 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, it's January 13, 2023. I'm Vijay Prashant from Globe Trotter. Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch with us. This is Give the People What They Want. Our 110th episode, which is pretty epic, I must say. We've been with you 110 times. I can't breathe even saying it. But there it is. We're going to take you straight away, because we have a full show today. Take you straight away to Peru, where every day seems to bring new reports of the school regime and the fight back against it. Zoe, what's the latest from Peru? Well, it's been a very intense week in Peru. Another horrific massacre took place in Puno, in the city of Juliaca. 17 people were killed in one day as they were protesting against the coup and taking part in a general strike. 17 people were killed. And the autopsies have shown that these are from live bullets. So the army and police shooting on protesters, not with allegedly non-lethal weapons, which ends up being lethal, but actually with guns. So they're shooting guns at the people. They're also using pellet guns, which we've seen in many other parts of the world, that explode inside of you when you're hit with them. And amongst the 17 people that were killed in Juliaca, two teenagers, one person setting to be a doctor. I mean, it's really, really horrific. A lot of these victims are from indigenous backgrounds, from peasant communities. And so essentially, they're not really registering on the radar. And that in addition to increased criminalization and stigmatization of people actually organizing and participating in protestors last night at around 10 p.m., the president of the defense, the friends and defense of the people of Ayacucho, which was one of the major organizations behind the national, the large mobilizations that took place in Ayacucho, which were subsequently repressed, where 10 people were killed. The president of this organization, Rosio Leandro Melgar, was arrested. She's been suffering for weeks, a campaign of persecution, mainstream media calling her a terrorist, saying that she has links to legal armed groups, all sorts of things against her. And what do you know, weeks later, after they've been building this campaign, every single day publishing her photo in the newspaper, this narrative, she's arrested. And along with two other people from this organization, this is crucial that we are paying attention to this because more and more there's more assassinations, more criminalizations. And essentially the government is just trying to silence all kinds of dissents through bullets, through prison. But the people are still coming out onto the streets and interesting and maybe a more hopeful development is that Lima, which is the capital of Peru, have been organizing some small-scale protests, maybe a couple hundred people over the past month. Last night there was a huge protest precisely because of this anger that the more and more people are coming out, the more intense the repression is and people are getting fed up. It's finally affecting kind of the sensibility of the people in the capital. They're also coming out onto the streets to demand that Dina Boluarte, the leader of the KU government in Brazil, resign. They're demanding immediate elections, a constituent assembly. So the struggle of the people in Peru definitely continues. But I think we have to definitely keep an eye on this. It's now 48 people, 48 people who have been killed by this government in just over a month. So that's actually more than one person killed every single day in this month. And of course these have been concentrated in massacres, 17 people in one day. This is just unthinkable. And many people have rightly been asking the question, imagine, just imagine if this were happening in one of the U.S. enemies in Cuba, in Venezuela. I don't think we would see... I mean, it would just be a completely different response. The U.S. government has recognized the government of Dina Boluarte. They've maybe posted some tweets saying that they expressed concern, but largely giving a blank check to continue what's happening. They released a statement calling for a dialogue and called for an end to violence quote on both sides. So, you know, this kind of discourse is really legitimizing what the government of Peru is doing right now. But the people remain on the streets will be continuing to follow this. And I encourage people to check out our page. We have posted an interview with Rosia Leandro-Milgar, who was already denouncing the persecution against her even before she was arrested. So it's very important to pay attention to cases like these. