 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. March 10th, all the way recording on March 9th in Caracas, Venezuela, we're here with you because we've been here at the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the passing of Hugo Chavez, who had been the president of Venezuela for 14 years from 1999 till his death in 2013. Mr. Chavez had been a military officer. He had come to prominence as the important figure in the presidential guard during the uprising against price rises, particularly fuel price rises in 1992, an uprising called the Caracas. Subsequently, Mr. Chavez attempted a coup d'etat in 1994, which failed at which point, unlike most world leaders, Mr. Chavez was given the opportunity to go on television, where he said that I take full responsibility for what's happening. Let the coup end. For now, our aims are not going to be met in this fashion. We're going to prison briefly. Coming out of prison made contact with a range of political forces of the left constructed an electoral platform, won a decisive election victory in 1998, and then governed for 14 years, attempting to build a sovereignty of the country of Venezuela, build the dignity of its people, build the sovereignty first through writing a new constitution, a considerable achievement. 72% of the people who voted for that constitution voted yes, which is in fact an example of direct democracy, relatively unparalleled in our time. That constitution then provided the government the opportunity to use the oil wealth to build the social and economic capacity of the people. Mr. Chavez died in 2013, struck early in life, hit by cancer, treatments in Cuba, and in Venezuela did not succeed. At his death, he nominated his successor, Nicolas Maduro, who has been the president of Venezuela for the past 10 years. In Caracas, at the celebration, the commemoration of 10 years of Chavez's death, but really the celebration of his life, his considerable life on 5th of March, President Nicolas Maduro gave a speech where he talked about the 10 years of his presidency, an interesting choice to have made at the commemoration of the passage of Mr. Chavez's life, a considerable choice to talk about these 10 years because in fact what is most interesting about the situation in Venezuela is at the death of Mr. Chavez, oil prices collapsed, the attempt to build a new international system went into a kind of deep freeze and an intense fight was brought to the Venezuelan government by the government of the United States. These maneuvers meant that the situation in Venezuela came under great threat. There was a problem of what we call the hybrid war, an information war, sabotage, the destruction of large parts of Venezuela's ability to trade in the international system and so on. All of that put enormous pressure on Mr. Maduro as he tried to govern the country. Now we've got to understand when we think about somebody like Hugo Chavez, it's difficult to be a successor to somebody of those considerable talents. A man of great charisma understood the pulse of his people, understood exactly how to speak about the kind of transformation his country required. Anybody who succeeded Mr. Chavez would have faced difficulty in meeting up to the enormous legacy of the Chavez years, but Mr. Maduro faced two challenges. One, the normal challenge of coming after somebody of the talents of Mr. Chavez, but secondly, this intensified war that was brought to Venezuela, not only but largely by the administration of Donald Trump, his four years were difficult years not only for Venezuela but also of course for Cuba. Mr. Maduro talked about these 10 years and also about the fact that in the course of the last few years, Venezuela has been able to turn slightly the corner from the immense pressure placed by the United States on this country of enormous resources, particularly oil resources. Well, we've been here covering this commemoration. I'm going to turn it now to Prashant. He's going to talk about the events that took place in Caracas and elsewhere to commemorate the 10 years of the passing of Hugo Chavez. Right, Vijay. So like you said, I mean, the event on the fifth had Nicolas Maduro, of course, but also powerful set of leaders from across Latin America. For instance, Luis Arcio Bolivia was there, Daniel Ortega was there. Very significantly, Raul Castro made an appearance as well. Evo Morales was there, Rafael Correa was there. And it was really kind of interesting to see the experiences and the stories they bought. Daniel Ortega was also there. So the experiences and the stories they bought both of Chavez and the 10 years that have since passed. And I think one of the more really interesting things was the fact that Chavez brought to the continent at that point of time that sense of integration, that sense of internationalism. Each of those leaders who spoke there, leaders of their own processes, leaders of their own revolutionary processes, people who have resisted imperialism for decades. They were very honest and they were also very touching and sincere and it was quite an emotional moment when each of them talked about what Chavez meant for them, what Chavez meant for their processes, what Chavez sort of brought to the idea of integration of the continent, the idea of the imperialist struggle against the United States. And I think all of these leaders also highlighted the fact that in the 10 years since it is one of the great achievements of the Venezuelan people of the Bolivarian Revolution is the fact that they have actually resisted what is a force