of dentistry equipment. They rely on platinum. There's these mines in South Africa, very large producers of a very rare metal for the global economy, rare, not rare for the Israeli military forces to cross into the West Bank and harass people, not rare for the Israeli forces to break into human rights organizations to harass people and so on. We just saw the pummeling of Gaza, the arrests of people in Janine, the arrests of people in other cities in the West Bank. And now this, Zoe, this, Tanupriya has a piece at People's Dispatch. What does she say, what have we learned is happening in Palestine? Well, yesterday a lot of people woke up to a flurry of declarations and statements released by different human rights organizations in Palestine that had been raided by the Israeli occupation forces. This raid is kind of a repetition of something that happened just last year in July and then again in October where the Israeli occupation forces have gone into these offices, confiscated materials and then actually shut down the offices, putting a metal sheet over the door so that the workers at these organizations can't even access them. These organizations include the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Women's Committees, the Atomir which is the political prisoner support organization, Defensive Children International. These are organizations that are documenting the systematic crimes that are being committed against the people of Palestine by Israeli forces, by the Israeli state. Reports that are telling the world about these crimes, about children being in prison, about children suffering from depression and anxiety because of the occupation. These are crucial organizations. We wouldn't know what we know today about the occupation of Palestine, about the continued assault on all of Palestinian people if it weren't for these organizations. So it doesn't come as a surprise that they of course are attacked by Israeli forces, but the manner in which this happens, that they're accused of being terrorist front organizations, that because of these raids and because of these legal cases against them, their funding has been cut. And so for example, many European countries, part of the European Union, have been sustainers of these organizations precisely because of their work in human rights. They're internationally recognized. These are the organizations that UNICEF turns to. These are the organizations that the United Nations turns to. And they do receive international funding. This international funding was cut in many instances after the raids happened. Israel declared them supporters of terrorism and thus supporting them could get you into legal problems. We also see this tactic being used by the U.S. with regards to Cuba as we discussed a couple of weeks back on the show. And so once again, that's on the table. Will these organizations once again lose critical funding? It's a possibility. There has been an outboring of support just as there was in the other instances in October and July. Hashtag stands with the six. This is fundamental and very important. We're seeing Israel is continuing to crack down on Palestine on all angles. It is not loosening up. There is not a conciliation happening on any way by the Israeli government. And so it's very concerning. There's no respect to international law, no respect to international conventions. And these organizations once again, they're critical contributions to not only supporting the people of Palestine but the people of the world being able to know this information. This is under threat. This is under attack. So it's so important to follow this to stand with the six. And yeah, we will be seeing what's going to happen with funding, with the organizational status in the courts in the coming weeks. Well, remember that when the United Nations did a report and then later when Human Rights Watch did a large report, the Israeli government attacked the Human Rights Watch report saying, well, you've been talking to terrorists. And what they in fact referred to was not terrorists, but these human rights organizations that the Israelis consider to be terrorists. Everybody has been familiar now with the fact that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation to Taiwan. Chinese government didn't react immediately. They waited for Nancy Pelosi to leave the island. Then they conducted a military drill. Then they basically shut down Taipei airport and so on, cutting a lot of diplomatic links with the United States military cooperation, cooperation on migration and so on. Well, that was that it seemed. And then arrived a second US congressional delegation as if to put honey on the wound. A second delegation came there. Again, a great provocation. This one led by Ed Markey. Once more, the Chinese were saying, why are you doing this? Why is there need for a second one? Nancy Pelosi's visit was interesting. First time a US House Speaker had been to Taiwan in 25 years. Previous person was Newt Gingrich, who had been there. So why was there the need for a second delegation? While in Taiwan, the Pelosi delegation had a great deal of discussion about semiconductor chips. Now you should know that in Taiwan is one of the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturers. That's the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing corporation produces most of the chips for Apple, for instance. I am very familiar with them because this has been a debate going on for years inside the corridors