 Today is the 16th of July 2021, you will give the people what they want brought to you by me, Vijay from Globetrotter, but most importantly, I'm not the important one today. Most importantly, of course, also from Prasanth and Zoe from People's Dispatch friends, People's Dispatch is three years old out of its terrible tools into what Prasanth calls the traumatic threes. People's Dispatch, welcome to be three years old. Zoe, would you like to tell us a little bit about People's Dispatch very quickly? Yes, well, People's Dispatch, as you just mentioned, Vijay was launched three years ago on July 20, 2018 on the birthday of our great leader, Frans Fanon, great anti-colonial writer, activist revolutionary. And basically, since then, we've been working to highlight movement stories, cover movement voices, really give light to what working people across the world are doing to change the reality and to fight for a better future. And that has always been our mission. We have lots more to do, more movements to speak to, more ground to cover, but we're really honored to be doing this work every day. We're motivated by seeing people on the streets and we're glad to be here, glad to keep growing and glad to be here today celebrating that anniversary. So thank you so much. Well, well done, People's Dispatch, telling stories from the movements, from the streets, feet directly amongst people marching for justice and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, billionaires not on the streets, billionaires not marching for justice. Certainly, they do drive in their limousine to the banks and they seem to want to go to space. Prashant, what are these billionaires doing in rocket ships or what pretend to be rocket ships? Right, Vijay, it's the kind of story which really beggars disbelief or as they say it, you know, in the world we are in today, it's like you're reading about an entirely different universe, but the fact is the two are very connected. So we have, of course, Richard Branson, we have Jeff Bezos, we have Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Richard Branson, technically claiming the title of the first to go to space. Obviously, he hasn't gone to space, an important thing many observers have pointed out. He's not crossed the height, which is necessary to technically go into space. The zero gravity they experienced was more of a result of the forces of gravity working on them while their ship was coming down. And Jeff Bezos planning to go on the 20th, he will slightly cross into the domain of what is called space. And obviously, there's a load of media coverage that's, you know, going about the historicity, the slogans that people are throwing, you know, it's historic, it's great, et cetera, et cetera. There's always Elon Musk as well, the guy who said, we'll coup anybody we want, who's also definitely, you know, in this picture as well. But behind this, I think there are quite a few factors to consider. One is the fact that there is a huge amount of money involved in this. The money, of course, being going to these private space companies from the governments for contracts, a lot of this very little transparency in terms of what is taking place, very little transparency in terms of results. The beneficiaries are being these private corporations which are using government money. So there's a lot of them, they have missile, probably missile programs is definitely a space program. And say, unlike the space race in its 50s, which for all its problematic aspects was a very, you know, government run, where a program, there was a lot of benefits to society as well in terms of the further, you know, downstream technology research that took place. This is clearly just going to be something which is another walled garden, so to speak. So Branson, I believe is offering $250,000 to $250,000 for people to take this trip. And I think it actually is a symbol of the larger inequality that is, you know, right now so rampant in society. So excellent studies in huge increase in the number of billionaires. During the pandemic, their wealth has increased by, I believe, $5 trillion. The last year, the 2021 billionaires listed 700 new billionaires. The US, of course, being the country with the largest in the world. And right now, we have governments telling people, governments telling health workers that, you know, there's no money to get PPEs. There's no money to improve the health infrastructure. And there's a lot of money going into these programs. So I think, you know, the whole, it's a huge facade in many ways in the way in which this space race is being seen. Now, of course, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos also talking about the need for humans to become an extra planetary species. Again, it sounds really great. It's the stuff of science fiction. But the fact is that this is definitely not going to be possible for a couple of centuries. Life is going to be a mess. Meanwhile, the urgency of climate change is very, is something that is a problem right now in front of us. It's something, a problem where we need united global action. And there you don't see any of, you know, these billionaires actually putting their money where they can say where their talk is. And of course, we also know about Bezos and Musk being among those people where in whose companies workers are the most ill-treated. So this whole talk of, you know, reaching up to space that I attempted, you know, tapping into that nostalgia or whatever that he felt is a very, very cynical ploy. And I think across the world it needs to be recognized. So always a big flag when billionaires talk about dreams and, you know, the need for humanity as a whole as though they represent the voice of humanity. Billionaires talking about dreams. Billionaires talking about humanity. They have their own interpretation of these words. Obviously, it's their dreams. And when they talk about humanity, it's their wealth. We know that Jeff Bezos is on record. Bezos is on record. As having said, he has an ambition to be the world's first, wait a minute, trillionaire. He wants to be the world's first individual dollar trillionaire. We're going to have to start talking about space trillionaires. It's incredible the way this planet is organized and so on. United global action. That was the phrase you used, Prashant. United global action on climate, on the pandemic, on so many issues. There is United global action. It seems to be driving us in the opposite direction. Look at what's happening in Haiti. United global action that in fact puts Haiti into a box, into a terrible box and has done so for decades. Two coup d'etats against Jean-Paul Bertrand Aristide. Two, twice the same man, couped in Haiti. You know, I went back and took off from my shelves. CLR James, the Black Jacobins, one of the great books on the