of an unbelievable extent. In fact, the United States, what has it been doing over the past many years, both in terms of direct coup attempts, in terms of assassination attempts, but also the stranglehold of sanctions which have attacked every aspect of life in Venezuela. The fact that Venezuela has managed through the participation of the people through the coalition between the civilian and the military sectors, the fact that Venezuela has actually managed to overcome this consistent daily attack is something that all these leaders celebrated as well. And like I said, it's important at this moment because we're seeing a reversal of the trend you were talking about, a reversal of the trend from the middle of this decade where it seemed that right-wing regimes were completely rampant all over the continent. We've seen this transition taking place across Latin America, left-wing progressive governments coming to power. So it was actually a very important moment for all these leaders to come together to remember the man, the force who started, who was one of the key popper people who started it all. A lot of people also talking about the relationship between Pidel and Chavez, which was basically the engine that propelled this force, this movement of history. But that was just one of the days preceding we saw actually a host of Venezuelan government officials, representatives of social movements, intellectuals across Latin America, talking about various aspects of the Bolivarian Revolution, about democracy, about the process of communes, about anti-colonialism or decolonialism, about the struggle against imperialism. Each of these which has been an element, a pillar of the Bolivarian Revolution, and how not only it has been a pillar, it was a celebratory, of course, but also the challenges ahead, the way to sort of move forward on each of these fronts, for that matter, the battle of ideas and the communication war as well. Each of these areas being one where Venezuela is really, you know, fighting the good fight as they say, but also facing a number of challenges at this point. And the only way forward for Venezuela, the only way forward to keep resisting this onslaught by the United States and its allies is to actually strengthen and deepen these processes and that was really the kind of conclusion that all these discussions, all these panels sort of reached. And it was quite unlike some of the usual panel discussions we hear because these were discussions we see, audience really sort of identified with, these were discussions we see, audience were living in for the past 10 years and more. So there was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of connects between what the panelists were talking about and what the audience felt. A lot of, for instance, a lot of cheering, a lot of slogans that were raised kind of reflecting, I think, two aspects. One defines and the second hope. And both of these are, you know, integral aspects of the Bolivarian Revolution today. Like you said, that kind of marks this moment here and now. Zoe, you know, one of the slogans that one hears in Venezuela is Yosue Chavista. Also Yosue Chavez. People say that Chavez didn't die in 2013. In fact, he's with them. He's part of their process and so on. You covered a lot of the mobilization, mass mobilizations to commemorate his life. What were those like? Yes, so on March 5th, I was lucky enough to be on the ground in Caracas. And on that day, more than eight mobilizations were carried out across the city, all leading to Cuartal de la Montaña, where Chavez's remains are kept. And, you know, it was a really beautiful march. We're talking about 10 years since the death of Hugo Chavez, a leader who meant so much to the Venezuelan people. And these are just marches filled the song with joy, with dance, with remembering the legacy that he left. And I spoke to many people in the march. Before the march started, I spoke to several women who are called cooks of the homeland. So they're cooks in schools, they're cooks in government buildings. And if you look at, for example, how cooks and service workers are treated in other countries, I don't think they would have the same prestige and honor that they're given in Venezuela. They're recognized as not only essential, but people are serving the homeland to our integral parts. And you can see that in the way that they relate to their own profession and discuss, you know, the impact of the Bolivarian Revolution on their lives. For many of these women who are coming from extremely working class backgrounds or families, with the Bolivarian Revolution, they were telling me, this was the first time that they had access to education, access to essential services and rights that should be, you know, of course rights, speaking to the teachers as well, also telling how the Bolivarian Revolution revolutionized, of course, the educational system, the fact that so many more universities were created, so many more public universities with more spots for students to study. This is such an important step forward, and people really recognize that. And that's why there were thousands of people on the streets marching, singing, chanting, remembering the legacy, holding the Constitution, holding photos, holding signs. And it was really powerful, actually, arriving to Cuarta de la Montaña, again, with thousands of people, different, you know, marching bands, different groups there, and people waiting hours, hours just to see Chavez, just to see and pass by the remains of Chavez. A symbolic day, I