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a question of the coup regime now legitimized by the United States government. A great deal of violence, very little reporting globally, arrests of important human rights fighters. Sounds like the situation in many parts of the world. You know, Prashant, we're going to cross the Atlantic, go to the African continent. People should know that there are in fact two countries with similar names one being Somalia, the other being Somaliland. You're going to talk about Somaliland. It's important that people not confuse these two countries because in fact that's part of the dispute. Somaliland declared its own independence in 1991. Now, great deal of tension taking place in that part of the Horn of Africa. What's been happening there? Right. And of course, the US and the UK very much in the picture as we'll see. We'll be having a story out on this soon from our colleague Pawan. But what seems to be happening right now is that there are internal contradictions very clearly in Somaliland itself with sections of the population being very unhappy about, you know, and actually a strong unionist movement emerging there which has actually sought reintegration with Somalia. Now, it's important to remember that a lot of the politics of Somalia has been centered around clans and these clans have traditionally been used to sort of, you know, pursue this old divide and rule policy as experts of the region have told us. And in fact, these clans are also very central to the voting mechanism itself because there's no one person, one vote mechanism which would actually dismantle this. So what has been happening in recent times is we've seen a series of protests in parts of Somaliland, you know, which have been protesting against the Somaliland authorities. There's been a lot of violence, I believe, at least 20 people who were killed over the past few weeks. There were at least one round of protests on Thursday itself and further protests which took place towards the end of December in the first week of January as well. And it's important because I think at this point activists are raising the argument that in many sections, even among many clans of Somaliland there is an increasing, you know, there is an increasing dissatisfaction in Somaliland and this comes in the context of a much larger sense of integration that over the past few decades actually has been building up within Somalia itself where there's a push for a much more stronger you know, center, much more stronger entity in Somalia itself. We know that Somalia was the, you know, of course the U.S. had intervened there and say for the longest time, it's the intervention of the U.S. had a huge impact there and it has remained a very a divided country in many ways but now there is a much more stronger sense of integration, especially among the youth, especially among the diaspora for instance who are calling for far more integration in that sense and it's this context that these protests are important and it's also in this context that it's important to note two things. One is that very recently the Joe Biden administration released its first document which explicitly gives an indication that it is going to work openly with Somaliland and this is something that has raised a lot of outrage in the region and similarly we have a company called General Energy which is listed in the London stock market which is now claiming rights for the exploration and exploitation of oil fields in the region in Somaliland that is and this is very important because the Somalian government has taken objection to it and many experts, especially anti-imperialist activists there point out that these kind of divisions are what enable foreign companies these kind of divisions are what enable foreign interests to come and exploit resources in a way that the local population is not able to benefit. So we see that yet again behind these issues what is often called clan violence or say disagreements between groups etc. There is also the question of energy and there is also the question of foreign intervention. So a conflict will be definitely watching out for quite seriously in the coming weeks as well. Very important to note this conflict also because we know that the Horn of Africa as a whole has been a very crucial region especially in the past few years we saw that how the Ethiopian, the civil conflict in Ethiopia, how the United States had stakes there, we know that for instance in Egypt also the US has very clear stakes and Somaliland has long been a playing ground for as far as the US is concerned and the alternative of course is the possibility that all these countries build strong relations with each other are able to actually establish a strong internal dynamic which would actually keep some of these foreign players out which is what the US and its allies really don't want. So although it might it seems in some senses a local issue but it is in fact an issue with really much larger in fact global implications and especially for the Horn of Africa. It really tells us a lot about various forms of intervention in countries that just can't get their own feet on the table as it were their own sense of place speaking of sense of place let's move to Palestine the current government in Tel Aviv led by Benjamin Netanyahu this is his sixth term as Prime Minister of Israel people say it's the most hard right government that Israel has seen I don't actually think that's true I think that misconstrues what's happening this is the most hard right anti-socially liberal government that Israel has seen it's going to be bad for women in Israel it's going to be bad for the LGBTQ community in Israel and so on but for Palestinians this government is really almost business as usual just before this government took power in fact the previous government set in motion an operation called operation breaking the wave which was an operation to send in wave after wave in fact the waves are not in Palestine wave after wave of Israeli security forces troops into the west bank largely in East Jerusalem to pick up