Haitian Revolution. Zoe, the Prime Minister of Haiti, President of Haiti killed, Mr. Moises killed, cold blood, terrible assassination. What's the latest on the assassination of Mr. Moises? Well, it's been, you know, a week and a half since this very shocking news came out with the assassination of Jovenin Moise. And you know, a lot of threads have been unraveling. There's been a lot of accusations coming out, a lot of different theories about who's behind the assassination. Of course, as we mentioned last week, it has been confirmed that participation of around 26 Colombian mercenaries, you know, former Colombian soldiers and two Haitian-American you know, mercenaries as well. The big question is kind of who is behind this and what interests are behind this. There has, you know, a Florida-based Haitian businessman who's also a Christian pastor, you know, has been arrested. There was an AP report that came out where they spoke to, you know, alleged family members and friends of this person who stated that, you know, he wouldn't have been involved in this kind of plot. Christian Sanon, they said that, you know, he wasn't for violence. He didn't really have political ambitions, but still, you know, it's there seemed to be, you know, photo evidence of him meeting with contractors. There was also a rumor that emerged that Claude Joseph was who's the prime minister who was, you know, actually fired from the position days before the assassination. There was also a rumor that maybe he was involved, you know, as a vi to gain political power. But I think what's really important to highlight with the case of Haiti is that, you know, there's a lot of desire to take advantage of the situation of, you know, interest, you know, of course, we saw at, you know, a couple of days ago that, you know, Haiti had asked for support, military support from the United States to take care of logistical, you know, take infrastructure and all of that support. The U.S. at face value, you know, rejected this. They said that they wouldn't provide military aid, but it's still a very complicated situation. People on the ground in Haiti have told us that, you know, right now it isn't a state of calm. There is tranquility. There's, you know, people are not going out on the streets. But, you know, in general, we need to keep our eyes on Haiti. I mean, the situation is that, you know, there is political instability. There is an institutional crisis, which the U.S., which the European Union, which the core group, which is, you know, of course, the group of ambassadors in Haiti have been supporting for the past decades. And really what the Haitian people need right now is not a U.S.-backed assassination plot. It's not a assassination plot where Columbia has had active participation, but it is, of course, the rebuilding of the institutions of Haitian democracy is, of course, listening to the Haitian movements, which have said that they have, you know, a three-year plan for democratic transition and, you know, getting imperialist interests out of the country, supporting democratic transition and, you know, supporting a better future. Because right now, all of the hands that are, you know, trying to meddle, that are trying to take advantage of the potential instability, potential chaos from this assassination are not really looking out for Haiti's best interests. The question of Haiti's best interest, of course, is fraught. People should know that from the Revolution of 1804 until the 1950s, Haiti had to pay indemnity to the French. Really quite depressingly disgusting. I don't know how to even, I don't have the words to talk about how Haiti has been treated. It's a vindictive treatment because Haiti was the first major revolution in the Third World, the first major revolution in the Third World, the first revolution where people had been enslaved and had fought to liberate, emancipate themselves under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture. There is a kind of vindictive behavior towards Haiti continues to this day. Thanks Zoe. Today friends, it's the 16th of July and as I said, it's a special show. It's an hour long show of your favorite show on the internet. Give the people what they want coming to you from Globetrotter and People's Dispatch, which is celebrating its three year anniversary. We want to hear from you. We want you to tell us how much you appreciate and enjoy this show and People's Dispatch and we need you to be out there telling people to read People's Dispatch every day, at least twice a day, maybe three times a day. Develop your People's Dispatch addiction. Because it's an hour long show, we decided to bring on a couple of guests. We're going to have our first guest join us now. The first guest who's going to come in is Manolo de Los Santos, who is with the People's Forum in New York City. Also a key person in the International People's Assembly, the IPA, of which you will hear much more later in the year. Manolo and I recently published an article through Globetrotter available at People's Dispatch, called the United States tries to take advantage of the price Cubans are paying for the blockade and the pandemic. Manolo, welcome to give the people what they want. It's a pleasure to join. I'm a big fan of the program. Well, Manolo, the situation on the 11th of July was pretty, seemingly pretty dire. People around the world confused about what was happening, confused because of the immense information coming out of, not Havana, not San Antonio, but coming out of Miami, coming out of Washington DC. Give us a little orientation on what happened in Cuba on the 11th of July. What's been happening around Cuba since then? Well, there's definitely been, I would say, a very well organized campaign of creating not just mass confusion, but also hysteria around the state of Cuba and its revolution. The reality is that on Sunday, July 11th, hundreds, possibly thousands of people across the island fed up with the cruel conditions of the US blockade against Cuba, which means, you know, great scarcity of food and medicine, electrical outages caused by simply the oil blockade that the US has imposed on Cuba went out to demonstrate. And I would say the majority of them went out for legitimate reasons. The Cuban people are actually humans, contrary to the belief of the United States government most of the time. They went out to protest for essentially getting the government to play and place more attention on these issues. The reality is though that accompanying many of those protesters were actual agents and operatives of the US government inside the islands who actually wanted to turn a social and economic protests of a real crisis into a political one. They tried to turn anger over the scarcity of food and medicine into anger over the project of the socialist revolution in Cuba on the direction