think, in Latin American movements, they talk a lot about Missica and this importance of having a connection to different elements that really energize the struggle. And I think that the memory of Chavez, the legacy of Chavez, really energizes the Venezuelan people to continue resisting. And a lot of people say, you know, the Americans don't understand us. They think that they can just strangle our economy, try to invade our country, try to put a puppet president, and they think that we're going to bend over. They think that we're going to give up. And I think what's so clear about being on the streets these days, seeing the conviction that people have after 10 years, as Prashant said, in spite of everything, in spite of the most severe economic blockade, they're still resisting because it's not a, you know, there were good times, there were great times when there was a lot of money, a lot of oil wealth, when things were a lot better. But they know the transition that they saw in their lives and they know what dignity means. It's not just about, you know, the wealthy having access to university. It's about everyone having access to university. And beyond that, it's about everyone having a stake in building this political project. And that was so clear when talking to people. Very, very powerful testimonies on the streets. Also speaking to different members of social movements who organize with the missions, who have been integral parts of building, for example, the Great Housing Mission, who are part of the medical missions. It's quite impressive, the large popular participation in these processes. And that's precisely why so many people feel represented, because it's not just a process that came from above, involved a couple of people, gave some welfare. It's really a process about building up the people, building up their dignity, their strength, their local organizations, their community organizations, and allowing them to realize that they can fight for what's important to them. You'll listen to give the people what they want, coming to you from people's dispatch. That's Zoe over here and Prashant over here. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Happy to be with you every week on Friday. Really pleased that you could join us and want you to go tell your friends about our show. Want to also greet you. This is the week of International Working Women's Day. What Zoe mentioned, I think is quite key is that women workers were, a very large number of them were on the streets to honor and commemorate Hugo Chavez. But of course, right across Venezuela on March 8th, there were celebrations for International Working Women. So greetings to you for that. Moving on, you've got a couple of interesting stories for you. We've been reporting a lot about how the French have been booted out of the Sahel. Their militaries have been told to leave Burkina Faso and so on. And then, well, right on target, Emmanuel Macron, president of France, goes to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prashant, lots of good reporting and people's dispatch on this. Yeah, we have an interview with our friend Kabali Musawali who has been one of the most brilliant experts on this subject who has exhaustively covered it. And it's interesting because Macron sort of goes to four countries in Africa with the mandate that he wants to sort of reset ties in the continent. And now what that means is really kind of tough to say because this comes at a time when the people of Africa, especially Western Africa, really, really unhappy with France and we've seen protests break out across the continent. But also at the same time, if you know what I mean, in a sense that there's been this issue where, what do you call it, even in Congo, even in the DRC, we had protests taking place in front of the French embassy. Interestingly, some of the protesters are actually waving Russian flags. So we need to make what we can out of that. And one of the aspects is probably an unhappiness in many parts of Africa with how the Europeans are pushing and forcing people in the global south to toe their line on the Ukraine war. But this is also an issue of what is happening in the DRC itself, the protests that took place because Rwanda has been the supporter of the group called M23, which has been causing chaos inside the DRC, waging a war. We've had multiple rounds of negotiations and every round the M23 says that, okay, we'll be drawing, et cetera, et cetera, and then the attacks and offenses continue. And by now it's crystal clear that Rwanda, that is supporting the M23 group, but Rwanda in turn is supported by European forces and the United States. And so these links are what the people in the DRC are extremely angry about and have been protesting about for quite some time. So in this context, this is also a time again, like I said, when both Mali and Burkina Faso asked French troops to actually leave their countries, we also have a story about the West African people's organizations, which is actually a coalition of people's movements in West Africa expressing their support for the new axis that is developing between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. All of these countries where France's role has been very controversial. And like I said, in these two countries, they've actually expelled French troops as well. So it's interesting to see that West African people's movements also sort of reflecting the anti-imperialist sentiment against the French that has kind of captured the whole of Sahel region. And so this is a context