 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. We're in the month of August. You're with Give the People What They Want brought to you by People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant co-editors of that wonderful website and news service. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Who knows what Globetrotter is? Someday I'll explain it to you. We come to you every week, bringing you the world, talking to you about the issues that matter. Right now, perhaps the most significant development in international politics taking place in the Sahel region in Africa. Last week, the Sahel presidential guard, the presidential guard of Niger, moved against the sitting president and deposed him. Initially, the army decided to come out in support of the president and then backed the coup. Interesting, this is the fourth country in the Sahel which has been in this situation, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali and now Niger. Four countries, important countries in the middle of this belt just beneath the Sahara Desert. Each of them has had at least one coup. In fact, Burkina Faso and Mali have had two of these coups. These coups are very similar in many respects. Firstly, they are deeply driven by an anti-French attitude. These were all former French colonies angry at the return of France and its military through Operation Barkhane in 2013. That deeply anti-French attitude was also driven by an anger at the fact that the French seemed to open the door through the war in Libya in 2011 for the arrival of various jihadi fractions, the Al-Qaeda groups and so on which linked up with different separatists and pastoralists and so on, whether it's the Tuaregs of northern Mali or the Fulani of the central belt of many of these Sahel nations. That advance of these Al-Qaeda forces was quite severe in Mali, perhaps 50% of the country taken over by Al-Qaeda. There was a feeling that these countries were being impoverished not only by France, but by western cooperation, Niger, sending uranium to France, one in three light bulbs in France powered by Niger's uranium, but Niger itself without electricity or countries like Mali, gold producers, but they have no gold reserves. Their reserves 50% of it sitting in the French treasury because they use the French currency. Very little presence of a left, which is why much of this anger and animosity has been seen through military forces where young men, particularly from rural peasant backgrounds, small town backgrounds, angered with the situation, finding no other avenue to express their anger, go through the military to conduct these coup d'etats, consternation in Africa. Ecovas, the economic community of West Africa, quick to condemn the coup so to the African Union, pushback from the leaders in Burkina Faso and Mali saying, you condemn us for taking this action, but you don't condemn and they use a strong word, the slavish governments of Africa who are subordinated by the West. Very strong response from these countries. Pressure on Niger, which cuts uranium exports to France, inclusive. Secondly, a pipeline supposed to run from the southern fields of Nigeria up towards Libya through Niger might be off the books. That was a kind of south stream pipeline to bring natural gas to Europe. Will there be a military invasion of Niger by the West or by Ecovas countries? Mali and Burkina Faso say, if you attack Niger, you attack us. Interesting moments taking place here where the ghost of Thomas Sankara seems to fly from one end of the Sahel to the other. People's dispatch has been covering this, Globetrotter has been covering this. We're going to stay on this story. It's an important story. It has immense possibilities for the African continent. Not so many possibilities for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the United States dropped nuclear bombs on those cities in 1945 on August 6 starting. And hence since we're at the cusp of that and there's a new film out on Robert Oppenheimer who developed that bomb. Prashant, how do we look back at those bombings, Oppenheimer and of course the current situation in East Asia? Like you said, a lot of talk about the movie which tries to deal with the social and political conditions of the time, the arguments around the war, etc. Important to note that while the movie does discuss in various terms the horrors of the bomb, it really does not go deep into the people who were affected when the first test took place in New Mexico a couple of years ago. It's part of the Globetrotter People's Dispatch Fellowship. One of our writers had an excellent piece on that. I urge everyone to check that out. But I think that one of the important questions raised at that time which was, was there really a need to drop that bomb? And of course later studies, many analysis have proved that there actually wasn't really a need to drop those two bombs. It was as much as the first salvo of the Cold War rather than an attempt to end World War II which is what the United States has kept claiming all these years. But you know what, I think fast forward in a couple of decades, many decades into where we are now, it's extremely dismal situation. You remember the 60s and 70s and 80s when there was a very powerful anti-nuclear movement and even world leaders were convinced that something had to be done about the situation. So even during the Cold War, during that time of intense rivalry, you saw talks taking place, nuclear non-proliferation becoming high on the agenda. People really raising that as an issue. Whereas today we have gotten some senses of what level is so much more used to the presence of thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons with all major powers. Also important to remember that India has it, Pakistan has it, Israel while nobody talks about it but Israel has it. So you have nuclear weapons in all these, you know thousands of nuclear weapons across the world and a security situation where there is sometimes very casual talk about the use of these weapons despite the fact that despite the annihilation it might cause. And I think it is in this context that we need to see the kind of rise in global tensions at various hotspots especially in East Asia, especially in Southeast Asia that are taking place. Another anniversary that passed is also we need to remember the anniversary of the