 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. The 124th show of give the people what they want brought to you from People's Dispatch, your favorite movement driven news website. It's only Prashant today, you're disappointed not to see or hear Zoe on this show. She is out of action this week. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Coming to you with a lot of stories, important stories. Many of them are going to be from the eastern African region, the Horn of Africa and into Sudan. I want to start with a story that has not been getting coverage in my opinion and that is the drought that is striking most of East Africa. 20 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and South Sudan in the middle in the grip of a drought. 15 million children exposed to acute malnourishment. A new panel of scientists has said conclusively that this drought is basically because of climate change. Yes, to some extent El Nino and so on and so forth, but it's basically a climate changed induced drought or striking because there have been rains in North Kenya. It was raining, but this is just not going to be enough as the people humanitarian observers have been saying from the ground that you've got rain falling in northern Kenya but because of previous failed seasons, there is in fact flooding which is impacting livestock and many pastoralists have lost their principal means of livelihood. This drought has actually hit a hard because when you have compacted soils together it cannot absorb the water and therefore you have floods. Something I learned in trying to read up on this story. Pretty sad and dangerous situation for East Africa. You will remember of course that several decades ago there was some reporting about the difficult conditions in East Africa, the drought, the famine and so on. At the time it provoked musicians in the United Kingdom to come out there and sing a song called Do They Know It's Christmas rather miserable way to put the question, but that's how they put it. And then in the United States there was another song to raise money for people in East Africa and that was We Are The World. One of the singers in We Are The World was the very great Harry Belafonte who left us recently. Mr. Belafonte was from Jamaica, a tremendous man who said repeatedly, I'm somebody who believes in human progress. First, I'm an artist. Second, I'm not an artist who has political opinions. I have political opinions that just happen to be an artist. It's incredible when you think about the life of Mr. Belafonte who was after all an icon in the civil rights struggle, marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King Jr. was there on the side of Fanny Lou Hammer. Here's Mr. Belafonte stood shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro. Here he is standing and talking to Hugo Chavez about the importance of advancing socialism in the world. Mr. Belafonte left an enormous oeuvre of music, much of it, quite beautiful amongst them. An album which is an evening with Maryam Mackeba, very important album, not only because it's beautiful music, but Mr. Belafonte sang with Maryam Mackeba. Maryam Mackeba was an exiled South African musician. That album itself was a demonstration against apartheid, a wretched evil system which Mr. Belafonte openly denounced and of course campaigned against repeatedly throughout his life until the fall of apartheid. A great man, a man who toward the end of his life was a dear friend to many of us, including those of us in this show. We mourn Mr. Belafonte. I want to think about this drought in East Africa and know that Mr. Belafonte would have been heart sick by it and wanted to do something to lift awareness about the terrible conditions now racking. As I said, 20 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and South Sudan. Well, of course Prashant, how could we not talk about Sudan? You have been looking at this story closely. Pawan Kulkarni of People's Dispatch has been writing about this with a great deal of connections inside Sudan. Tough story Prashant, take your time, explain to people what is happening despite the fact that it appears that there is an extended ceasefire? I mean, we'll start with the ceasefire. This is not the first ceasefire that's been called many, I think the third or fourth. And they have failed or succeeded with varying degrees because there's not really been any stopping of the fighting. Some areas the firing might stop in some other areas it continues. But this is I think day 13 or day 14 of the fighting. It started on April 15th and it's been escalating all this while. The humanitarian situation, as they say, it is already quite dire. We have thousands of thousands of people fleeing Sudan into neighboring countries into South Sudan, into Chad, even into Egypt for that matter. We have a huge shortage of medical supplies. For instance, I think a large percentage of hospitals in the conflict zones have been rendered out of order. Now, some of this is because of direct attacks on these hospitals. Some of them because of the fact that fuel, electricity, food, all these necessities are not available. Doctors, for instance, facing a lot of risks. A very important one of our stories, for instance, has a lot of detail on what role these doctors have played, not just right now as in when they are taking part in this relief work, but also before the fighting broke out when a lot of doctors were at the center of the pro-democracy protests. In fact, if you look at many of the earlier rounds