 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. Hello. Good evening. Good afternoon. It's the first of July and we are back with your favorite show. Give the people what they want brought to you by People's Dispatch. So in me as always and Globetrotter, which I am from Globetrotter, of course on yet another one of his globetrotting rounds for reporting. We'll hear more about that of course next week when he comes back on the show. We have a very interesting show for you this week. Some of it as usual, depressing news of course. But some of it also indicating and showcasing the extent of resistance, the extent of people's struggles across the world, which is what we bring you on. Give the people what they want every week at People's Dispatch. So today, of course, I mean the past few days, in fact, we've been hearing a lot about the NATO summit in Madrid. And it's, you know, the headlines, all the major media across the world have been carrying headlines, statements, the big leaders, their speeches, etc. Very curious summit this, of course, because it's not just another NATO summit. It's happening in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war. And it's also happening at a time when NATO conducts one of its regular re-evaluations, so to speak, and releases documents, strategic documents, that are basically based on the fruits of that re-evaluation and all those processes. And I really urge you to sort of read this document. It's freely available. It's a very interesting document because it kind of tries to put NATO's best foot forward in every sense of the term. And we know that NATO, of course, suffered a massive credibility crisis last year after it withdrew from Afghanistan. And this year in the statement, we kind of see this straining for relevance that NATO has been sort of conducting and now is almost very happy to conduct, seems to be rejoicing to conduct this stretching for relevance in the context of the war. So then all the usual statements, of course, of being a defensive alliance, which is kind of highly ironic considering what we talk about. But more importantly, I think two or three aspects that we need to note. One, of course, is the fact that there has been a concrete commitment to militarizing Europe. And this is something, for instance, that people across Europe protested in the week before. About 30,000 people hit the streets of Madrid against this. And they were really very concerned about this because as the summit progressed, we saw the kind of commitments that came on, you know, bases in Poland. 300,000 soldiers as part of the alliance across the continent in a new missile deployment. More countries being brought under the NATO military ambit of being the security or military presence being beefed up. And this was all done very casually as if to sort of justify, you know, as if there was a justification in the form of the Russia-Ukraine war. But the fact is that what we're seeing is an inconsiderably increased in the militarization of Europe, which definitely is not good for anybody at all. The other important highlight, of course, is the fact that NATO has identified China as a key rival, you know, call it rival, you can call it a threat, whatever. Again, they've made some strange statements where they seem to say that China is out to threaten the North Atlantic countries and their alliance. There's obviously no real evidence of that. But they make it seem that there is some kind of effort underway by China on this. And for this reason, they sort of identified China as a rival. They said they will take XYZ steps. And, you know, one thing we have been talking about is that it's bad enough that NATO exists. And that is what a lot of protesters said last week. Their demand was for the abolition of NATO because NATO makes the world a dangerous place. That was their claim. Now, so as many observers have pointed out, it's bad enough NATO exists. And now we have the prospect of NATO actually expanding globally. NATO, which is again, not the name. It's not the Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's a so-called defensive alliance. But with this kind of an agenda, the question really is, is NATO set to expand? Is NATO set to become a global alliance? And these are really the questions that I think keep all of us awake at night because one thing we do know is that we do not need more militarization as far as the world is concerned. The US already has 800 bases. There is an alliance called AUKUS. There is a Quad. There's stuff happening in West Asia. Since so many places, the footprints of these powers are causing havoc. And now we see that NATO is joining the fray. So also done this very strange and weak, a lot of dangerous prospects for the future. We really need to sort of see and think what will happen. And I think it's important that all of us sort of read this document to really get a sense of what the future is ahead for all of us. Not just for the NATO countries. So Prashant, you mentioned something interesting there, which is about NATO's potential expansion. It's looking eastward. There's also, I know, a part that talks about the southern word, looking and the expansion of NATO, its actions towards the south, towards the African continent. As you mentioned, this is taking place, the NATO summit in a very crucial moment in the context of the region. Can you talk a little bit about this southern strategy and what's been happening with regards to Northern Africa? Right. So I think, Zoe, what you said, we have a story by a colleague, Pawan, on this, and it actually connects two very important aspects. One is the massacre of refugees in Africa, which took place in the border region between Spain and Morocco, two regions, and this, on the one hand, it has