Armistice of the Korean War which was also towards the end of July. And I think those who read history will remember that at some point, at various points US authorities did consider using a nuclear bomb during the Korean War as well which clearly shows that as long as high tensions prevail as long as there is a question of, you know, there are conditions created which which can lead to war. The threat of the deployment of nuclear weapons is always there and you know sometimes all it takes is one as it's a mistake sometimes all it takes is a moment of anger, etc. whatever. But in this context especially dangerous to see what is happening in East Asia right now we have, you know, a renewed rise of militarism both in South Korea and Japan and the rise of very extreme nationalistic sentiments the rise of, you know, we had US nuclear submarines visiting the, you know, we're visiting South Korea recently on the 18th of August we're going to see a summit with the US South Korea and Japan where once again there will be a reiteration of these ties of defense and this actually is extremely unfortunate because to be, I think to be a bit you know, even a few years ago there was actually hope for peace in the Korean Peninsula when Moon Jae-in was the president of South Korea there were talks there was the palm moon job declaration for instance and a lot of steps were being made to sort of East tensions on the Korean Peninsula and within a few years we were completely reversed to a very heightened level of aggression in militarism that we're not seen in many, many decades. So we have on the one hand the East Asia and Korea and Japan becoming a hot point we have on the other hand Taiwan becoming another hot point all these, you know, all these really lead to a huge amount of concern considering the fact that everyone involved is, all the key players involved are nuclear player powers at this point. So I think this August 6th more than many other Hiroshima days in the past is a moment to kind of take passage back and take stock of where the anti-nuclear movement is where the anti-war movement is and you know I try to sort of for people's movements especially I think it's a time when they'll be raising these demands because a nuclear war is not just about two countries which are fighting against each other it has such a catastrophic effect as Hiroshima and Nagasaki points out it is long-term effects as New Mexico for instance shows the number of people who suffered from diseases across the world people who suffered from the impact of testing all this is really you know these are disasters from which recovering is going to be very unlikely so I think a very important anniversary that we need to take note of. Quite right I mean the film Oppenheimer not sure if it's opened in Keto Zoe lot of violence there and the lead up to the August 20th election looks like there's an interesting field in play but that violence election what's happening in Ecuador. Well as viewers and readers of People's Dispatch would know on August 20th the people of Ecuador are headed to early elections these early elections just to refresh people's memory are because Guillermo Lasso was facing an impeachment trial and the day the trial was going to start the day before it was supposed to start as he had previously announced rather than face this trial and potentially be impeached and removed from office he said that he would rather activate the cross death mechanism which is a sort of dramatic name but also dramatic consequences which is that he then this dissolves the parliament gives him powers to rule by decree and calls for early elections and these elections were set by the National Electoral Council for August 20th the process of registering the candidates already took place they're in campaign now and at the same time it is as you said a very very very difficult situation for Ecuador there have been serious concerns over violence across the country the worst episodes have taken place within the country's prisons which is a phenomenon that has been taking place for the past several years in 2021 almost 500 people have been killed in what are called prison massacres which is when a fight breaks out there's no or little intervention by security forces their conditions that have inmates or maybe rival gangs rival groups in the same spaces with each other and there have been again 500 people since 2021 that have been killed in these massacres extremely concerning and just weaker so back more another set of massacres took place one lasted for three days in the littoral penitentiary at the same time outside of the prisons there were also a horrific acts of violence carried out again by drug trafficking groups and to circle it all the way back to Guillermo Lasso despite him having throughout his time in office as numbers of violent crime have been increasing in the past five years the homicide rate has actually multiplied by five so these are serious numbers we're talking about in his impeachment trial he was actually under investigation because an investigative journalist group essentially uncovered links between him with the government and drug trafficking criminal groups in the country so today he faces a very difficult situation in the sense that he again is now ruling by decree he will leave office in this year but again many people are quite upset with his government for not doing enough for potentially having links to these groups there were also rumors by gang leaders that they had entered in negotiations with him and his government and that they had reached a peace agreement but at the end of the day the main issue here is that Ecuador is in an even worse situation than it was under Lenin Moreno we saw the under Lenin Moreno and IMF was taken out agreements were made with the US government people saw their quality of life drastically decrease and then the pandemic came we saw those horrific scenes of bodies being on the streets of Guayaquil Guillermo Lasso, the banker, Wednesday elections in 2021 defeating Andrés Arauz and the situation in the country has rapidly and very quickly deteriorated with Ecuador being now one of the hotspots of violent crime and of drug trafficking in the continent so this is seriously concerning the marked increase in number of Ecuadorians crossing the southern US border they make up I think 20% of those