children to arrest children and to basically try to break the back of the cycle of protests that continues in Palestine as Palestinians refuse to be subdued well over the last two days Israel has killed five Palestinians I want to tell you one story and then I'm going to move to the broader question of what is called the politic side inside Palestine one story here in the in the refugee camp of Kalandia which I've visited on numerous occasions outside Ramallah operation breaking the wave was taking place several Israeli troops in Kalandia refugee camp arresting children in one instance they arrested a 17 year old boy by the name of Ramzi Aslan now as Ramzi Aslan was being taken away by the Israeli troops his father Sameer Aslan aged 48 41 ran up to the roof of their house in the refugee camp and Sameer Aslan yelled to his son be strong it's a very poignant thing that he yelled to his son he said be strong he's saying this to his 17 year old boy who's being dragged away by heavily armed Israeli troops no idea when he's going to see his son again and he yells to him be strong as he said these words rocks were thrown by others toward the Israeli troops because there's a great sense of anger in Kalandia against the Israeli forces when I was last in Kalandia refugee camp I met young young people boys and girls who said to me quite openly what do you expect us to do we can't lie down and take this we are going to have to retaliate and I cautioned them you need a strategy and so on it's a luxury for us to have a strategy we are living trying to survive it was a very moving conversation well some rocks were thrown at the Israeli troops and what happened was an Israeli sniper from another elevated point fired at Sameer Aslan who simply stood there and yelled to his son be strong Sameer Aslan by all reports didn't throw any rocks at anybody and yet the sniper took his life he is one person who was killed outside Janine we have evidence that Habib Kamil aged 25 shot to death we have evidence that Abdul Hadi Nazal aged 18 shot to death both in the outskirts of Janine this operation breaking wave is part of an Israeli process to break the back of as I said cycles of protests at the same time this current Israeli government is exercising a kind of politicize against the Palestinian people what do I mean by that the foreign minister of the Palestinian national authority Riad Al-Maliki went to visit Brasilia for the inauguration of Lula as the new president of Brazil when Mr. Al-Maliki returned to the Palestinian territories he was informed that Israel is no longer going to allow him movement he is no longer going to get a permit to leave the West Bank at will now you got to understand that Israel prevents the mobility of every single Palestinian there are long queues at the apartheid wall to enter the West Bank it's almost impossible for families to see each other across the various divides Mr. Al-Maliki as an official of the Palestinian national authority even a special permit to travel now that is declined to him this is the character of the situation currently in Palestine random utterly random killing because the killing of Sameer Aslan was not for any reason it was a random killing Mr. Aslan was merely calling out to his son to say be strong there is no reason for him to be killed no reason that the Israelis could give for him to be killed that is the situation today in Palestine we are going to follow this as we always do at People's Dispatch and at Globetrot you are going to get a lot more on this story well this is give the people what they want coming to you live with Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch it's the 13th of January we are going to move on now lots of protests in Europe most of them unreported Prashant there is of course an upcoming rolling demonstrations I expect in France because the issue of pensions dear to people's hearts right of course pension reform is the French government recently unveiled its fresh proposal for pension reforms it's kind of a ironic because not so ironic as far as capitalism is concerned but nonetheless what these reforms seek to do is basically increase the age of retirement from 62 to 64 and there is a series of proposals which actually make the working life of people far more difficult now this is really not a new proposal we know that in the earlier regime of Macron in 2019 there was a similar proposal mooted at that time the proposed age of 62 to 65 increase in age they had this whole notion of a points based system they tried to reduce the they tried to basically unify all the pension codes and make it one and this met with some of the biggest protests in France in recent time and you know if you look at the reports especially for people dispatch at that time we have reports of almost week after week every second week there would be these massive gatherings tens of thousands of people sometimes crossing 100,000 to 100,000 gathering to just environmentally oppose the government's plan for this kind of pension reform and what happened was of course after that what happened and the government said because of COVID-19 we are not going to bring this up but I think it was really shaken in some senses by the kind of protest that took place in the sheer amount of opposition now two years down the line wait is it three years down the line the proposal has come back and even now if you