even of Apple about reliance upon one major Taiwanese chip manufacturer. Well, OK, so that's that it seems. The United States passed the Great Chip Act, $52 billion to develop production of chips in the United States. Now we get to something very interesting. In a sense, conflict begins to develop between this very large monopolistic chip manufacturing firm in Taiwan, the semiconductor corporation, and the prospective chip manufacturers in the US and in other US satellite zones, where the United States eager to onshore chip manufacturing, not rely on even a Taiwanese company. Well, as part of this whole arrangement, the United States set up a political slash economic block called the Chip 4. That's South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. Interesting. We've got the quad. That's India, Australia, Japan, you know, as part of this kind of pressure campaign against China. Now you have the Chip 4, which is about coordinating between these large chip manufacturing countries or countries that are big purchasers of chips, Japan, South Korea, United States and Taiwan into this block. Look at the confusion. The South Koreans announced that the US, which had led the process of creating Chip 4, was going to hold a meeting of Chip 4. This message came to Taipei and suddenly the Taiwanese said, what Chip 4? We never heard about a meeting. We didn't know there was a meeting to take place. I'm telling you this story in this way in order to underline something interesting is that, you see, with the case of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan and then the second congressional delegation, a number of contradictions have come into play. And I'm sorry to say that the Reuters story, the Bloomberg story, they're not actually able to grasp the contradictions. You know, they are reporting this as if it's a straightforward issue. Well, it's not because if the United States is going to onshore chip production or if it's going to closely coordinate with Japan and South Korea and slowly cut off Taiwan, this is going to leave Taiwan a country of 22 million people who rely on export of high tech goods and services. It's going to leave Taiwan in a difficult position. So on the one side, you see the United States making extraordinary political promises to Taiwan. And on the other side, it looks like the United States is producing separate sort of channels to manage the need for semiconductor chips. Meanwhile, the Chinese have themselves on the mainland started to develop an entire chip processing facility. Right now the chips that the Chinese SMIC are not of the highest quality. The Chinese government admits that, but they've been making incredible strides. You know, the SMIC, they plan to build 31 chip factories on mainland China. Taiwan is going to get squeezed by this. And I wonder what message is being learned by the government in Taiwan. On the one side, Pelosi's visit and the aggressive policy of the United States vis-a-vis Taiwan has put pressure on mainland China to create its own autonomous semiconductor chip manufacturing capability. And on the other side of it, the United States seems to be on shoring. Taiwan, a country of 22 million people might be left in the cold. This is a sobering reminder not to get caught up in some of these terrible, you know, geopolitical, let's say conflicts where countries like Taiwan or Ukraine and others just don't seem to find a place to win. Actually it's a good segue into the next story, but before that I want to remind you, you're listening to give the people what they want coming to you from People's Dispatch. That's peoplesdispatch.org. Prashant and Zoe, editors there. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Don't get caught up in somebody else's power games. Good message perhaps for Pedro Castillo and his government in Peru. I remember at People's Dispatch, there was a story recently about the resignation of Peru's Prime Minister, Anabel Torres, who was trying to defend the presidency of Pedro Castillo. A lot of confusion about what's happening in Peru. Zoe, tell us what's going on. Well, there is, there's a lot of confusion and it's a, it's a very unfortunate case. One of the recent developments which just happened this week is that the current Foreign Minister, Miguel Rodriguez-Macai, he basically broke relationships with the Saharawe Democratic Republic relations had been restored in the beginning of Pedro Castillo's presidency. Interesting to note within the first week of Gustavo Petro's presidency in Colombia, they also restored relations with the Saharawe Republic. It's a very important symbolic gesture, political gesture showing they're recognizing the struggle for self-determination, anti-colonial struggle, and this Foreign Minister broke relations. This caused a ripple effect, sort of angered a lot of these leftist sections in Peru that have been struggling to defend the government, that have been struggling to defend it from people who are trying to overthrow it. Interesting to point out that the first Foreign Minister of Pedro Castillo's government was Héctor Rejard. There's an interview with him at Tricon. He's a longtime leftist internationalist. I dare to think that this would not have happened under his time as Foreign Minister. However, since the beginning of Pedro Castillo's government, he's been forced to reshuffle the cabinet four times. And so now his cabinet is really made up of a lot of centrists, even right-wingers, people who have no political alignment