been portrayed as just another incident of refugees. As always, the Spanish government, in fact, painting these refugees is dangerous people who are out to threaten the security of the Spanish state, as opposed to people who are fleeing from war and conflict, which is the case with refugees across the world. But more importantly, this actually connects very closely to what NATO is trying to sort of establish in the south and the fact that NATO is identified, especially at Spanish insistence, that there has to be focus on its southern flank as well. So it's not enough that there is focus on the eastern flank or for that matter, the global flank. There has to be a specific focus on the southern flank as well. And this, of course, means Africa, and this basically means militarized action against those who are struggling, those who are suffering due to the policies exactly or due to the policies of these very same countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And of course, Spain having a crucial partner here in Morocco, whose role in this also needs to be highlighted because Morocco recently, as we know, recently recognized Israel in return, got the U.S. Nord for its occupation of western Sahara. And now at that point, many people said, oh, this was just Donald Trump being Donald Trump. The Abraham Accords and all, you know, that's all just Trump and Jared Kushner doing stuff. But we see basically that this is the foundation on which Joe Biden and his administration have continued their policies. Biden, you know, it's many reports say that the U.S. administration has pretty much urged Spain to sort of also sanctify or sanction Morocco's occupation as well. And this has led to further synergy between Morocco and Spain. Morocco now acting as a gendarm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in suppressing many of these refugees as well. And I think, like we keep talking about a time and again, the important thing here, of course, is that many of these refugees are fleeing from war and conflict, are fleeing from the policies of either these countries or corporations. Big corporations based in these countries whose exploitative policies, whose extractive policies have led to huge amounts of destruction of environmental destruction, of course, of livelihood destruction as well. So in this context, I think it's very important to note that these two issues are very closely connected. We cannot see that brutal. In fact, the visuals of these incidents in which the refugees were killed, how they were treated, are extremely brutal. But we cannot see this as any way in separate from NATO, from its policies, from the fact that what they're trying to do is sort of build. Use NATO's Article 5, for instance, to ensure NATO protection against these poor refugees who are coming over. So it's a very unfortunate question here in the sense that the power of the most powerful alliance in the world, the military might of this force is basically being used at some of the most desperate, at some of the most poor, at some of the most vulnerable people in the world, all in the name of, say, defending our sovereignty and defending our territory. So there's hardly anything, very few things that are more ironic than this way in today's world, the fact that NATO is standing guard and the Moroccan forces are standing guard against the so-called destructive refugees. Yeah, I mean, it was really a tragic week in terms of the humanitarian crisis of migration on our world today. In the same week that this massacre happened of dozens of refugees in this border region, a similar horrific tragedy occurred on the U.S.-Mexico border. Over 50 migrants died. They were inside a trailer of a truck. They were discovered by sheriffs in San Antonio, Texas. They had essentially died of dehydration. You know, for many, this is a shock that so many, that dozens of migrants could die in such horrific consequences and conditions. And you know, it's important to say that this is the worst death toll of a kind of this kind of tragedy that's happened in recent years. But the fact that migrants are taking such risky routes, such risks to really cross the border and try to migrate is not new. And it has been getting worse in recent years, but the path, whether it's from North Africa to Europe or whether it's through Central America to the United States, the risks that people are taking in order to flee from conflict, from war, from economic deprivation, from poverty, from violence, these routes are horrific. And the repression that they face from the global North countries, from the United States, from the EU is why they're forced to take these sort of routes. You know, it's not, it's only, hasn't been so many months since we saw the images of the Asian migrants being whipped by border guards at the border. The entryway for these migrants into these countries is so militarized, is so, you know, under surveillance that they're forced to take these extremely unsafe routes, whether it's by going in the trailer of a truck where they have no air conditioning, no ventilation, no access to water, which eventually led to the death of over 50 people in one moment, or whether it's they, you know, trying to cross the Mediterranean in very unsafe boats. I mean, this is something we're seeing time and time again. And it's no longer just a coincidence, it's no longer just an anomaly that these things are happening, and it needs to be taken very seriously. It's interesting that, you know, in Biden's summit of the Americas, which took place in Los Angeles in the beginning of June, migration was one of the core topics. But, you know, he's, he preached when he came into office that he would have a much more humane migration policy toward Central America. And