 Yes, so today is the 26th of March 2021, you are joining us at give the people what they want brought to you every Friday from people's dispatch of whom of whom we have with us Prashant as usual and Zoe as usual. Also brought to you by Globetrotter of which we have me, Vijay as usual, three of us as usually with you on Friday, every Friday to give you what you will give the people what they want that's you. I hope you enjoy this show. We're going to start today with an event that should actually receive coverage because it's important. You have followed, of course, the very great violence of the Colombian state against the Colombian people. And fortunately, some light is being shed on this by the Rome based international people's tribunal. Zoe, what's happening with the international people's tribunal? What's happening with Columbia? Will Columbia's atrocities finally get some coverage? Yes, today. Well, yesterday, the permanent people's tribunal kicked off in Columbia in the city of Bucaramanga. This is a really historic process, as you mentioned, this is, you know, the permanent people's tribunal is a process that was started in Rome and has gone, you know, into places across the world to support, you know, the struggle for justice for truth and for uncovering the role of the state in many different contexts in perpetuating crimes against humanity, human rights violations. As most of our viewers and people who have been reading people's dispatch and globetrotter chart, of course, would know the column in the situation in Columbia is one of great concern. I mean, since 2016, over 1000, 1000, just to take that number in, social leaders and human rights defenders have been assassinated. I mean, the situation in the countryside is getting to levels that are seen in kind of the early 2000s under President Alvaro Uribe Vélez with, you know, massive displacements happening of communities, you know, reconquering of territories by paramilitary groups. I mean, the situation is rightfully called a genocide and a humanitarian catastrophe, disaster crisis. And so in this context, over 50 Colombian human rights organizations, social movements, peasant movements, indigenous groups, Afro-descendant groups came together and called for the permanent people's tribunal, which has had two sessions before in Columbia. So this isn't the first time that it has come to Columbia to shed light on the crimes of the Colombian state and has essentially come to hear over 50 reports presented by civil society, by social movements, by all these organizations that call it for the tribunal about crimes against the Colombian people. As I mentioned, it started yesterday in the city of Bucaramanga. Today is in the center of memory and peace in Bogota and Tamal, it will be in Medellin. And so they're hearing testimonies from all these different sectors about crimes that have been committed over the past couple of decades in Columbia. There's some really, really powerful stories being told, stories from which there haven't been instances of justice. And I think we see the permanent people's tribunal stepping in when the state is incapable of delivering justice and is also complicit in carrying out these crimes. Columbia is the most clear, one of the clearest examples of this happening. So for people who are unfamiliar with the situation in Columbia, there are cases of, of course, the false positives, which we talked about on this show, where over 6,000 people were assassinated and dressed up as guerrilla fighters to say that the Colombian army had success in their war against the guerrilla and against drug traffickers, if they would say. There's also cases of the extermination of the trade union movement in Columbia, several cases of selective assassinations of trade union leaders, also the case of the extermination of peasant movements. I mean, I could go on, of course, but I really encourage people to tune in. We'll have a report coming out in people's dispatch soon to talk about this really historic, necessary and important case and important work that's going on. And I mean, thankfully we have the people's tribunal. Hopefully we would have justice in a more concrete and institutional sense, but you know, that's, that's what we're left with right now. There are many ways to have a tribunal, Zoe, of course, the Colombian people made their own tribunal when they came out on the streets in 2019 in mass demonstrations led by the Congress of the people and so on. That's a form of tribunal, people coming out to demonstrate and say, look, we don't agree with either of the atrocities that are happening. We don't agree with the economic policy and so on. We've seen in India Prashant for years now rolling protests which are a form of tribunal. I think they are a very important form of politics. There was a Bharat Bandh today that is on the 26th. There was a general strike from 6am to 6pm called by the farmers organization. Tell us a little about that tribunal Prashant, the tribunal of the streets. Absolutely Vijay. So like you said, this is, this was called by the farmers movement, specifically the subject Kisan Morcha and association with the great unions to mark the fourth month of the farmers protests in India. Now, I think it's important that we also mark days like these, take notice of days like these, because there is a tendency, of course, to really focus a lot on protests when they're at their peak. When you have your tens of thousands of people gathering together, slogans, and then everyone sort of notices it. And once the protests are not so much, or they continue for a while, or they're not that big or intense anymore, there's a tendency to almost completely forget about it in some ways. So I think days like these are extremely important because it shows that the farmers protests which were against the three laws passed by the Narendra Modi government and some other provisions as well, that it continues and it has continued, the citizens are still continuing. There are across the country, what are called Mahapanchayats taking place, which are like large gatherings of farmers where farmers leaders, farmer leaders who were in the outskirts of Delhi, they've traveled across the country. You know, there's been a lot of exchange of ideas, exchange of protests, solidarity that is being displayed in all these big, big gatherings. And there's an attempt to make it very clear that this is not just the protest of one region or one set of farmers which has kind of been the government's narrative from day one onwards. And this is just one set of disaffected farmers. Whereas the truth as you've seen over the months is that this is a much larger protest. And the interesting and important thing to note here, of course, is that the farmers in the trade unions working very closely