in which Macron visits in a protest in the DRC. There is expulsion and mass protests in West Africa. And then Macron comes and says that he wants to reset. He says that military facilities will be co-managed with the host countries as if that makes it any better, sort of giving military occupation a friendly face, so to speak, as if that makes it any better. But yeah, so this is actually part of a longer process, I think, and that's what we've been writing about for many years. The fact that despite all these attempts by Macron, despite various kinds of inducements, the fact is there is an overarching push against the French and probably soon against the United States as well in the region. So where both the United States and the French have military presence in the U.S., having substantial military presence actually. So there is that larger sense of, larger push that is coming in terms of the opposition to military facilities, in terms of the unwillingness to sort of take the U.S. line on the Ukraine war, the attempt to sort of, you know, try to forge their own path, which does not necessarily mean that you support one country or the other, but to take decisions which sort of make more strategic sense for you. So I think many countries in the region thinking on those lines, many others may be wanting to think on those lines, but perhaps bound by the fact that financially, countries like France actually have a huge say over their policies. So all in all, a very interesting time for West Africa and the whole region as the whole continent is whole. Well, in 2016, Prashant, the African Union passed a resolution against foreign military bases. It seems that the mood of the African people is now meeting the resolution that they passed in 2016. Let's see what happens. I mean, Macron is the target in many countries. It would be interesting to see if any of these world leaders are going to be as brusque and blunt with the United States or the UK, which are actually building bases as we speak through the Ghana initiative and so on. So they're going after Macron now, but let's see what happens later. The weakest chain in the link. The weakest chain in the link precisely, Emmanuel Macron. Well, the weakest chain would be Canadians if the Canadians had military bases, but they certainly don't. We're going to move on, move back actually to a place we've covered over and over again. And the only reason we cover this place is because it is a best-seeing saw on humanity. And that, of course, is the occupation of the Palestinians. Zoe, people's dispatch routinely, weekly covers something happening in Palestine. We don't have a correspondent there. We don't have anybody there. But we weekly cover what's happening in Palestine because it is that best-seeing saw. What's the story this week? Well, a lot of, there's been a lot of coverage of these protests within Israel and Tel Aviv, of people protesting the right-wing government, protesting in Amar bin Gavir, his very backward right-wing conservative policies. But I think what's more interesting, and what we've pointed to on this show many times, is A, that his policies regarding Palestine actually are not very different at all. But also, people within Palestine are forging a way more serious resistance to his words, to his policies, and to his rule. We've reported on this, but Palestinian prisoners have now been, have now completed over 20 days of civil resistance of disobedience in Israeli prisons. Over 4,000 Palestinian prisoners considered political prisoners. They have been organizing against the conditions that they're subjected to. Normally, which with, before Itamar included, of course, administrative detention, so many limiting to their rights as prisoners, being able to contact their lawyers, being able to contact their families. But under Itamar's rule, under his different policies that he's announced, for example, he has said that Palestinian prisoners should not get fresh bread. So he's denying so many elements of basic humanity. He's saying that every Palestinian prisoner is a terrorist. So many very harsh policies and words against these people who are in such precarious conditions in these prisons. Many of them held without charge. Many of them held on terms of charges. We know that there's hundreds, hundreds of Palestinian children being held in these prisons for being accused of throwing rocks, being accused of engaging in the most basic resistance to the most criminal government regime that exists today. So I think it's so important to follow the resistance of these political prisoners. As of now, there has been no real concrete response to their demands, and they've said that if there continues to be no response, they're going to escalate their resistance to a full-fledged hunger strike. They're going to engage across all of the Israeli prisons where there are Palestinian prisoners in a full-fledged hunger strike. We know that many different, through the last couple of decades, this has been a very strong tool of Palestinian political prisoners. Some have been able to achieve their freedom. Some have been forced to be fed. But again, it's an extremely important act of resistance of people who are in such a precarious state being held in Israeli prisons, under Israeli military courts, such horrific situations. And of course, the situation that Palestinians are going through is not limited to this treatment in the prisons. We know that over the past couple of weeks, since the beginning of 2023, over 60 Palestinians have been killed in raids by the Israeli