of the Cuban government and even questioning how the Cuban government has responded for the last almost two years in light of a pandemic. And I think immediately to see the response of the Cuban government to all of this was quite peculiar and interesting because we often don't see it in other parts of the world, which was everyone from the president down went to talk to the protesters, went to listen to the protesters, to listen to the demands, to see, you know, how do we actually deal with these legitimate demands? You can't just scoff them or ignore them. The Cuban people are proud people, people who have been struggling and resisting for over 60 years. And it was up to the president and many other leaders of the communist party to say, well, we are doing what we can within these circumstances. We can do more. But certainly we cannot underplay the tightening noose of the US blockade on the necks of the Cuban people as a whole. I mean, the fact that Biden, even now, just yesterday, reaffirms the idea that remittances will not be allowed to be sent to Cuba because somehow they will be taken by the government. We're talking about Cuban families in the US and Europe in Latin America who want to send $50 or $100 to their family members in Cuba and can't because of the US government. The Cuban government puts no impediment on humanitarian aid. It puts no impediment on taking care of its people. But there are necessarily overwhelming challenges posed by US foreign policy that, sadly, 11 million people in Cuba cannot escape. Marul, tell us a little bit about within these circumstances. You already started to talk about the blockade and the remittance issue, but lay out a little more what you mean by when the government says we'll do what we can within these circumstances. What are the other elements of these circumstances? Well, I think that's a very good point. And I think it's part of us building a counter-narrative because no one wants to talk about the blockade or very few people want to talk about the blockade and say what it is. The reality is that from the moment Cubans wake up, to the moment they go to bed, they deal with the effects of the blockade. Why are there electrical outages in Cuba? It has a lot to do with the fact that Cuba produces a certain amount of its own fuel on the island, a very crude form of fuel, that it then has to process specifically on the island and it covers for a certain percentage of electricity on the island. But the rest of it, it has to basically import from countries as far as Algeria, sometimes even further away. Its traditional partner, Venezuela, has been blocked as well and can't send oil to Cuba. But we've seen in the last year modern day piracy, the US government, the US Navy steals in open sea ships of oil directed to Cuba and then sells those ships to fund its counter-revolutionary programs on the island. So this is one of the elements. The other element is that the US government actively enforces on third parties, on other countries, even in Europe, across the world, sometimes even partners like China, traditional friends of Cuba are prohibited from selling medicines and food to the Cuban people. That is a reality. So the Cuban government, in a sense, is trying to do as much as it can with, I would say, very little to zero revenue. They lost 2.4 billion US dollars last year in revenue due to the loss of the tourism industry. With what they have left, they have to try to invest it as best as possible in the healthcare system and in the national social security system on the island. But even then, they're just intensely prohibited from commercial trade with most countries around the world. The issue of the blockade is not a relationship between US and Cuba. In fact, that's how the US always wants to portray it. It's almost like we're in Cuba, we're a colony, and it's an internal question of the United States. No, the blockade actively goes out to prevent Cuba from relating to the rest of the world. My little quick question actually, speaking on something you had earlier said in terms of the kind of visa, we did see that alongside the protests, they were also solidarity demonstrations with the socialist project with the government across the country as well. So maybe could you also take us through how Cuban society has also resisted this blockade? Because one thing we often notice when media talks about socialist countries and we have talked about it in this show is that it's all a monolith. Everyone is the same following some commands, whereas we know that society is really diverse. So could you maybe take us through that also? How has Cuban society in the various sectors actually responded to this blockade and its provocation? Well, in this international case of mass hysteria and confusion, one of the most beautiful moments was CNN publishing a photo of what they called a great anti-government protest in Havana. Except this anti-government protest photo had images of Fidel, flags of the 26th of July, communist flags, hammers and sickles, and this is an anti-government protest. In fact, on Sunday itself, thousands of the people of revolutionaries in Cuba went out not to engage violently with the other protesters, but actively to say, yes, we are in a situation of hardship, but we have to stand with the revolution. Because to lose the revolution, to lose our sovereignty, to lose our independence would be a complete return to neocolonial slavery under the US government. And this happened actually across the country and it's happening till even this day as we speak. I mean, in different parts of Cuba, revolutionaries led by the Communist Party of Cuba are actively mobilizing and demonstrating that, if anything, if anything, the Cuban people are ones made out of resistance out of a spirit of dignity and that they see themselves in a sense as being one of the last bulwarks against US empire globally. The Cuban people know that they stand for the people of Haiti, they stand for the people of Colombia, they stand for the people of India, they stand for the people of Nepal, they stand for the people of South Africa, they stand for humanity. So the weight on their shoulders is quite heavy when they look into the empire. Yeah, definitely. Manolo, I wanted to ask you kind of about the regional aspect, because we've seen, you know, on both sides a lot of response from regional actors. I mean, yesterday the singer Juanes said something like, be careful, Colombia with Cuba, with communism and harshly criticized in Cuba. We've seen a lot of right-wing actors across Latin America condemning what's happening in Cuba, even in their own countries. We know what's happening. So I was just wondering if you could kind of reflect on what has been the regional response to what's happening in Cuba. Well, there's a lot to laugh at, as always in Latin