who are crossing these are you know this is a serious impact so these elections are even more important in this context the citizens revolution ticket with Luisa González is pulling about 38% they need over 40% with a 10 point difference to win in the first round and so we'll be following this first round of Ecuadorian elections also the parliament will be up for elections will be very very interesting to see how this situation shakes out very important important to know you mentioned the Ecuadorians migrating out of the country this election on 20th of August there will be I think 13 million people voting in it and a large number of them Ecuadorians outside Ecuador it's become interesting how democracy works with its diaspora populations and so on raises interesting questions about citizenship you're with give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch Zoe and Prashanta I'm Vijay from Globetrotter coming at you with a series of important stories Zoe was just talking about the situation in Ecuador where there's an election on August 20th you've got to go up then and take a right turn and you'll be in Cuba which brokered the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the ELN well for its pains Cuba was then put on the US government state sponsor of terrorism list quite ridiculous maneuver by the Trump administration that peace agreement was signed Zoe now what's happening between the ELN and the government well in the last cycle of dialogues the bilateral ceasefire was actually signed the peace the total peace agreement is still pending but the bilateral ceasefire a very very important advancement this is the most significant agreement in terms of ceasing hostilities between the two parts really sit in the history of the existence of the ELN the National Liberation Army this ceasefire went into effect as of yesterday August 3rd and there was a ceremony installing the Commission of Participation so the ELN agenda for peace involves one of the key elements is creating spaces for the participation of society and so with the effect of the peace fire of the ceasefire and following the agreements that came out of the Mexico round of dialogues you know in the beginning of this year they installed this Commission of Participation this was with participation of left-wing senators such as Iván Cepela and now for the next period they will be developing a methodology for how to involve society in this peace process with the understanding that this is a peace process that if it wants to rebuild society which has been ravaged by war there needs to be full participation of the citizens of the organizations that have been organizing on the streets that have been demanding peace that have been demanding an anti-paramilitarism so this is a very significant development and I think that you know when we saw the victory Gustavo Petro last year and his commitment him and Francia Marquez's commitment to total peace it's not just words it's not just discourse this is something that is being implemented in the actuality this is having impacts on people's lives these are historic advancements so I think it's very important to really to really look at that and see that this is these are serious advancements for the country at the same time while yesterday was a historic day for peace for advancing in this in this agreement between and hopefully reaching peace agreements in the next coming period there was also a fresh shall we say destabilization attempt lodged against Gustavo Petro linked to the arrest of his son Nicolas Petro he's being accused of money laundering and having essentially having illicit money from drug trafficking groups and in classic lawfare fashion a very very very determined right-wing outlet called Semana which has we've talked about a lot on this show it's one of the most vitriolic magazines in Colombia that has basically dedicated itself to attacking the left to attacking Petro to attacking all sorts of progressive leaders and proposals in the country this journalist has gone on the attack and said that Gustavo Petro use these illicit funds that his son is being accused of in his campaign Nicolas Petro allegedly confessed to this in these preliminary hearings it's very very very concerning these these accusations they seek to essentially undermine Gustavo Petro's legitimacy there has been a very very strong response from the historic packed coalition from Gustavo Petro himself he's calling on all forces to mobilize in defense of his government alerting that these are tired recipes and formulas used by the far right to attack progressive governments so this is really a developing story begin last night will be following it people's dispatch but very important when the right wing media speaks and starts to attack we have to question we have to pause and see really what's behind all of this what's behind all of this who knows what's behind all of this in Haryana you know punctually in India these conflagrations in India the term is communal riot refers to actually mostly Hindu nationalist attacks at Muslim populations Prashant once again this time within driving distance from India's capital New Delhi terrible riots breaking out in the new district in Haryana apparently almost five dead what's been happening there why has the Vishwa Hindu Parishad returned where have they come from where have they been all these years question was whether they had ever gone anywhere at all but I think that you know this the incident that took place in Haryana we have a very good report which actually details what happened and in some senses to give a quick update for our readers what happened was that there was a religious procession that was taken out in the days preceding the religious procession there were videos by you know a couple of people including one who had who has held responsible for the murder of two Muslim men who was part of a vigilante group now many of these vigilante groups have been closely involved with the protection of what they call the protection of cows which often becomes an excuse for targeting people from minority communities especially the Muslims and also in fact disrupts the economy of that region considerably but in many parts of North India cow vigilante is actually become a big social problem and is not helped by the fact that there is often very little state or