occupation forces. They're supposedly targeting armed resistance fighters. But as we know from looking at the death tolls of these raids in Nablus, in Jenin, the majority of people have been killed are civilians. It's been young people. It's been old people. Horrific violence that has not received a proper condemnation in all the while, all the while with all this violence against the Palestinian people continuing. The settlement project continues. Israel has announced the expansion of settlements and it's really received no true backlash for this. So I think it's a critical time. We have to look to the resistance of Palestinian prisoners who throughout the Palestinian struggle have been really on the forefront of waging such brave and heroic resistance to these conditions, to demanding rights, to demanding freedom, and to demanding that the fact that resistance is not a crime, resisting an illegal regime is not a crime. It's an important story. Of course, we're on it all the time, covering that story and others go to peoplesdispatch.org. You catch the latest in movement driven news stories. Very happy to say that we're together here, Prashant, Zoe and I in Karakas covering, as I said, the commemoration of the 10 years passing of Hugo Chavez, looking at things, possibilities for the future, the communas, the way in which people are organizing themselves. We listened to a governor of the state of LaGuaria recently told us about how you've got to take care of people. If you're not taking care of people, what kind of government are you taking care of people? Not happening right now on the borders of Eastern Europe. In Ukraine, that conflict continues, took a nasty turn this week. There was an alleged incident where a Ukrainian organization crossed the border, north of Ukraine, on the border region with Belarus, Breyansk, and there was some civilian casualties, people killed. There was perhaps some kidnapping. Things are very hard to unravel in the fog of war. You can follow 100 telegram channels. You can read as many websites as you want in the middle of a war. Take it from me. Very hard to accurately know what's going on. That's what the Russians said and the Russians then retaliated after Mr. Putin gave a speech with 81 hypersonic missiles smashing into Ukraine, particularly into Kiev. 40% of Kiev is without power as a consequence of this hypersonic cruise missile attack. Chillingly, it appears as far as the United Nations statement is concerned that the hypersonic cruise missile attack also struck the electric grid in the Zaporizhnyi power plant, which is a nuclear power plant. Now interesting, let's go back to the Chinese peace proposal. One of the points the Chinese have put on the table is to make sure that if this war is to go further, if it is to continue, let there be an agreement between all parties not to strike near or at a nuclear facility, particularly the Zaporizhnyi nuclear power plant, one of the largest in the region. Accounts, reports are saying that the power grid there has been struck. This is quite chilling. This war is going to escalate, it seems, largely because peace negotiations pushed by the Chinese, I must say, very interesting peace proposal. Peace negotiations look to no longer be a central focus for all the parties. And by all the parties, I don't just mean the Russians and the Ukrainians, because it must be said when the Chinese proposed the peace plan, it was welcomed by the Ukrainians who said they will look at it, they will study it. Indeed, it was welcomed by Emmanuel Macron who said it must be looked at and studied. And two days before the Chinese released that document, the leading Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, met with Mr. Putin in Moscow. So it's unlikely that this was not discussed fully with the Russians. All sides must be in favor of peace negotiations if those are to advance. All sides are not exhausted by Russia and Ukraine, must include, of course, the West, NATO, the United States, and so on. More arms being supplied from the West to Ukraine, although reports coming from the United States, polling data released this week shows Mr. Biden is having a difficult time selling his plan to spend a lot of resources from the United States to arm Ukraine on and on. Poll data shows people are simply not interested in this in increasing numbers for two reasons. Number one, they understand that this conflict in Ukraine is creating global inflation, not good for households in places even in the United States, which generally does not import inflation. Secondly, they don't want to see their social wealth sent off to buy weapons for a war that many of them are beginning to think is futile. They would like to see their money spent on other things. If you know the United States, it's unlikely that polling data is going to show that people want the money to be spent on infrastructure. More likely they would like tax cuts or check to come to them so they can consume more, that in fact is generally what polling data shows. But certainly Biden is having a harder time with his own public. Looks like this hypersonic attack is going to increase the conflict for now. We're talking to you. Give the people what they want from Venezuela. No conflict here. Building hospitals, building colleges and so on. Far better way to look in the morning into the mirror and say, here I am off to school rather than here I am off to war. Give the people what they want brought to you by Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Thanks a lot. We'll see you next week.