look for instance supporting I think the estimates that are 75-80% of the population opposes this reform and the reasons are really not very hard to find you are increasing your age of retirement from 60 to 64 you have to work I think 43 full years if you need a pension or something like that but basically what this tells workers what this tells workers across France is that we really we really don't care about what happens as you grow older because across the country what you sort of across the country across the world what workers everywhere want is the idea that you spend your youth working and then you are able to get a safe retirement a relatively comfortable retirement you are able to say get some decent pension but then basically what the French government is doing is actually extend these working years so there is a huge amount of opposition to it the left in France the trade unions all of them coming out on the streets with very basic demands what they are asking for is to actually reduce the retirement age to 60 and the French government is of course this claim that you know pension funds are bankrupt which is why we sort of need to extend this say the retirement age but I think what the trade unions of the left are asking is a very basic question that you say the pension funds are bankrupt but why is it that you can't tax to rich more right why is it for instance that minimum wages cannot be all wages across the country cannot be extended so that all automatically reflects in the contributions that make that you make so what we see here is a very classic solution which we thought the 90s and the 2000s should have taught us that these solutions don't work that you don't keep attacking pensions you don't keep that logic we should have learned that logic by now but the French government continuing to go ahead with these kind of policies so I think what we are going to see definitely in France is probably a whole summer if not more of massive protests of course the government said it is not a final bill we should probably talk about it a bit more etc etc but I think the unions that you have clearly drawn a line that this is once again not acceptable so considering the precarious state of the French government it's actually very debatable as though it's a big question as to how they are going to master the political credibility to sort of get this through but the workers I think are very clear January 19th is going to be a huge demonstration and I think in the coming weeks you are going to see much more of this as workers I think fight for what is that you know we need to have a dignified retirement and not be stretched you know more and more in the because you cannot tax the rich because you cannot increase wages it's a winter of strikes in the United Kingdom a winter and spring of strikes in France an entire summer of strikes across Europe we are going to be following this very closely back to Brazil back to Brazil Riyad Al Maliki the Palestinian foreign minister had been in Brazil for Lula's inauguration they will promise demonstrations Zoe those didn't happen but surprise something did happen tell us well January 8th huge mobs descended on Brasilia of Bolsonaro supporters far right militants essentially in Brazil marching towards the Esplanade of the ministries and then essentially went try to do a replica of Gen 6 many are saying in the US capital and so they stormed this Esplanade of the ministries went right to the National Congress the Supreme Court the Planalto Palace which is the presidential palace destroying everything you know just ripping artwork destroying computers hard drives stealing weapons extremely horrifying images this is there's many elements which have really awoken people's concern I mean one is the fact that it happened the fact that this had been planned for weeks now I mean this is comes after a very very long and concerted campaign from Bolsonaro and his supporters to really implant this election fraud narrative to say that all of the institutions in Brazil are corrupt that they're all conniving against Bolsonaro they're all against Brazil being a great nation really the figure of Alexander Amorais who's from the Supreme Court of course Lula himself as calling him a criminal a corrupt thief and so and they also had been announcing this invasion they had been announcing that they're going to Brasilia to take back what's theirs to this electoral fraud and the security forces in Brasilia were well aware of this I mean it doesn't if you're a security force intelligent you have actually access to this you know that there's been these right wing camps outside military barracks for months now there have been WhatsApp messages all over social media essentially announcing that this was going to happen and yet on Sunday January 8th these crowds hundreds and hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters are not only able to arrive to Brasilia in these buses but also are escorted by the military police and then break through the very very thin layer of security at the Esplanada Ministries you would think that a place where there's three branches of power in the Brazilian state you would have a bit more security especially given the threats and so there's been a number of as of now there's been over a thousand people arrested and they're all being questioned they're going to face charges for