of firing by these military forces on the protesters, it was the doctors who were at the forefront chronicling some of this violence releasing statements. So a very brave role being played by the doctors right now. But a lot of residents, like I said, facing extreme difficulty. These shortages are forcing many of them to try to leave. But leaving itself is a very risky business. We have checkpoints by, for instance, the RSF, the Rapid Support Force, is one of the belligerents having checkpoints in many of these areas which make it difficult. It is extremely risky. Can they leave? Can they not? Will they be fired on? No clarity at all. Our stories also look at the role that is being played by what are called the Neighborhood Resistance Committees, which were in the forefront of resistance to the military until all these years. And they, with their experience of organizing protests are now organizing relief work, which is quite interesting. The fact that in a very decentralized way, the role they've played in organizing the protest, again and again when tens of thousands took to the streets, is now being used to coordinate relief work when there are very minimal resources. So they have contacts with all the families. They're able to talk to them. They're able to ensure that resources are shared. One of our sources mentioned how even keeping phones charged, which is so important to stay in touch, is being done on a shared basis. Generator resources are being assigned, et cetera. So those are in those bits of humanity, those bits of resistance in this moment, very important. But I think like we said last week in the show, this is really an indictment of, of course, at one level, the generals in Sudan, the chief of the army, General Burhan, Hemeti, the chief of the rapid support forces. Of course, they are right now the two key fighters. They're the leaders of the fighting factions. It's an indictment of the political parties in Sudan which chose to negotiate continuously with these two generals, despite the fact that time and again they were betrayed, despite the fact that the pro-democracy protesters said that the generals can't be trusted. These political parties chose to continue to negotiate. It is an indictment of both the regional players, such as Egypt and the UAE, which have pursued their narrow political gains in this conflict, as well as the so-called international community in the United States, the UK, all of whom have been involved. But whose only aim in Sudan seems to have been that let's somehow put some kind of a civilian phase on the system in Sudan and say that democracy has been restored. They have just refused to acknowledge the demands from the ground that these kind of negotiation processes are meaningless and the army retains all control. They have continuously engaged and egged on both Burhan and Hematy, given them all kinds of platforms of credibility. And today we see the results of all that. Today we see Burhan and Hematy who had a disagreement and who are now fighting each other, but all this while they were considered as the most key players in bringing democracy. So I think the hollowness of that approach has time and again been shown. So we had a very difficult scene because I think the Sudan doctors' union had said that there were concerns that once foreign nationals were evacuated, the fighting might intensify. Of course everyone is trying to bring about a ceasefire. Some ceasefires might hold, some might not. It's impossible to predict at this point. I think the important thing to note is that even if a ceasefire briefly holds, there is still a huge political crisis that Sudan faces that how long will the generals be allowed to sort of be an essential part on the negotiating table. How long can that continue is really requested. And I think that's really the challenge. The progressive forces, the pro-democracy forces probably making their own strategies, waiting for the fighting to subside before launching a fresh round of struggle. I think that's definitely on their mind. That's definitely their plan. But I think for the rest of the world this is really a question. And I think that the deaths, the nearly 500 and over 510 deaths that we see today are clearly a result of this military junta being allowed to continue despite protests. And of course there's a fear that in one of Africa's largest countries, almost 50 million people in Sudan, there's a fear that once the evacuations of foreign nationals take place, the violence will be even greater. So of course Prashant, once the evacuation of foreign nationals takes place, the international media may also stop paying attention to what's happening in Sudan, which is why I think it's very important for people to keep an eye on people's dispatch because I think we're going to have a series of stories. I know that you and Pawan will write a piece for Globetrotter which will come out very soon. I'm keen on having this story not be lost to public consciousness. I started Prashant talking about the drought in East Africa. It's not actually directly impacting Sudan yet, but there's a chance it might. It's slightly south of where Sudan is. One of the countries in the grip of this drought is Somalia, which has been really ground zero for climate-induced catastrophes for some time now. Well, the Watson Institute at Brown University released a study which I think hasn't been getting the kind of attention that it should get. Somalia is a country of about 17 million people. It has had catastrophe