really what we've seen is that this is not true, and that the same policy of militarization of the border of extremely firm stance against migrants has remained. And that its own policies towards the region are, of course, is what's driving this immigration and its own policy of even what it carried out in the Summit of the Americas of exclusion of stigmatizing countries that have really tried to attack migration, for example, from a much more root cause perspective. How do we address the causes of economic disparity in these countries that drives so many people to migrate? And so this is really, really key, you know, the message of Kamala Harris to Guatemala just a year back was that don't come. This is their response to these countries. They don't have any other response. And the sad thing is, is that these types of tragedies will continue occurring. These will only become more numerous as people are more and more desperate. As you mentioned, one of the motivating, one of the primary motivating factors for immigration is actually environmental devastation in Central America, which is the area where most of these migrants came from. They were from Mexico, they're from Guatemala and Honduras are areas similar to the Sahel that have been ravaged because of their natural resources that have been ravaged by transnational corporations. These lands, which were once fertile, have now been rendered almost, you know, useless or they have been taken over by companies. And so people who used to subside on this land are no longer able to do so. It's extremely tragic. And, you know, of course, in Honduras, for example, one of the countries where most migrants have been fleeing from, now there is a progressive president. But of course, these changes and these economic structural changes take time and similar with Mexico. Mexico has taken a lot of steps to ensure a better life for people within Mexico, but this is a long process. And unless the United States is actually committed to ensuring a safe passage for migrants, providing protections for them when they come, you know, not implementing their policies of militarization, of family separation, of, you know, this hard line against immigration, there's really no way forward. And so one of the major calls from the People Summit that took place concurrently to the Summit of the Americas in early June was that migrants in the United States need full amnesty and they need access to full rights. This is part and parcel of addressing this humanitarian tragedy. People must not be forced to cross in unsafe conditions and they must not be forced to put their lives at risk to make this crossing. Right, so it's interesting you mentioned Honduras, of course, because, and at least before I joined People's Dispatch, every time I saw news about these migrant caravans, they'd always start in Honduras. And most of this reporting actually had very little context about why people left Honduras. It was just like, okay, people in Honduras just like to leave and go to the, you know, go north leaving everything aside. So that seemed to be the impression. But Honduras marked a very important anniversary recently, which is perhaps behind some of these issues that you mentioned the 13th anniversary of the coup. So could you talk about actually what links this kind of crisis and what happened in 2009? It's so connected and it's so important. I'm so glad you brought that up. On June 28, it was the 13th year anniversary of the coup that was carried out against Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya. This was a coup that was orchestrated by the United States with the conservative sectors in Honduras and made a moment where Honduras was getting closer to countries in the region to the Alba Block. It was beginning economic cooperation agreements with Venezuela, joining Pedro Caribe. It was a moment of great hope and opportunity in Latin American, the Caribbean and Honduras was trying to join this cooperation, this integration. And the conservative sectors in the United States said no. They carried out the coup against Manuel Zelaya. Mass protests took place across Honduras, people on the streets for months. A lot of repression happened. Several people were killed during these protests. And it was a really a turning point, not only in Honduras, but also in the continent. And so in Honduras, after 2009, there started to be some of the largest waves of migration out of the country. And so some of the policies that were enacted following the coup were, for example, against women and their right to bodily autonomy. For example, banning the morning after pill, taking other measures that would inhibit women from exercising their full rights. A lot of agreements were signed with transnational corporations, as I mentioned earlier, giving concessions to companies to operate in Honduran territory. One of the most infamous agreements was the Special Economic Development Zones, which essentially gave autonomy to foreign investors over parts of Honduran land. And so this made a untenable situation. It caused the migration of tens of thousands of Hondurans to the United States. It created a situation of further inequality, violence, and extreme poverty. Before Xiomara Castro took office in Honduras, the poverty level was 70% of people were in poverty in Honduras. A horrible number. It is a very, very tragic situation there. However, in November 2021, Xiomara Castro won the elections. It was, you know, many saw it as a reverse of these 12 years of coup, of dictatorship that were taking place in the country. And it's really important to highlight that when Xiomara Castro was commemorating the 13 years of coup as the first progressive leader really in Honduras since the coup, she remembered the