with what originally was his project. And so this has been a constant struggle in Peru. We've seen over the past couple of weeks an intensification of attempts to present the motion for vacancy or impeachment against Pedro Castillo, members of the new Peru movement who originally were supporting the government and who had a lot of positions in the same cabinet have taken a position of tacit support in the sense of there's these coup attempts and so they're going to support the government but they're also in opposition. It's a real mess. And it's extremely unfortunate because this government that was so full of promise and hope has really come up against the gates of these established powers in Peru, these powers that do not want the Constitution to change. One of their biggest fears is that Pedro Castillo will in fact take forward this popular demand for the rewriting of the Constitution during the year of kind of political chaos and crisis that occurred when there was the destitution of the Pedro Pablo Kusinski and then the other interim president was also taken out of office. One of the big demands of the people on the street was against corruption and calling for a new Constitution saying that the institutional framework within Peru was insufficient. It was structurally against the people. And so this was one of the big campaign promises of Pedro Castillo, one of the big campaign promises of all of the movements and parties were part of the alliance that brought him to power. And he has continued to try to advocate for this because he knows he's coming up against the wall with all of these different other attempts to really change the government. But there's a lot of pushback and there have been a lot of statements by right-wing legislators that in these coming days they're going to present the impeachment motion. So once again, all of the impeachment motions in the past have failed and also attempted to change the number of votes that you need to decrease the margin. So it's going to be developing in these days and it's certainly a cautionary tale. And I know that you'll be following it because we really need to have greater clarity about what's happening in Peru, what this means for the rest of Latin America. Prashant, you know that in the UN Security Council the chairmanship this month of August is with China. Next month in September it will be with France. Well, I think the French are regretting that they're not holding the chairmanship this month when the government of Mali decided to send a letter to the UN Security Council. You know, would have been nice if the French was the chair. They could have perhaps torn the letter up and thrown it away. But the Chinese of course have acknowledged the receipt of the letter. It's a pretty damning letter coming from the government of Mali. What's going on in Mali? Well, almost a historic moment actually which I in some senses because we talk about cautionary tales that Mali was clearly a cautionary tale for France. And this week we get marked the actual moment when French troops finally left Mali after promising to do so in February after what is probably a nine year, what of course the French would like to term it as technical assistance. They would like to term it as fighting terrorism, et cetera, et cetera, but we should probably call it a spade. A spade, let's say it was occupation. So, you know, after this nine year occupation the French troops finally leave. A moment which has been building for quite some time. And I think in some senses it shows the real bankruptcy of the policies that the French and their allies in the United States have sought to impose in Africa in the name of this fighting terrorism, which is now one of the most discredited terms that is around there. And I think the facts of the ground really show, you know, everything that needs to be said. First of all, the fact that it was the assault on Libya which France and the United States champion that led to the rise of extremism at this period. The fact that the French coming in really didn't make too much of a difference. The fact that attacks by the French actually killed a number of civilians as well. And the fact that the French who are, who try to portray themselves as some kind of saviour, some sort of, you know, noble, say, lack of better word, crusaders almost coming to fight. Terrorism have been rejected by country after country in the entire Sahel region. There is a wave of anger. There's a wave of, you know, outpouring of protests against the French who are firmly seen as being, you know, really part of the problem. And as much as, like you said, France would sort of prefer to ignore that aspect, you know, try to sort of sugarcoat their mission and saying we did our mission. We made sacrifices before terrorism, et cetera, et cetera. But a look at the socioeconomic conditions of Mali of its neighbours, a look at the social, of the social composition, for instance, itself shows that the French really haven't been able to make any change at all. Now, one important question remains that of the various atrocities the French have committed, I think you and your article had mentioned some of them a few months ago, including the drone attack on, what do you call it, a wedding celebration in which about 100 people were there and which the French claimed it were again targeting terrorists. Of course, the question of justice for many of these acts remains, there's no, you know, this thing about what will happen. Justice, there