upon catastrophe. Some of it engineered by the intervention of US troops over time. Recently in 2007, United States re-intervened in this 16-year period. United States re-intervened to take on al-Shabaab, al-Shabaab being the so-called al-Qaeda offshoot in the Horn of Africa. United States came in hard and heavy 16 years ago to take on al-Shabaab. Now, by all metrics, Prashant, after these 16 years, al-Shabaab has not gone anywhere. It's back. In fact, it might even be much more, it might be strengthened now than even a year ago. Well, what the Watson Institute shows in a very interesting report, it's a forensic report they've looked back at US financing. What they show is in these 16 years, actually not exactly 16, 14 years, up to 2020, roughly 13, 14 years, because the United States government has spent over two and a half billion dollars on military activities in that very poor country, two and a half billion dollars. I want our listeners to just pause and maybe I'm going to stop for a second. Two and a half billion dollars. Let that sink in. A country wracked by climate catastrophes that hasn't been able to stabilize the state, which simply doesn't have the resources to take care of people's basic needs, education, healthcare, modest forms of security and so on, unable to have all that. And yet you have two and a half billion dollars spent on military supplies, effectively a subsidy to the US military corporations, defense producers. But also this money has gone towards strengthening the Somali National Army. And the reason I'm spending a little extra time on this story is I want to link this story to what Prashant is talking about. It's very interesting that on the African continent, when Western funding enters at scale, 2.5 billion over 16 years or less than that, it goes to the military. It strengthens the military at the expense of civilian institutions so that Sudan, which had the overthrow of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir, didn't have any other institutions actually in place. This is not a consequence of Western funding. It's another history. But still it's another example of where the military comes out, Trump's and other institutions are just not built up. If I was able to dig out the amounts that the US spent on the civilian state, it would be so miniscule. It would be embarrassing. This is the reason why you come to give the people what they want, which is brought to you by People's Dispatch. That's Prashant today. Zoe is away with Lee. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. She's actually not on leave. She's in Cuba covering a very interesting development, which is the May Day International Brigade of 150 young people from the United States, but people from all across the world who come to Cuba for their May Day celebration. She's there busy covering that story. And you can see her on People's Dispatch social media, of course, which you must follow and also on the website. Now, let's move on. Prashant, I want to go to something interesting taking place in South Africa. Every year, it seems Abha Klali by Smajandolo celebrates something called Unfreedom Day. Seems like the whole world could celebrate Unfreedom Day. What is this version of Unfreedom Day? Right. It's quite like a lot of things. Abha Klali by Smajandolo, that's the Shakrula movement. It's quite an interesting subversion of certain concepts. Now, in this case, the concept is Freedom Day, which is marked... It is actually a very historic and important moment in South Africa, April 27th. It marks the day when the first elections were held after the apartheid regime was overthrown. I don't remember it. I don't remember 1994 so well, but when you read about it, you will recall the historic moment. It was a system which had endured for so many decades and which was so brutal in your face was finally overthrown by struggle. And when the elections were held, there was a lot of hope that this marked a new beginning. This marked not just freedom in the sense of the freedom to vote, but also social and economic freedoms, also the right and social economic freedoms and rights and the right to a dignified life. And I think all these years later, what Abha Klali by Smajandolo does when it marks un-freedom day is to ask this question. Is this the freedom we fought for? Is this the freedom that tens of thousands of people struggled for so many years their lives for? And it turns out the answer really is no, because South Africa today is facing a host of issues including the very high unemployment rate among the youth and also very, very high inequality rate. And that's one of the things Abha Klali by Smajandolo focuses on the fact that across the country, poor people really have no chance of a dignified life. They don't have access to land. They don't have access to homes. They don't have access to basic amenities like water and electricity. So how do you understand freedom when a person can go to the ballot box but cannot return home, does not have a home to return to. That's really the question, does not have a roof to return to. And this is why Abha Klali every year organizes these protests. This year it's unique because on the 26th, the 28th, the 29th, that's today and tomorrow as well. There are protests, there are marches taking place in three provinces and they have very concrete demands in terms of the question of, you know, the question of land, the question of housing. We interviewed, suppose Ikode, the president of Abha Klali, very powerful interview