support of invasions like Venezuela, of Paraguay. There was a very important ceremony honoring the support of Hugo Chavez, who was a key ally during the coup against Manuel Zelaya. And so this is extremely important. I think it also marks the moment that we're seeing right now in Latin America where there is a significant shift towards progressive politics, towards a policy of integration. I think the summit of the Americas and the boycott by progressive leaders like Xiomara Castro, like Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, is a clear sign of this. And Xiomara Castro has only been office for six months, but she's clearly taken important steps towards putting forward this progressive platform, making the lives of people in Honduras better, and also trying to build and rebuild this moment of regional integration and build Latin American and Caribbean autonomy. Right, Zoe. And of course, we can't talk about Honduras without remembering Bertha Casales as well. The intrepid activist was very integral to all of these struggles as you yourself have written so often. He was assassinated in 2016 recently. David Castillo, one of those involved in the assassination, was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. Organizations, of course, saying there's a long battle ahead. But this is something we cover quite often at people's dispatch. The struggles, the persecution faced by those who fight for justice, those who fight for the truth to be revealed, those who refuse to, those who speak truth to power as the cliche goes in some senses. But this is not actually a cliche because there are actually lives that line people who spent decades, years and decades striving to ensure that what the powerful attempt to hide actually comes out. And we have unfortunately in India seen two recent instances of such people being persecuted. And of course, one of, of course, one of, of course, a very prominent activist. These are settled word of the state force hail from the state of Gujarat. And we know that in 2002, there was a very powerful religious riot, a very anti-Muslim riot that took place in the state of Gujarat. You know, hundreds of people killed, of course, the damage to the damage to buildings, the damage to infrastructure, the damage to lives and livelihoods, difficult to difficult to even describe. And of course, what happened then was a very sustained attempt at actually suppressing those who fought against, those who fought for justice for these victims. Now, of course, the important thing to remember is that Narendra Modi, who is the Prime Minister of India now is the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Then many of those associated who are part of that regime are still active in, at various levels of power in India. And Thista was somebody who sort of refused to say that, okay, the past is past. Let's move on. And she continuously fought to make sure that the victims of those religious riots got some kind of justice. You know, got some kind of accountability for what had happened to themselves or their loved ones. And for that, she's endured a lot of persecution. For that, she's endured a lot of, you know, allegations. She's been accused of all kinds of crimes. Recently, Supreme Court heard a petition she was associated with. It dismissed the petition and then went on to say something which many observers have found very strange. Then it went on to say that certain people had kept the pot boiling. That was a phrase they used over this issue, over the issue of the 2002 religious riots. And, you know, it called for such people to be investigated. And what we see is that the very next day, Thista said the word along with two other people who were involved in this struggle for justice were arrested. They have been charged with forgery. They have been charged with attempt to conspiracy. These are charges which, especially the attempt to conspiracy, the charge which activists all over the world, I guess, face. And, you know, she's still right now in prison. We'll hear from her, we'll hear from here on the second what happens. But what we are going to, what we are definitely seeing is a prolonged phase in which her work will be stopped, in which they will be attempts to persecute her. So that's, of course, one instance. The other instance of Mohammed Zubair, an Indian journalist, the, what do you call it, the owner of a fact-checking website, or the co-founder, sorry, of a fact-checking website called Alt News, which does some amazing work, debunking a lot of misinformation that comes out in social media, for instance, and even in the corporate media. Now, Zubair was arrested, apparently, for a tweet. Now, this tweet was something he had made in 2018, where he posted the screenshot from a movie from 1983, and he made a joke about it. And what happened was some days ago, a Twitter account with zero followers, I believe at that time, tagged the police and said that this person is hurting my religious sentiments because he posted this tweet. And what do you know? On Monday, we see that Mohammed Zubair has been arrested and charged with offending, I believe, religious sentiments and all that. So he too is in jail, still not out, legal process going on. Of course, citizens organizations, journalistic organizations have only condemned this. They have called for his release. India's press freedom numbers have been quite bad in recent times. There seems to, journalists across the country say that they feel, you know, they no longer feel safe at working. There's been all kinds of, you know, targeted attempts to sort of coerce journalists from various sections, of course, but there's been all kinds of attempts and the Indian government has obviously refused to answer any of these allegations. It