 Who are cold? I forgot. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. Well, what is the date today? The 8th of April 2022, I believe. 2022, we're still with the war in Ukraine. You're joining us on give the people what they want. Today it's Zoe from People's Dispatch. And I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. No Prashant. He's decided to abscond. Abscond is an old word that means runaway. He'll be back next week. We'll make sure. We'll make sure he's with us next week. That's why we have this nice new format where you see us with bigger heads than normal because to accommodate three people, we have the other format. Welcome to our show. As I said, the war in Ukraine continues. This week of Lord Omir Zelinsky, the president of Ukraine said that Ukraine has no choice but to negotiate with Russia. Sobering words that he said on Ukrainian television. Important words as well because he said there's no other way to end the war, meaning whatever is being said about Ukraine having the ability to stop the Russian advance around the suburbs of Kiev, whatever information comes out about war crimes and massacres and so on, such as in Bucha. He said, look, we're going to have to end the war through negotiations. This is important. There was a negotiation as we've talked about on this show in Antalya and Turkey between the foreign ministers of Ukraine and of Russia, but those didn't advance too far. They were not intended to advance. They had to get the ball going with the conversation. Meanwhile, the border of Belarus and the border of Ukraine, high officials of the Ukrainian and Russian government have been meeting together, very high senior officials. Lots of things on the table, but it looks as if things are not advancing quick enough, quick enough for the fact that civilians are being badly hurt in this war. Now, Mr. Volodomir Zelinsky says that negotiations are the only way forward. This is, as I said, very good sobering kind of language. Meanwhile, it looks like there continues to be the attempt, particularly driven by the United States to box Russia in and this boxing of Russia in was, I think, accelerated with a vote in the UN General Assembly to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Interesting vote. If you looked at the numbers, the majority of the words people actually voted to either abstain or to not remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. It has to be said that the United States engineered this. United States has never been removed from the UN Human Rights Council, despite million plus people killed in the war in Iraq. Great Britain, imperial Great Britain never been removed, even though atrocities in Afghanistan have been on the record. Some of them, thanks to Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks organization, Israel voted to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Israel, where a UN Special Rapporteur has just said that it manages an apartheid-like situation. In fact, not apartheid-like, but an apartheid situation vis-à-vis the Palestinians. That was a UN Special Rapporteur, Michael Link, in his report just last week. But Israel, not sanctioned by the UN Human Rights Council, decides, well, we're going to vote to remove Russia. Now, if the majority of the world's countries want to vote to remove Russia, that's fine. That's their prerogative. The question is, let's put together the statement by Volodymyr Zelensky. Zoe, I think this is the key thing. Mr. Zelensky, as I said, told the Ukrainian people, the only way forward is a negotiation with Russia. On the other hand, if the Western countries continue to try and box Russia in, the appetite for negotiation is not going to be high. And I think, therefore, contradictory things are happening. No question that this war is horrible and no question that various atrocities have been committed, including in Bucha, no question about it. Now, those will have to be investigated, but no question there's been atrocities, bombing of hospitals and so on, no question about that. It's clear that the war has to end. The question is on the one side, when Mr. Zelensky says that there has to be a negotiation, that the war cannot be one on the battlefield. And on the other side, when there continues to be pressure on Russia brought to box it in with Joe Biden, U.S. President, saying at the Warsaw Castle that Mr. Putin has to go, which is a regime change statement, or when Russia is removed from the UN Human Rights Council, it is being isolated and boxed in. And therefore the appetite in Moscow for a negotiation is reduced. So I think we're facing contradictory pressures. And I want to keep saying that because I want people to understand negotiation only happens when both sides feel that a negotiation is going to leave somewhere. If one side feels that it's boxed in, it will not have an appetite for negotiation. And I'm afraid here the Western countries need to consider what they're up to with this attempt to further isolate and box in Russia. Now, it's just Zoe and I today from People's Dispatch and Globe Trotter on Give the People What They Want. Zoe has been looking carefully at protests, not of the people that you'd assume, but fuel protests taking place in Honduras and in Peru. Peru, by the way, voted to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Zoe, what's happening in Honduras and Peru? Well, Vijay, we love to make connections here and give the people what they want. And I think there's a direct link not only between what's happening in Ukraine and what's happening with the sanctions against Russia, but also what is happening in Honduras, what is happening in Peru. And these two cases in Latin America are kind of what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks, which is that the war is going to have global implications. It's already had global impact. There's been, you know, grain shortages. There's been fuel shortages in many countries, not only in Western Europe, but also across the world. And so in Latin America there has been an increase in the cost of living. There has been an increase in fuel prices. And this has been, you know, met with different measures. In Peru, essentially, a country