their involvement in this invasion but more importantly Lula who's taken a very very hard stand against this condemning it the same day he announced the federal intervention in security forces in Brasilia but he's also said that the people who finance this the people who plan this are going to be held accountable and precisely the head of security for Brasilia and the governor of Brasilia have both been removed and has been suspended because of complicity in this action because is really impossible that they didn't know this was happening and the fact that they didn't you know send more security the fact that they did not do anything to stop it is complicity in what happened and this is we're talking millions of dollars of damages we're talking cultural patrimony paintings things were stolen there was as I said weapons that were stolen from during this raid it's just an attempt to subvert the democratic order in the country and so this is extremely grave but the government has taken strong measures and essentially it's been a political defeat for the far right they had no clear political motivation they weren't successful and the effect has been a government of national unity there's been complete unity the 27 governors of Brazil all went to Brasilia walked around this area with Lula and pledged their support to stop this threat so I think it's crucial and especially just to say the last element is that Jair Bolsonaro of course fled Brazil is in Miami there's been a very strong response also from members of the democratic party in the US calling for him to be sent back to Brazil where he would face charges for involvement in this along with many other crimes so it's definitely not very successful for him or his supporters well Mr. Bolsonaro is in Orlando, Florida in the home of a mixed martial artist I was surprised to see him wearing a shirt of the US football team Zoe, not the Brazilian football team perhaps shows where his allegiance lies moving to another rather grave story this is Afghanistan where reports coming out in this winter of 2022-23 show that about 90% of the population is struggling with food insecurity some of this of course has to do with the continued hold of Afghans resources outside the country the inability of Afghanistan to exercise its rights over its own wealth but also the utter shambolic nature of the government of the Taliban in Afghanistan unable to really look forward an agenda to meet the immediate needs of the people rather than meet the immediate needs of the people of course they decided to go back on their pledge regarding women in education and also women in public life this is a grave situation and I was pretty interested to see that the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council Mr. Jan Egland to Kandahar met with the high Taliban officials essentially telling them that aid agencies like the Norwegian Refugee Council but also the United Nations can't really function if they can't hire women there's something absurd that the Taliban said which is that breastfeeding classes were going to be taught by men to men this suddenly came out as news it was so ridiculous indeed one doesn't know where to even begin well Mr. Egland left Kabul not very satisfactory response the Norwegian Refugee Council had released a very strong statement alongside save the children and care on the 25th of December they said we cannot effectively reach children women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff the question of women in public life in Afghanistan remains on the table interestingly the government of Turkey raised this question asking the organization of Islamic cooperation the OIC to call an extraordinary meeting they want an extraordinary meeting because the Turkish government is of the view that this approach by the Taliban is quote unquote anti Islamic now I don't know how to judge whether something is Islamic or anti Islamic I'm certainly not a scholar but I just want to report to you that there is a debate in the world of Islam and there is a debate between Muslim majority countries whether this question of women in public life or women in education is permitted under the Sharia question well Mr. Erdogan statement Mr. Erdogan being the president of Turkey statement is quite strong Mr. Erdogan said there is no such thing in our religion no one should define any band like that based on Islam Islam does not accept such a thing on the contrary we are members of a religion that says seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave this is a pretty strong statement by Mr. Erdogan I wanted to also of course put on the table of the contest over the world of West Asia between in a sense the Muslim brotherhood that is to say Turkey which is led by Muslim brotherhood government and the more Saudi aligned camp which is where the Taliban comes from this is also that debate that dispute between the Muslim brotherhood and the more hardcore Salafi crowd but keep an eye on Afghanistan 90% of the population food insecure we need to find a way for that country to breathe you have been with us at give the people what they want your favorite Friday your favorite podcast we hope you keep sending us those selfies we are coming to you that is to say Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch and I am Vijay from Globe Trot coming to you live every Friday please join us next week