America, when the Colombian foreign minister tweets that she is worried about the state of protesters in Cuba, in a country where no one's eyes were taken out, where the police has not disappeared any protesters, where no protesters are being indefinitely jailed without due process. You know, Colombia has a lot of gall to talk about human rights and respect for protesters, but that's one side of what's happening in Latin America. I think what we've seen overwhelmingly in places like Mexico, Brazil, and including in Colombia itself, is how people's movements, organizations of the working class, peasants have come out in defense of Cuba, because there is not just a question of solidarity, but of close identification with the Cuban process. I mean, we have all had to live and see with our own eyes the cruelty, the inhumanity of the US blockade for many years. We've seen how many of our own efforts to be in solidarity in Cuba have been prescribed and prohibited. So at this moment in which we saw Cuba was being pushed to the corner, we, you know, I think many people in Latin America and across the world in fact demonstrated their solidarity, went out to the streets, mobilized under that famous slogan that Fidel raised always that the streets belong to the revolutionaries, not in an exclusive way, but that it's our duty as revolutionaries to mobilize constantly. Manolo, one of the interesting features on the 12th of July, these protests were on the 11th of July, on the 12th of July, US President Joe Biden released a brief statement. You know, it's interesting Manolo that there were protests happening in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. We're going to get back to that friends in our second half our segment. Today's a special show. It's the third anniversary of People's Dispatch. So we have an hour show. We're going to be talking to Monica Lagan Prasad about that from New Frame. Protests were taking place in South Africa. There was no real statement, no statement from the President of the United States to the South African government. Meanwhile, Joe Biden said, we stand with Cuba. How was that statement received in Cuba? We stand with Cuba. Well, I think the way it was translated into Spanish was that Biden is standing on top of the Cubans. His knee is on the neck of the Cubans, to be more precise. I mean, we have to really call out the hypocrisy of the US government, of Biden specifically, who's constantly referring to freedom, who's constantly referring to progress, constantly saying that socialism is a failure, but refuses to budge on the fundamental question, which is his government's policy, a policy that he never revised when he took over the White House from Trump, you know, who had placed 243 new sanctions measures. Most of the most cruel ones are the recent ones placed by Trump. And he has done nothing to revise that. The fact that he has not even revised the qualification that Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism is immensely cruel. That is one of the major impediments to allowing Cuba to trade internationally, because you can't trade with states who sponsor terrorism. So, you know, if anything, Trump, you know, and Biden have turned out to be of the same stock, of the same stock of cruel, inhumane leaders who actually seem to get something out of the pain and suffering of the Cuban people. What it is, I'm not sure, but it definitely doesn't show, if anything, any statesmanship at this point in the 21st century. It's difficult to look for statesmanship in the Washington DC when it comes to Cuba. I mean, I'm not sure Manolo, I should have done a count, but I don't know how many U.S. presidents there have been since January 1st, 1959, from Eisenhower all the way out to Biden. And there has been relative unanimity of opinion. It doesn't matter if it's a Republican, doesn't matter if it's a Democrat, and in some ways, it doesn't even matter if it's independent who's not in the president's chair, but is a major political figure. They seem to share antipathy to Cuba. In your last thoughts, Manolo, could you talk a little bit about this antipathy towards Cuba in the U.S. ruling class and whether the people of the United States share with their government this sort of vindictiveness towards the 11 million people in Cuba? Well, I think it's important to realize, and these moments help us realize it even more clearly, the lack of political freedom inside the United States, the fact that every politician, right, center, sometimes even left, have to always preface any statement on Cuba with we disagree with the authoritarian government regime in Havana. We understand that the Cuban government has to fall. The fact that there is no space for normality in relations with Cuba demonstrates the supreme lack of political freedom in the United States. The fact that a U.S. politician and elected official in the United States, the mayor of Miami, can openly call for the cruel bombing of a civilian population in Cuba and go unquestioned by the national media and by the elected ruling class of the United States is shameful. It's purely shameful. But sadly, or for better, it actually doesn't demonstrate the overwhelming will and majority of the U.S. people. In fact, all the recent polls state that 66% of all Americans support and enter the U.S. blockade. And we've seen this concretely, not just in protests, which there have been several to the United States in solidarity with Cuba, but we see it constantly in the millions of Americans who actively travel to Cuba to see with their own eyes. We've seen it in the reality of millions of U.S. people who donated actively in campaigns to enter blockade to send material aid to Cuba. We've seen this in so many beautiful gestures, such as the caravans of peace to the United States led by Pastor Peace that has brought many religious leaders to Cuba. There are so many efforts and gestures that show that the U.S. people, unlike the government, are more willing to actually have an honest dialogue and normalization of relations without putting political conditions as a starter. There's a good reason why we invited Manolo de los Santos to join us for this segment to talk us through what's going on in Cuba. Manolo is with the People's Forum in New York City, also with the International People's Assembly, and he and I wrote a piece that I hope you'll go and read at the People's Dispatch site. Manolo, thanks a lot for joining us. My pleasure. Happy third anniversary. Thank you for being with us. Third anniversary to People's Dispatch. Three years old today. That's why we have an hour show. We had a great segment just now with Manolo on Cuba. You're listening to and watching, give the people what they want with Zoe, Prashant, and myself. Zoe and Prashant, of course, from People's Dispatch. Three years old. This is the