where he actually talks about some of these issues, including that approach to what is called urban planning from below. And he had this very interesting statement where he said that the government gives electricity connections for the rich. We give ourselves the poor electricity connections and we meet halfway. And that is what urban planning from below is. So in the excellent interview, everyone should take a look at it. But I think the question Abha Klali is asking and they're asking these questions at a great cost because they have built their own, they've occupied land, they've built their own houses, they've built their schools. And like you said on the show before, the state is always happy when, you know, the poor are the subjects, the recipients of a dole or welfare or whatever. The problem is when they start to ask for rights, when they actually take those rights. So the violence Abha Klali has faced is intense. You know, so many of their leaders, so many of their members being attacked, many being killed last year was very brutal for them. But interesting that they have nonetheless continued this struggle. And I think it's a global question. I think people everywhere need to ask this question. Also because on the same week, we've had Indian farmers in the state of Maharashtra marching again, because many of their demands for, you know, for say proper remuneration, for say remuneration in terms of disaster, all of these have not been met. These farmers in the state of Maharashtra, again a very inspiring example of struggles continuing over the years. In fact, they took out a long march in March, in the month of March as well. The government said they would accept the demands. They didn't. So they once again took to the streets in April and the government has made some concessions again. So the Indian farmers movement also very similar example to Abahalli in some senses of, you know, asking these very fundamental questions. You know, what about, what about our dignity? What about the rights? We are the economic rights and the social rights we deserve as people of an independent country. So very powerful movements taking place. And I think Abahalli, we have some good reports as well that take place on the ground. Hopefully with Pan-African television, we'll be producing a documentary soon on the Un Freedom Day celebration. So that should be out also in a few days. So looking forward and also very, very important struggles. Very inspiring story Prashant. I'm looking forward to that documentary. You need to get these kind of stories out there. I'm sorry to take you back to something pretty depressing. But here it is. Matters are heating up in East Asia. The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yol was in Washington DC. Mr. Yoon has made it very clear. He's interested either in the United States bringing nuclear weapons back on to the soil of the Korean Peninsula, or that South Korea will build its own nuclear weapons. Pretty stunning comments from President Yoon, who is known to make all kinds of comments of that nature. But this is pretty far-fetched and out there. If you're going to see nuclear weapons in South Korea, this is going to destabilize not only the Korean Peninsula, which already hangs on a fragile form of stability, but it'll destabilize the rest of East Asia. What do I mean by that? In May next month in Hiroshima, of all places Prashant have chosen for the Group of Seven meeting, the G7 will meet in Hiroshima. The lead-up to that meeting in Hiroshima, very interesting noises coming from Japan. Let's play something out for now. Let's understand that the United States has picked Taiwan to be a principal flashpoint in East Asia, not actually South Korea. President Yoon may have been trying to push the agenda a little bit, but in fact, focus is on Taiwan. Now, the United States doesn't have military forces in Taiwan. In July, the Taiwanese are going to conduct the Han Kuang military exercises, which they started in 1984. Unusual for the region, this is a national military exercise, which doesn't have US troops in it. That would be an enormous provocation to the People's Republic of China. So the United States doesn't have forces directly in Taiwan, but it has forces in Guam, not that far away, Anderson Air Force Base and at the April Harbor. It will have more forces in the Philippines because President Marcos, it's funny to say President Marcos again, one thought one was done with the Marcos family back in the saddle. President Marcos is allowing four more US military bases to be built in the northern part of the country. Well, the closest military base, people may be interested in this to Taiwan of the United States is in Okinawa. Now, Article 6 of the US-Japan Treaty allows the United States not only to use its forces to protect Japan, but also to protect quote-unquote stability in East Asia. It has to get consent from the Japanese government. The Japanese government coming close to giving blanket consent to the United States to operate in Taiwan. This, to me, is where the trouble starts. Japan itself, Mr. Kishida, the Prime Minister making relatively bellicose statements, people may want to know that for some years now there's been a Taiwan, US, Japan, trilateral Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue. This is a Track 2 Dialogue. It's not with the big guns. It's the lesser people of their governments and NGOs and so on, quote-unquote NGOs, these security NGOs. They meet in places like Hawaii and so on to