administrative action against those who indulge in it so there was a video by one of the people who was involved who has been accused in a couple of murders and is connected to these gangs a very provocative video about this procession which is going to take place once that video came out there were responses from those in that region warning the procession that was going to take place saying that be careful don't come into the city etc etc and obviously the procession did take place there was violence and the exact chronology might be is still being reported multiple reports have come out but I think rather than go into the details what this serves as is actually a microcosm for what is happening in many parts of North India and even in fact other parts of the country as well just a few we are in the midst, Manipur is still in the midst, North Eastern state of Manipur is still in the midst of violence which is once again a considerable amount leading the violence there have been these vigilante groups you know espousing ethnic and religious superiority and a very strong anti you know always having a very clear other community against which they stage these attacks and I think that the kind of what you often like you said term used is communal violence or communal riots but there is a different structural aspect to it which is that over the past many years there has been of these kind of vigilante groups who work who seem part of the larger project of the Hindu nationalist project and what has happened as a result of that is that in principle they seem to be getting a lot of impunity there is a lot of impunity where little accountability often not arrested which basically gives them a free hand and gives a message that what they are doing is acceptable in various ways and this has actually led I think to an escalation in these kind of violent acts a real rise in fear and insecurity among minority communities and even a rise in anger which is really expected as well so overall there is this churning of social vitalizing of social which is taking place under this government which actually has very you know probably very disastrous results for the country as a whole India has a long history of communal and religious fault lines fault lines on the lines of caste and it has always been a big challenge for Indian society to try to overcome these and often those have not happened as well but what seems to be happening over the past few years but especially in recent times is actually a widening of this much more strongly and in many of these instances what happens is there is a bout of violence there are a couple of deaths reported and then there is huge polarization between these communities which live with each other with various degrees of tension which is common and that's natural among communities but often there is say a complete withdrawal a separation between these communities which actually supports the project of you know in India being supports the ideology that these communities are separated it's not possible to sort of live together so actually that is the direction in which many of these incidents are taking society the question really often that is needs to be asked is what steps are the government what steps is the administration taking to prevent that when these videos came out when civil society warned that this procession might you know lead to dangerous situation where these warnings taken seriously enough and it doesn't look like that from the reporting that happened because I think many people have pointed out with various points that if the administration is decisive enough it can always stop a religious right or a communal right and every time a communal right or religious violence takes place it is also an indication that and this has happened in past administrations in many administrations in the past it is always a sign that for various political reasons the administration does in power would not really mind this violence taking place or in some ways are encouraging it I think that is a fundamental question that keeps cropping up each time such incidents take place in any part of India yeah and just to give one particular detail about the new district almost 80% of the population there are Muslims and this was a highly provocative act by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to say we are going to march there to in a sense reclaim Hindu sides highly provocative action which perhaps other governments might have said no you can't do that you just can't march there in that provocative way you gotta perhaps talk to local leaders and so on none of those calming mechanisms were utilized and here you have this terrible contigration once more punctually as it were you know at the UN there are frequent reports made by high officials of the UN about the situation in the world I happen to watch a recent report made by Reena Ghilani now Ms Ghilani is an important figure in the UN she is the UN famine prevention and response coordinator the reason I wanted to bring this story up is she gave you know in the report the statistics about how last year 250 million people suffered from acute hunger it's the highest you know it's been in a long time how almost 400 thousand people are facing famine conditions in seven countries all of them in the midst of armed conflict and she said 35 million people around the world are at the edge of starvation you know these numbers come every year and so on and they're moving and she basically pointed the finger at armed conflict as an important spur for great hunger you know the Sudan being a place where the UN has focused a lot of attention but really why I wanted to bring this story up is because I wanted to actually share with you Ms Ghilani's comment and I want us to end the show with that she said I have sat with mothers in too many nutrition wards in too many displaced camps and as their small children fought for their lives they were too weak to cry even make a sound that eerie silence is deafening it never leaves you and then from that we get the idea that starvation is a kind of silence it's a powerful powerful intervention by Ms Ghilani to the United Nations I hope all of you keep that in mind you were listening to give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that Zoe and Prashant I'm Vijay from Globetrotter see you next week