third anniversary show we're doing to honor People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. I've been following story in Afghanistan. We've been tracing and tracking the implications of the so-called withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. Yes, it's true. The United States has left the number of bases, including at Bagram, which is just outside Kabul. A withdrawal has begun. What comes next? This week, underreported, scandalously and typically underreported, the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had a very interesting meeting in Dushanbe in Tajikistan, an important meeting where the Chinese Foreign Minister Wangi met closely with the Afghan Foreign Minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar. They had a very close dialogue about what's going to come in the future. Three points were put on the table in that discussion. I want to go over each of these three points, spend a little time in this segment going over them. The first point, Chinese coming in using a language which is important. They don't want to mediate. They don't believe that the role of foreign governments inside a civil situation should be mediation. They are talking about facilitating a dialogue. It's an important linguistic distinction. Mediation means they come and they stand between two parties and, in fact, set the table and almost always drive the agenda. That's what a mediation often is. Facilitation, what can China do? What can the foreign ministers and governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has a number of Asian countries as members and as observer states, what can the SCO do to facilitate a dialogue? For the first thing, they are talking now openly, the first point, for a two to three-year transitional government, which includes the Taliban and includes the government in Kabul of Ashraf Ghani. Now, this is really important, friends, because the Taliban, having recently captured Spin Baldaq, has now got itself in control of most of the major trading posts that Afghanistan has with its neighbors. Most of the major trading posts are now controlled by the Taliban. This is very important. Taliban has the ability to basically close down the government in Kabul. So the first issue of facilitation is to get the various parties, but in particular, let's just be particularly clear, there's only two parties inside Afghanistan, the government of Ashraf Ghani, which is a coalition government of various factions and forces, and the Taliban itself. The first point, two to three-year transitional unified government to begin inter-Afghan negotiations. Second, to fight extremist organizations on the table, Al-Qaeda, still there in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, still there across the borders near the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan, to somehow marginalize the Al-Qaeda presence there. Secondly, to marginalize the ISIS group, ISIS Khorasan, which is there again near the Hindu Kush and Pamir region. ISIS Khorasan quite dug in, very vicious group, how to marginalize ISIS Khorasan, which is drawn ISIS fighters back from Syria and so on. How to marginalize them? That's on the table. The third group, and this is the second point about marginalizing extremist organizations. The third group is of course the East Turkistan Islamic movement, which comes out of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They've been operating in Afghanistan pretty much without any check on them. The second point the Chinese have put on the table is you've got to marginalize the East Turkistan group. It's important to remember whether it's, of course, it's true that Afghanistan and China share a border. But friends, if any of you have driven in that region, you will know it's impossible to cross that border. You can see it on a map, it's not possible. In fact, you're going to have to cross in Kyrgyzstan or somewhere else, and that's where the crossings have taken place in Bishkek, crossing into Urumqi. And that's a vulnerability. So the SCO has brought all the countries together to think again about a united strategy to marginalize extremist organizations. Very important. The third point is to get the Taliban to say publicly that they will not play around with these extremist groups. This is actually a key and important point in my notes based on phone calls with people in the region. In my notes, I have written that the spokesperson for the Taliban has made it clear to various powers, including SCO members, that the Taliban doesn't want to commit itself to these extremist organizations. In fact, the spokesperson of the Taliban has said that China is a friend. China is trying to use its Belt and Road initiative to immunize itself from these attacks. It's trying to develop a relationship with anybody in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. It's a practical consideration. Taliban on the verge of coming to power, better to have a transitional government, a unified government, and you have to deal with them. Still, things are not looking good. In Pakistan, attacks at Belt and Road projects have increased. These attacks have increased in the province of Baluchistan, where the government of Imran Khan of Pakistan faces great instability. The instability is increased because of the withdrawal of US troops. The government in Islamabad in Pakistan has been negotiating with the Baluch nationalists and the Baluch organizations, trying to bring them into the fold. They understand the terrific vulnerability for the government of Islamabad. But the government of Islamabad also sees an opportunity between the United States or the G7 and China and will try to play both against the middle, trying to get a better deal for itself. As it looks like Pakistan is going to default on a number of projects in the China-Pakistan economic corridor. A number of projects look to default. Pakistan can't pay the debt. We're looking at this closely. Many stories are going to come at people's dispatch on this. It's taking a long time to report these stories, friends. That's why you follow Globe product. That's why you follow people's dispatch. We don't just write deadline journalism. We really look deep. We go into it, understanding the history, understanding the culture, understanding the politics. To understand the history, to understand the politics of things, we look at places like the coup in Bolivia, where it is now a scandal that Argentina and Ecuador may have given material aid to the coup government. So what's been happening around Bolivia? So last week on the show, we mentioned this that it came out in an investigation that the government of Mauricio Macri had provided ammunition to the coup government in Bolivia to help them repress the protests that were happened after the coup took place in November 2019. Since