which as we've covered over the past couple of weeks has been undergoing severe, severe political turmoil. Only last week Pedro Casio managed to narrowly defeat an impeachment motion against him. And he has been dealing with all sorts of right-wing attacks since he was inaugurated in July. The right-wing has just attacked every single member of his cabinet, launched cases against him and several other members of his party because they still have a strong grip over the judiciary. And most recently, transport workers, truckers began protests and blockades across the country against the fuel increase. And so, you know, that's fair. There is an increase in the price of fuel. The government should take measures to mitigate the impact on these sectors. However, this is not just a protest with economic, you know, grievances and demands. This has really catapulted into fueling the right-wing movement against Castillo, calling for his removal, saying out-communist. And this is a really dicey situation. You know, the Castillo government has already been severely weakened. It has taken some very unpopular measures, even with left-wing sectors. But I think at the end of the day, what we see with these protests in Purdue is that there's further instability in the country. The government has not been able to actually take any measures in support of the people. It has been pressured constantly. And, you know, right now the right-wing sectors are taking advantage of this popular anger. And this is, and now that brings me to Honduras, where a similar situation is happening. As we know in Honduras, you know, ruled for 12 years by the far-right National Party. Finally, Isiomara Castillo wins the elections in November. And since then, we've always had a cautious eye towards what is going to unfold, knowing that the right-wing that seized power through a coup that modified the electoral laws is not going to stand down. And so in the past week, we've seen similar protests by transportation sectors in Honduras against the increase in fuel prices. And the government of Isiomara Castillo immediately recognized that these protests were taking place. She didn't try to deny them. Of course, they're pretty large blockades. And as we know, the trucking and transportation sectors are really the lifelines today in the flow of capital and in the ability of people to survive. And so she has responded and said, I will engage in dialogue with these sectors, but the blockades need to continue. And this is actually hurting our people. People are not able to get the supplies that they need. This is blocking the key roots of circulation in the country. She also has written on Twitter that she already actually, as a government measure, gave fuel subsidies. And so for this reason, she said that these protests are completely unjustified and they're being used by the right wing to put forth political demands and destabilize her government and cause them to the people. And so we need to really look at what's happening. This is going to happen in many other places. This is not the first instance and this will not be the last. And so it's interesting to see how these two different governments have responded. Pedro Casio is in a bit more of a difficult situation. He does not have the popular support of the people in the streets. He attempted to impose a curfew. This was immediately rejected by people across the political spectrum and he was forced to withdraw it. This is a lot more instability right now in Peru. And I think Zio Mada Castro has been able to show people that this is against their interest for there to be a transportation blockade. What is going to happen? We'll see, we'll be covering this in detail over the coming days. It's a world in turmoil. I mean, the first thing to put on the table, Zoe, is that we've had, you know, a coronavirus recession, turbulence in the world a supply chain which revealed deep inequalities in the world, deepened the inequalities in the world. It's not that the COVID-19 pandemic created it and this is in fact the view of reasonable people including at the UN conference on trade and development pointed out that the coronavirus pandemic or the recession occasioned by that is over peace. And that's one of the reasons why there's inflation in many countries. Then on top of that, you have this war in Ukraine and the sanctions, which now we can consider a second order double dip recession going to happen in many countries. As fuel prices rise, that's what you've seen as you reported from Peru and Honduras and as food prices rise. You know, in that sense, we've had the normal problem of inequality prior to the pandemic, the pandemic, one dip downward and then this war and the sanctions, another dip downward. Now, you reported terrible protests happening in Honduras and Peru. Let's go back to South Asia. Let's go to South Asia. Such important dilemmas facing the people of Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Let's first go to Sri Lanka. Country of 21 million, relatively small country, is ruled by a family, the Rajapaksha family. Mahindra Rajapaksha who was the president and led the quite horrible war against the Tamil peoples, the Tamil Tigers. It was the exact reason for that war, but the war was also against the Tamil people in many ways, horrible war. Nobody at the time voting to remove Sri Lanka from any body in the world. But Mr. Mahindra Rajapaksha continues to be there, continues to be the prime minister. Go to buy up, Rajapaksha is running the country. They are facing economic turmoil of the highest order. In fact, foreign exchange reserves fell by 16% a senior member of the government said that Sri Lanka has bills coming due of 2 billion dollars, 7 billion dollars sorry and it has foreign exchange reserves of 2 billion. Now let me repeat that, its bills are coming due of 7 billion, it has foreign exchange reserves of 2 billion. It fell by 16%, but still it's only 2 billion. Now, why is that important? It means that Sri Lanka likely will have a default of some kind. It's going to have a default. The senior government advisor told CNBC I think quite in a measured way that what we'd like to see he said is not a disorderly default an