has said everything is haki dori. Incidentally, the same day Mohammed Zubair was arrested and the range of Modi pledged, you know, fealty to freedom of expression, both online and offline. So a lot of people pointing out as yet another one of those ironies that make up India, but really the question, I think, for a lot of people here is what is the future of activism? What is the future of freedom of expression in the country? How do journalists, how do activists continue to go around doing their work if they face this kind of, you know, if they face these kind of challenges to their work? If any attempt by them to reveal the truth is pushed back in this manner. So tough times, of course, for India, but interestingly enough people like these times where seem to be, you know, as enthusiastic, as committed to continuing their work as ever. Well, I know the International People's Assembly released a statement in support of Thista and identifying that her struggle and the persecution against her is shared by so many across the world. And I think it's always so important to remember that so many people are under attack at this moment and it's always important to stand up and raise our voices in solidarity. We've said a lot of kind of sad stories today. So I think it's important that we end on a bit of a positive note. Yesterday, the Indigenous organizations in Ecuador reached an agreement with the national government after 18 days of national strike. This is being hailed as a victory, an important victory, a victory that has some limits, but still is a victory. This national strike had started on June 13th, organized by large indigenous organizations like Conay and others, Benocin, and it saw a massive support from civil society, from many student organizations, from trade unions. Across the country and cities and towns, people were on the streets organizing road blockades part of this national strike. And essentially from June 13th there was a set of 10 demands that were made to the government amid as many other countries in the region are facing a rapidly deteriorating economic crisis. When Guillermo Lasso took power last year, he inherited a country that had really been ravaged by IMF policies, by neoliberal policies enacted by his predecessor, Lenin Moreno. Under Lenin Moreno, Ecuador took out a huge IMF loan against the wishes of the people. There had been a series of massive mobilizations against this. Guillermo Lasso ran on a campaign platform saying he wouldn't be like Lenin Moreno. He was going to do things differently. He was not going to make the same decisions and implement the same policies as Lenin Moreno. Yet he seems to have been doing similar things, raising fuel prices, raising the prices of the basic commodities in the country. And so exactly as what happened with Lenin Moreno, he too saw a response from the streets. So Conai had organized this strike along with these other organizations. They had been mobilizing, as I said, for over 18 days. Pretty tremendous. You know, as I said, people from all walks of life from different types of organizations. And there had been many attempts to have dialogue. And the first day of the national strike, Leonias Issa had been arrested. It was a blow to the legitimacy of the Lasso government seeing that they would just immediately arrest a leader of one of the largest indigenous organizations amid their mobilization. They quickly had to retract and he was released. And so now after 18 days, they have reached this agreement, which does touch on important things such as reducing and fixing the fuel prices, giving more funds to, for example, bilingual education and a lot of other important policies regarding indigenous rights and access to education. There have been agreements also made on employment. And I think it's important to note that this is an agreement in 90 days, there's going to be a verification process to see how these agreements been implemented. But what it speaks to is a larger disposition of Ecuadorian society to really be on the streets and to hold this government accountable. When Lasso was sworn in, when the voting process happened last year, Andres Araus lost, people said, okay, this is a defeat for now, but we will be organizing, we will be regrouping and we are going to be on the streets and making sure that none of these neoliberal policies, none of these anti-people policies can go through. And that's exactly what we're seeing. The people are making good on their word. They're going to be on the streets. They're going to continue mobilizing, making sure that this is implemented and holding the government to account. And so, as they have to endure this conservative government, Guillermo Lasso is a banker. He has his policies. He has his priorities clear. And the people, this is an important moment of reorganizing and getting back on the streets, regaining the confidence of the people. So I think that's what we're seeing right now. Right. Absolutely. Like you said, Zoya, a positive story to wind up. What has been quite a difficult week across the world, but this is also what we do, bring your stories of sometimes topics that are not easy, sometimes topics that are not necessarily, you know, happy, but topics that we think that all of us should be talking about, should be working on, should be thinking about, because ultimately all of these stories, all of these issues are about our future, the struggle for building a better world, which so many people across the world are engaged in right now. So that's all we have this week from Zoe and I at People's Dispatch and the spirit of Vijay from Globetrotter. We'll be back next week with more stories from around the world, stories of struggle and stories of victory as well, hopefully.