then, it's been interesting what's unfolded. Mauricio Macri is now officially under investigation. An official complaint has been filed against him and nine members of his government. So what's interesting is that the revelation about Ecuador also sending ammunition happened in June. A progressive Senator Fausto Harín brought forward an investigation to the National Assembly in Ecuador denouncing the participation of Lenín Moreno's government in sending this ammunition. That hasn't really moved in Ecuador. That has not made any splashes. They have not, of course, charged Lenín Moreno. Officially, the government of Guillermo Lasso has basically not done anything. However, the situation in Argentina is quite different. In response to these revelations, Alberto Fernández issued a formal apology to the government of Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, who are of the mass party who are currently, you know, won the elections in October 2020. And, you know, they have taken an official investigation. So I think, you know, the comparison in the response of these governments is quite telling. And, you know, in Argentina, where there's a progressive government in power right now that's willing to, you know, commit to regionalism, to commit to building the Latin American project, we see that it's able to kind of recognize what the government of Mauricio Macri did to support the Bolivian coup regime in suppressing the protests in, you know, killing its own citizens and able to kind of take amends and try to move forward from this. There's been a lot of cooperation between the governments of Alberto Fernández and of Bolivia. I mean, Argentina was where Evo Morales was in political, you know, exile for months before he went back to Bolivia. And so I think it's a really interesting case for how things can really shift in the region and how, you know, with these hopefully the victory of Pedro Casillo, you know, it's been in the works for the over a month, as we mentioned last week. The last complaints, you know, have been finally filed and it's been cleared. And so what can happen in the Latin American Caribbean region when there is regional unity, when there are governments that are committed to progressive causes, when they're able to work together, there's a lot more possibility there. And there's possibility also for, you know, making amends in these, you know, what was a really horrible moment in Bolivian history, where a lot of the regional right wing allies joined together against the Bolivian people. And we've seen how that's been able to shift in the past year. So I think it's a really interesting example of this. And we'll follow what happens, you know, in both countries. But I think, you know, since the mass government has taken office, there have been a lot of positive strides for Bolivia to recovering the economy, to recovering the national projects in Bolivia, and also getting justice for all of the crimes that were committed during the coup regime that lasted one year. We're also watching, of course, as you said, the election in Peru, it's in stasis, God knows, attempted coup of the government of the party led by Madam Fujimori. We'll see what's happening there. We'll come back to it next week. You know, we talked about Cuba, where there were protests on Sunday. There have been protests, great protests, great uprising, food uprising in South Africa. We've been looking at that. We've been reading carefully the wonderful coverage at New Frame, the best publication on the African continent in English, in my opinion. We're very happy to be joined today on Give the People What They Want by the editor of New Frame, Monica Lagan-Prasad. Monica, so great to have you with us. Really lovely. Tell us what's been happening from Durban all the way across South Africa. What's been going on? Hi, DJ. Thank you so much for having me here. It's been a long week. People are exhausted. People are hungry, and people are really scared. It started on Sunday night. The little flares up of pockets of what looked like protests parking in here in Johannesburg, in parts of Johannesburg, and then in Durban. Just overnight on Monday, we just woke up to utter chaos. It was both in Johannesburg and in Durban that was just unfolding, and nobody was prepared. We just couldn't make sense of it. We were trying to figure what was happening, and it was just mall after mall shopping center after shopping center. There was rioting, then there were explosions, things were being blown up. It was unbelievable. It slowly started to emerge that it started with people who were desperate for food. South Africa has huge inequality. They have massive, massive unemployment that's been pushed even further due to COVID and lockdown. We're facing a third wave. More and more people are unemployed. We've got an unemployment rate of 43%. We have a youth unemployment of just over 70%. That's unsustainable. Society is unequal. As we started to see the disturbing images on television that were unfolding, of people appropriating food, because that's what they needed. They were hungry. People appropriating medication. They were appropriating clothing, because it's winter and it's freezing. Those kind of essential things. Then we had the, we call them the looters now, because they were appropriating. These were people who arrived in cars and fancy cars and taking things like TVs and electronics. Then it started to piece together and try to make sense of it. People were barricading themselves in their homes, barricading their entrances to the residence, because it felt like a war. That's what everybody said to me from Durban, because I'm from Durban. That's where my entire family is. All my friends are. So I was getting reports from people back there that they felt like it was a full-on war, and they didn't know what was happening. Now we see that those explosions and those things, and those buildings, infrastructure that was blown up were definitely acts of sabotage. Because they were blowing up key points. They were blowing up places that we could get food. So they took out the food. The trucks were taken out a few days earlier. The trucks that transport along the main freeway between Johannesburg and Durban that does most of the logistics to get food and other essential things to eat city across South Africa. That road was blocked. The trucks were taken out too. So took out the food. They took out the access to the roads. In some areas they blew up access to water. Cell phone towers were taken out. Electricity substations in some areas were taken out. There were gunshots and explosions, and it's finally kind of calmed down. There was no army. There was no police. The army only started arriving a little bit yesterday. More troops came in to call the situation. The police were outnumbered. There was no way