orderly default. This is the language of mainstream economists. I mean I don't understand how you can have an orderly default because what the creditors are going to ask for is deeper cuts in spending. At the same time senior government advisors are saying we need to provide cash transfers. Why? Because the economic crisis has become a political one in Sri Lanka and that's a headline not my making. I didn't invent that. That's a headline from the Economist magazine which said that Sri Lanka's economic crisis is becoming a political one. This week itself most of the cabinet of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksha resigned. Most of the cabinet. He himself has refused to resign. I'm speaking now it's April 8th likely while we are talking in this show he might have resigned because he has no political legitimacy. That's the crisis in Sri Lanka. Really really deep problems. Violence on the street. The Rajapaksha family holding the country in its grip. The opposition disoriented and unable it seems from at least unable to come together to provide a kind of platform of unity for the Sri Lankan people in what is going to be a very difficult point particularly because fuel and food prices are going to start rising even more. That's on the table. That's Sri Lanka. We are going to have to move up north now to Pakistan. I know Zoe that bundles of countries together you had Honduras and Peru but these are all related issues and I think I'm glad we're doing this sort of tour of the coronavirus impact and now the Ukraine sanctions impact on the world Pakistan country of 220 million people 10 times the size of Sri Lanka also a country that has got nuclear weapons governed by Imran Khan and his coalition which had been backed by the military and so on. Look in Pakistan the military plays a very important role much like in Egypt where the civilian government has got to be sanctified by the military. Well in Egypt now the man civilian wearing a suit is actually a former general Abdul Fattah El Sisi. Imran Khan was a cricketer wasn't a military man but certainly his government had been backed by the military facing deep deep economic problems again just like in Sri Lanka very deep economic problems the inflation is killing the buying power of the rupee making it very difficult has made it very difficult for people as food and fuel prices have risen. Interestingly Mr. Imran Khan made a very big show of things of standing alongside the Russians. He was in Moscow with Vladimir Putin the president of Russia when the war began refused to condemn just as the government in India refused to condemn the Russians and so on and so forth. Inside Pakistan a great debate about whether this is a legitimate political crisis or this is a form of regime change. A big debate taking place in the entire opposition including two parties that can't sit in a room together the Pakistani people's party which is basically owned and operated by the Bhutto family and the party of Mr. Nawaz Sharif and his family talk about Rajapaksha's family in Sri Lanka. We've got the Nawaz Sharif family and the Bhutto family coming together peeling away some sections of the support for Mr. Imran Khan's government to bring it down in a vote of no confidence. Imran Khan played a funny game. He basically went to the president and said dissolve the parliament let's go for elections in 90 days that's what he did. Well there's a big debate going on in Pakistan about whether this is illegal. Parliament is which has been disbanded is going to meet on Saturday to decide the fate of interim Prime Minister Imran Khan's government. But there's going to be an election in 90 days unless you're able to overturn the president's call to dissolve parliament. Serious crisis in Pakistan serious crisis in Sri Lanka serious crisis in Peru serious crisis in Honduras what a world we live in and yet in the middle of all this in the middle of all this in the middle of all this kind of chaos occasioned by supply side this that and the other workers in the United States and decide to form a union. What happens there? Well one of the sites of long-standing resistance in the during this COVID-19 pandemic recession crisis really has been the workers at Amazon. Many people during the most intense parts of the lockdown were unable to leave the house get you know the supplies they need and services like Amazon became kind of a lifeline for a lot of people and it saw huge amounts of growth I mean Jeff Bezos who was the former CEO of Amazon was one of those million billionaires so sorry who saw his wealth really multiply in an unprecedented not unprecedented level and unsurprisingly none of this wealth trickled down to the workers who were risking their lives every single day going to the warehouse and during COVID conditions one of the main sites of unionization drive throughout the last year was investment Alabama this was a very fraught vote there was a lot of union busing tactics used by Amazon they shortened the stoplights they did everything possible to really crack down on these workers unionizing another key ground of struggle was at the Staten Island warehouse in March 2020 when the pandemic started several workers who were not part of any sort of organization started to protest because they wanted PPE which at the time was extremely hard to get and they were having to really find it and pay for it they wanted stick pay they wanted fair conditions and one of these workers Chris Smalls was fired from his job was fired for this protest was fired for speaking out against the world's largest corporation which was making billions billions off of the backs of these workers he was fired and then from there he really began to become the symbol of the resistance against Amazon which has sent Jeff Bezos to space which has expanded their operations in such a immense way gaining so much money and still fighting workers organization and from this moment of his firing he began to work with other unions he began to speak to people who were excited about the possibility of actually going back to that site of where he was fired and trying to form a union trying to get an organization that would be able to fight for workers and