is no justice for the attacks in Afghanistan or for instance, Pakistan, which the United States carried out, and people were just classified as terrorists and then killed. So unfortunately, France is not completely moving away from the region, 2,500 soldiers still likely to remain in the Sahel region. They moved to Niger. But I think the moment in Mali is really, really a very important one because it is a pushback which does not necessarily receive the kind of attention it should. It is, you know, the reporting on a lot of the issue around Mali itself has been largely subsumed under the reporting on terrorism which is such, you know, which is so simply about the good guys versus the bad guys, you know, say, the soldiers coming in to assist the fight against al-Qaeda or ISIS or or any of them in any other name. But the complexity is often much more the aspirations of people who of course rejected these organizations but who also reject the French. Those aspirations are never really captured by I think it's in some sense the very historic moment for Africa and for the world for that matter. And can you imagine to say as the Malian government has said that France was arming and funding al-Qaeda I mean, what a statement. I mean, I'm waiting for the debate to break out about that statement because the Malian government gives no evidence in the letter. Let's see what comes out of it. We've got to watch this closely and once we'll just ignore it or not. Well, shifting gears and for our last story, you know, here we are, the Mexican government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. We've seen be quite interesting you know, trying to establish a kind of Latin Americanism at the summit of the Americas. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decided I'm not coming to Biden's summit because Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua are available. He said, let's shut down the organization of American states and so on. Well, now Mr. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been talking about nationalizing Mexico's lithium in the Sonora desert. The Mexicans have lithium deposits right now that lithium has actually been contracted out to a Chinese company but his foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard was in Bolivia where he was there this month to talk about the possibility of collaboration across Latin America to develop lithium resources not just to export raw lithium but to create a lithium battery industry and perhaps, you know, a domestic or a regional electric car industry. It has to be said that Bolivia already developed a battery sector also has developed an electric car sector but Bolivia is stuck because a lot of its plans for investment in the lithium sector are without capital and it's having a hard time raising capital so Bolivia has actually returned to private companies asking them to come in for a collaboration so about six odd private companies have put tenders on the table Bolivian government looking at it actually at people's dispatch and for Globetrotter we did a story about lithium this is the second in a series from the Atacama desert comparing the situation in Chile with the situation in Bolivia the story actually opens in a way that's quite curious. It's about a sinkhole that developed not in a lithium area but in a copper area it has to do with mining a large sinkhole open the government, you know, reacted very quickly and there is now talk about a moratorium on mining in the Atacama desert in Chile largely because the mining is conducted principally by private companies one large Chilean company owned by the son-in-law of Augusto Pinochet the former dictator in Chile these large private companies have been given carte blanche for instance very hard to visit the actual mines very difficult to get even near them they have carte blanche because they control the water resources now it's important to know that on the 4th of September Chile is going to have a constitution on the ballot people are going to either approve it or reject it that constitution strengthens community control over water resources this will have an impact on mining, you know lithium mining particularly as done in the Chilean sector relies on a lot of salt water funneled into these areas of lithium and then evaporation there is a lot of water involved here and in a country especially in a country whose capital Santiago is in threat of a permanent drought this is a serious matter so the constitution that goes on the block on the 4th of September water is a big issue this comes back to lithium we are interested in looking at this further we are going to look at in the next story we are doing for Globetrotter which you can read later in people's dispatches on the pink flamingos one of the people who drafted the constitution is a scientist from the Atacama region who has studied the pink flamingos it's not a mythic bird it's a real animal I've seen them there and they are under threat because of the contamination of water and so on come back to that principally the issue is on the table again for countries like Mexico Bolivia and so on can you better utilize your national resources what is known as resource nationalism an interesting debate please go read that article at the people's dispatch side you've been listening to give the people what they want we've taken you on a journey from Marikana, South Africa to the Atacama desert in Chile you only get this here send us your selfies see you next week