they could do anything. It was too big for them to deal with. So people had to protect themselves in many places. And now we're seeing a dire shortage of food. People are running out of food. They're queuing in lines. This morning my parents went to a major shopping retailer. And when they got there, there were a thousand people in front of them. I don't think they even got in because they're limiting items and so many amount of people are coming in. There's a desperate need for bread, things like bread and milk. And mothers have no formula for their babies, no diapers. There's no medication. Some of the pharmacies had been cleaned out as well. So there was no medication for a lot of people. The sad thing is that the hardest-hit people in this are people from the peripheries of the city, from the suburbs. Other people in the working-class communities and the people directly next to them, which are the people that come from the sack settlements. Those people are the ones that are having struggling the most because they have been affected largely by unemployment and by COVID. Most of them are just surviving on government grants. There was a special grant that the government had during I was a 350-year-old grant that they bought for COVID. That was recently taken away. And that was an important thing because that gave people a little bit of hope and it allowed them to have some food at least. Maybe a little bit of food every day, something to feed their families in addition to other grants they may have had to help supplement it. Some people who didn't have any money, that was a lifesaver. And then you take that away and you have nothing. We wanted to think about with you is that, you know, they were the protest and then you saw President Miguel Diaz-Canal get out on the streets and so on. In South Africa, in Durban, for instance, Mayor Kwanda seemed to be nowhere to be seen. Where were the South African politicians and why didn't they follow the Cuban example of going out onto the street and talking to the protesters? That's a good question. I think that's something every South African is asking. Every single South African wants to know where were our leaders when we were under attack. Why did no one come to save us? It took them today's Friday a whole week for anyone to help them to come in. And they were just abandoned. Every single person in that province was abandoned. And, you know, for me, I think it was a lack of political will. They could have, I mean, they could have easily cleared the road and immediately start dealing with food. Because when it happened, I think it was on Monday night, I'm mistaken, Cyril Ramaphosa, the president, spoke to the people. He was alive and he spoke about what happened and how devastating it was. And one of the things he said was that we're very concerned about food insecurity. It's going to be a problem. He already identified this as a problem on Monday. But people are still waiting for food on Friday. I can't make sense of that firstly. He hasn't really said much since then. There have been reports that have come out of, you know, how this was planned and who the key instigators were. They've identified 12 instigators apparently. You know, some people are calling it an attempted coup. Some people are calling it an insurrection. The really funny people are calling it the purge after a film. I mean, television is a number without humor, though. Gotta give them that, even if they darkest hour. So I was Monika. I was hoping you could kind of take us back a little bit. We know this is happening. Of course, there's definitely issues of, you know, food insecurity of inequality. But also there's a political element which has to do with Jacob Zuma, who's the former president. Can you tell us kind of what's happened? What does he have to do with these protests? How does that come into the mix? If you can break it down for us. So Jacob Zuma, you know, it might have started with him, but, you know, the way it was orchestrated, the inequality, the job losses, the desperate need of people, it was just a powder cake, just waiting. And that kind of just ignited it. And it just snowballed, you know. Jacob Zuma was the former president of South Africa. He is accused of multiple things, which include looting vast amounts of money for his own need, you know, in aid of his family. He was, there was a, there's a state of, there's a commission of inquiry, there's a commission of inquiry that looks at state capture that's been happening in South Africa. He was ordered to come and appear before it. He did not. There was then a court order, then he said, I'm still not coming. Then he had to appear before the con court, which is the constitutional court. And he was like, I'm coming. And then they issued a warrant of arrest. And he was like, I'm coming. And this was, you know, it fought it in court. And the con court is the highest, you can't, it's the highest court in the land. You can't, it's impossible to appeal against that. Once the con court makes a decision, that's it. They tried to appeal that decision. The high court didn't work. You had to hand himself over. There was a standoff outside his home, his home in Kandla, which is in KwaZulu, Natal, northern KZN. There was some of his supporters there who refused and they stood guard. It took hours. He had up until midnight to hand himself in. And, you know, since before that, his supporters had been saying, we will, if Zuma goes to jail, we will bring this country to the standstill. We will, you know, we will shut down KZN. And no one takes it seriously because it's such a small kind of support base. And yeah, and then that's what happened. And it happened not because of that, but because they knew the conditions in that province so well. And they knew exactly what to do to kind of which kind of block to pull out so that the whole thing just crumbles. And that's all you have to do. Monica, one last thing, maybe, in terms of you wrote an article about the task of rebuilding. And that's, I think, a very important question before all of us right now. So very quickly, maybe could you take us through what you see when the state is completely missing from the picture, what you see in terms of popular movements or communities actually being able to do right now? So that's been quite remarkable. You know, people, because they've been forced to protect themselves because, you know, the one thing is like South Africa, you know, besides being unequal and having all of these other issues, on top of that, we have a startling and depressing crime problem. It's just, it's a violent crime. You know, it's terrifying for everyone. And when that kind of thing happens, you are just immediately open yourself up to and expose yourself to these people who are hardened criminals, people who are violent, who have guns, and they