ensure that when the company wants to retaliate and fire a worker for fighting back that would not be able they would not be able to do so because they would have a strong workers organization to back them and so this begins out of this moment of his firing and continues and many different left organizations such as the Young Communist League of New York took up this struggle worked arduously alongside Chris Smalls and other workers started organizing and last week on Friday they had carried out the camp a very very strong effort phone banking workers bringing them pizza doing a lot of different new exciting tactics of getting to speak to workers and hearing what they were going through and on Friday the vote count finished and they were victorious they were victorious in this vote to establish union so the Amazon labor union was established this is the first union in the United States at Amazon and it's not likely to be the last and it's interesting because in the United States unionization has been so stigmatized has been so decimated by years of anti-communism by years of attacks on organized labor attacks on working rights attacks on just having any basic conditions and so this is such a huge victory but it is kind of it is sad that it is the bare minimum that United States it is so hard to even get a union this past week as well the MIT graduate students also voted to form a union at MIT this is another huge victory and hopefully as we saw in the last year there's going to be this increase in unionization at workspaces in the United States because it is one of the countries with the lowest membership rates of unions there's many many workers in the service center in areas that are much more challenging to unionize working at restaurants fast food places there's some really dynamic and incredible organizing being done by people to kind of connect workers where they are and build these non-traditional unions because it is necessary to have worker power it is necessary to fight back against capital in this moment where it continues to consolidate its power it continues to reap the millions and billions of profits from the work that people are doing so this is a great victory and it's always necessary to celebrate these victories because it's what keeps us going and what keeps us resolute in this struggle it's a great victory and congratulations I hope there's a kind of infection that develops because certainly with the world on fire the stories we had from Honduras Peru, Pakistan Sri Lanka and of course the world on fire in Ukraine it's important to see that there's another side finally in historical development finally another side in 1983 Thomas Sankara came to power in Upper Volta in quick order he changed the name of the country to Burkina Faso, land of upright people he drove a socialist agenda for his people he attempted to sovereign and self-sufficient he moved an agenda to break down patriarchal values in the country quite an extraordinary person the hero of mine I should say quite honestly on this show Thomas Sankara also by the way a terrific guitarist was overthrown in a coup d'etat against him in 1987 he was killed brutally killed and Africa lost an enormous man of great potential Burkina Faso lost a great leader since the demise of Sankara it has been disputed who killed Sankara his person who took over from him actually was somebody who worked closely with him Blaise Kompare Kompare ruled from 1987 all the way to 2014 I don't know what that is 26-27 years in 2014 he decided to increase his term till basically forever there was a military uprising against Blaise Kompare who fled to the Côte d'Ivoire to the Ivory Coast that military governed and then there was an election eventually the new government came in of Rockmark Christian Cabore Cabore governed from about 2015 till 2022 now that's interesting because in 2022 there was another coup d'etat in Burkina Faso and that coup d'etat was led by Paul Henry son who had trained well also with the United States and so on but really he's a military man frustrated with the government there's a dynamic in Burkina Faso that we don't have time to get into but the energy in Burkina Faso among a lot of young people lifting up the question of Sankara's legacy that those protests have been on the street those young Sankaras had been very active during the pandemic as well and so on well the military government decided to impanel a tribunal to basically look in a military tribunal it should be said it's not a civilian case the killer of Thomas Sankara has been found guilty but it's a military tribunal they have different set of rules the military tribunal tried the case of who killed Thomas Sankara again not because the military government right now has a Sankara's orientation but there is a real anger on the streets in Burkina Faso frustration not only to learn what happened to Thomas Sankara but to revive parts of the Sankara's legacy that tribunal this week found Blaise Comparé in absentia guilty of the murder of Thomas Sankara now two things to say about this number one Mr you know Mr Comparé is in absentia because he ran off to Côte d'Ivoire he's not returned to discuss anything at the tribunal I don't blame him it is a military government and not to be recommended to return because he'll face the death penalty for his actions there secondly it's not just Blaise Comparé that was part of the coup attempt against Thomas Sankara which succeeded very many western countries were involved including the French and we don't see them so it is important advance that finally there is some clarity on who killed Thomas Sankara but there is not full clarity because there's much more to this story well Zoe and I held the fort on give the people what they want your half an hour movement driven weekly world news roundup okay weekly world news roundup we went from Peru to Ukraine Pakistan Sri Lanka what a journey and all of it at a speed faster than Amazon is able to bring you anything from its warehouses now unionized congratulations Amazon Zoe will be back next week we made a threat last week but we'll be back next week with Prashant yes we will be back next week okay well see you next week thanks a lot