talk. Well, the fact that there's a Track 2 Taiwan, US, Japan Strategic Dialogue should be quite concerning because this is going to draw Japan into a new web, a security of Taiwan. You see, it's not just the Quad where Japan is involved with India, Australia and the United States in a kind of project to him in China. This is directly related to the quote-unquote security of Taiwan, quote-unquote because as people know, the United States recognizes that there's only one China and that Beijing is its capital. Yet, of course, there's the other stratagem that the US has used to poke China by constantly talking about ambiguity regarding Taiwan. Not sure what that ambiguity is. Dangerous times. We're going to follow that G7 meeting in Hiroshima, see what stories come out of there, what statements the Japanese are going to make, how they're all going to react when this Han Kuang military exercise takes place in July. This exercise, unlike previous ones, is all going to be about preventing a quote-unquote Chinese invasion. Tough stuff Prashant. We're going to keep looking at this. But you're looking back at another place of potential, the good side of history. Venezuela, what's happening there? Venezuela, of course, the good side of history, but it's a good side of history that is being fought for and for which people have really struggled and suffered over the years. But there has been a bit of a ray of hope in recent times. We do know that more progressive governments are coming to power in many parts of Latin America or at least more governments that are not in tune with U.S. policy coming to power in Latin America in recent times. And one of the examples of a very progressive left-wing government has been Gustavo Petros-Colombia, which has not only initiated peace talks with its own armed groups, the ELN, for instance, but has also kind of normalized, has been increasingly normalizing ties with Venezuela. And I remember that Petros' predecessor, Iván Duque, was in the forefront of the U.S. and Western attack on Venezuela during his term. So it was quite a relief. It was quite good to see the fact that there was a conference held in Bogota where countries from across the world came to discuss the situation in Venezuela. Now, this was a meeting which, by design, did not include either the Venezuelan government or the Venezuelan opposition parties which have been negotiating with the government in recent times. And the question of this meeting in Bogota was really how to facilitate those discussions. So it's a bit too early to maybe talk about the results as of yet. It's a good thing that such a meeting happened, but I think all parties agree that a lot of the result will depend on how the United States actually takes up this issue because the United States, of course, has imposed sanctions which have led to the death of tens of thousands of Venezuelans. There's no doubt about that. It has caused immense economic harm to the country. And so the Venezuelan government has obviously made it clear that it wants these sanctions to be removed as quickly as possible. There have been discussions between the Venezuelan government and the opposition for those sections of the opposition which basically proclaimed an alternate government. We can come back to the electoral process in the country. The discussions have never been ups and downs, but the last round saw an agreement that there would be a mechanism whereby humanitarian aid would be delivered based on Venezuela's money, of course, which was seized abroad. Now that has not happened and it is believed that U.S. delays are the reason for that. So really it boils down to the question of sanctions. It boils down to the question of the seized assets of the Venezuelan people, which Western countries have taken over. It boils down to, say, the question of Alex Saab, a diplomat, a Venezuelan diplomat who is in U.S. custody right now. But definitely I would say a positive step as long as there are actionable items. So I think in the aftermath, the Venezuelans made this stand very clear. Side track on all this was someone who has become a meme right now who, on Guaido, trying to create his own bit of distraction by... It's quite interesting because Guaido walks into Colombia and says that he escaped the government. Venezuelan government is no arrest warrant out against him. I don't know what he was escaping. Then he says that he was thrown out of Colombia, although the Colombians clarified that he was actually on his way to the U.S. and was actually escorted by U.S. agents. So clearly Guaido making... trying to assert his relevance at a time when he completely has none at all. And I think we were saying somewhere else that it's now a joke. I mean, now anytime there's a crisis in the country, people say, well, does Guaido the president of that country? It's a joke. But important to remember that his actions actually cost lives, that people died and people suffered because of his actions. So the question of accountability always there. Very important story, Prashant. We're going to be on it. You're listening to give the people what they want, I must say, if you're a young woman in one of the developing countries, 90% of you are not able to listen to our show because a UNICEF report shows 90% of young girls in the developing world don't have internet access. The rest of you, you're listening to give the people what they want. Prashant, from People's Dispatch, I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. See you next week.