just easily can, you know, they easily can sneak themselves amongst the chaos. And that's when you, you know, those are the people you fear. It's not the people who has taken the food or the guy who's stealing the TV. You know, it's the guy with the big guns. That's the guy you're scared of. And how do you protect your family from that? And it's in every community that guy is in the shack settlement, stealing from people. He's stealing from the people in the suburbs. He's stealing from the people in the working class communities. You know, it's everyone's fair game. And so the communities have, you know, sort of closed off completely. They're calling it checkpoints. It's their checkpoint. So every single street, every name in sort of more working class to a fluent middle class neighborhoods have closed them off completely. And there's a whole checkpoint that you have to go through. Only residents allowed. Sometimes they're allowed to get and go buy food. So they're doing that. Normal citizens are communities are manning those streets. They're taking time to patrol it. They're sleeping in ships. They've been working since Monday night to just keep the community safe. The same things happening in the townships. People are also protecting what little resources they have there. What little has not been burned down. They have to protect their businesses because, you know, the people in the townships have, they don't have insurance. They don't have, you know, the luxury of rebuilding and restarting, you know, so they have to protect whatever little resources they have. And so that kind of sort of solidarity is coming through. And I think people, and I hope people, are starting to realize that, you know, they are the ones that have to find leadership within themselves and within their own communities and within, and how do we, you know, build up from that a new sort of leadership, a new political dynamic because the current system is just set up and built and is continuing to kind of use you to kind of fight their political wars and factions. And the only person that are the casualties of this are the poorest people. You know, we just got the figures now of what this riot cost. I mean, there was over 1,000, 1,692 people that have been arrested and over 200 people have died. You know, over 200 people have died. Some people have died because they were trampled to death trying to get food. That's such a terrible way to die. You know, imagine trying to get your kid food or trying to get some diapers for your child and then you just get caught up in a stampede. And it was so tragic that, you know, some people were shot because in vigilantism because people were protecting their houses, they're protecting this and then, you know, they were shot because of that. There's some, you know, issues of racial profiling that have come up. There is racial profiling, so some people will probably kill because of that. It's horrific. I ask people to go to the new frame website to keep up with the news, read the editorial, the fire this time. It's incredibly powerful editorial. Monica, thanks a lot for joining us on Give The People What You Want. It was incredible. Come back and see us again, please. I will. Congratulations on your anniversary. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Give The People What They Want. The last few minutes, we're going to speak a little bit about a friend of ours, Suha Jarrah, a 31-year-old who worked for a group in Palestine on environmental issues. Krishnan, tell us a little about Suha Jarrah. I knew her pretty well. It's a real tragic death, tragic loss. Tell us a little bit. Right with Suha Jarrah. I was founded on Sunday, very young age, 31. She was somebody, like you said, working on environmental issues and also spent a long time working for the freedom of her mother, Khalidah Jarrah, who is right now still in jail. And it's been, she was, Khalidah Jarrah, of course, has had a lifetime, a very prominent political activist. She's had a lifetime spent behind Israeli, in Israeli prisons. Most of them without any charges, trials. In March 2021, she was sentenced to two years in prison. And on Sunday, when Suha's very tragic death took place, the most, the thing you would expect out of any human society, any human country would be that her mother would be discharged even for a brief file to take part in the funeral of a daughter, the funeral of a daughter who died at such a tragically young age. And the Israeli prison system, very expectedly, if I may add, refused. And this caused a huge amount of protest, huge amount of shock at the sheer brutality of what we see. And Khalidah Jarrah, who was in prison, wrote a very powerful poem, a small poem, so to speak, talking about her pain, which was circulated by her other daughter. And reading something of this sort actually, I think, gives you something. She said that this happens, happens nowhere, except in Palestine. And I think it gives you a sense of the depth, the viciousness of the occupation of the brutality that we are seeing every day, every single day in Palestine, incidents like these when her mother is not let out to attend her daughter's funeral. And there were protests, of course, outside the prison. There was, there really was no reason. Khalidah Jarrah is being released in two months. Her charge, the charge on which she was sentenced was membership of an organization, or a banned political organization. So those were the charges for which she was sentenced for two years. She's coming out in two months and she was not even allowed to attend the funeral. So I think just something that, you know, hits you really in the face. People talk about, we're like we discussed in the past, the two sides of the problem, or, you know, how it's only a geopolitical issue. So that's, that's the case with you. We send our condolences to Khalidah Jarrah, her spouse, Ghassan, and their surviving daughter, Yafa, a very, very wonderful family. And this is a terrible tragedy. It's a shame that she can't go and bury her daughter. You've been listening to give the people what they want, coming to you every week. Typically your half hour journey around the world. Today, we spent an hour with you in order to celebrate the third anniversary of People's Dispatch, the best website for movement driven news at peoplesdispatch.org. I'm joined every week with the editors, Zoe and Prashant. Congratulations, guys. Three years, 50 more to go, 100 more to go. May you live many lifetimes on the web. Really, really, exactly that. You've been listening to us, it's Zoe Prashant from People's Dispatch and I, we came from Broke Cross. See us next week. We'll be back for half an hour. Come and see us every Friday at the same time, same place. Looking forward to seeing you again. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Bye.