together, with the case in multiple protests in India over the past few years. So trade union activists were also part of the protest today. Say, because for instance, one of the horrifying things which I get to forget about, according for instance to Hanan Mola, the Oriente Que San Saba, over 300 farmers have died in the cities since November, in these past four months. And many of these deaths are not talked about, they're not noticed. They're people who are part of those protests. And their sacrifices, for instance, are something a lot of people don't know about as well. So days like this, Bharat Band, I think are extremely important. There was a usual arrest of farmers, your farmers movement activists and trade union activists in various states, they were detained. You know, there were attempts to, of course, stop these protests, but then nonetheless continued. I think it's very essential because the, especially the right wing sections in the country are trying to sort of frame this narrative of how the protests have fizzled out. And that is a very problematic way of looking at protests because protests continue in various forms. They kind of, there are waves and there is what you call, there are actions that take place continuously. And the Mahapachayat, the mass gatherings are very good example of how the farmers movement is also evolving into being something more structured, something more sustainable, something more, say, engaging with a larger number of people. So I think it's something definitely to watch out for in the coming weeks and months as well, because the farmers clearly are sticking to their stand and opposing that challenge. You know, the farmers protests, as you say, is continuing. As you say, you said over 300 people have died. I mean, many of them died from exposure, I would imagine. It's the winter months and so on. We tend to forget that, you know, it's a difficult time of year to be sitting from November till now. But the government has also been cracking down and there has been repression, as we know, against media, against farmers organizations, intimidation, threats and so on. You know, we just went past the 24th of March, which in 1976 was the day of the coup d'etat, the military junta coming to power in Argentina. Day Argentinians remember very carefully, you know, the day of course that the whole world should remember for what happened to the left. This is of course something of alarm in place like India, although the assembly elections are on and it looks like at least in Kerala, the left Democratic front is going to get re-elected. The left has its roots in Indian soil, including in the Kisan agitation and so on. We're seeing something quite different in Turkey, where the Turkish state has been trying its best to eradicate the Turkish left. And I use the word eradicate deliberately. There's a way in which they're trying to eradicate the Turkish left. You know, since 1990, since after the dictatorship, there was an attempt by currents of Kurdish emancipation and the Turkish left to come together, form different political parties and so on. Since then, many of them have been banned, many of them banned. Just in 2012, another formation was created, the People's Democratic Party, the HDP, which is different than the previous ones because the HDP in a way is not actually a combination of Kurdish emancipation and the Turkish left. It's actually a new kind of party asking for a new Turkish project. It's not just a unity of two blocks. It's got a whole new vision. I talked to the president of the People's Democratic Party, Ertugrul Kuktu, for people's dispatch. I hope people will go in and watch the interview because Ertugrul talks with great feeling about the project of the People's Democratic Party, explains what they're doing and so on. And well, I mean, the government of Turkey at the same time, you know, this is exactly what they want to erase. They want to erase precisely the hope of a different kind of project. And, you know, Mr. President of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan has been extraordinarily ruthless against his opposition. You know, they arrested an opposition member of parliament, tried to strip him of immunity first, then arrested him on what grounds, on the grounds that he tweeted or rather retweeted a story from a relatively mainstream publication about the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK and the wartime activity. Now, the fact is, here's the interesting thing, Zoe Prashant. The story that he tweeted is still up. It's still available. You know, there's nothing wrong with the story. It's a basic story, but he has been arrested based on that story. You know, it's incredible. One of the co-chairs of the People's Democratic Party, Saladin Demetri, still in prison, has been there since 2016. You know, on what charge? Again, a charge of promoting the Workers' Party, the PKK. The links between the PKK and the HDP are actually quite, you know, unclear because when the HDP ran in the Istanbul municipal elections, they actually went against the Kurdish Workers' Party. There's a lot of evidence of gap between the two formations, even though there may be some similarity of purpose and so on. You know, but they are being taught with that brush in the same way as dissenters in India routinely get targeted and called naxalites. You know, the same way as Gautam Navlaka sitting in prison, Anand Teltum, they're sitting in prison, get taught with the brush of being naxalites. Because they have the similar orientation. They want to create a kind of socialist society in India. There's no organizational ties. There's no agreement on strategy or anything, and yet the government does this. So they're trying to ban the third largest political party in Turkey on these spurious grounds. Again, sort of tepid coverage on this. I'm afraid, you know, there was more coverage about something significant, which is that Turkey decided to walk away from the Istanbul Convention, which is a convention, European convention on the question of violence against women. It's a very important convention. Of course, it's called the Istanbul Convention, guys. It's bizarre that Turkey has walked out of it. That got coverage as it should have got coverage. But at the same time, they're trying to ban a political party, the third largest political party. This should really have people who are seized by the concept of democracy, should have people little concerned. I would have thought that papers around the world would have contributed opinion articles on the fact that, well, this kind of judicial lawfare, this sort of lawfare against a party, what we saw against say Lula, Brazil and so on, this is of concern. And I just, you know, don't see this happening much. Of course, the question of erosion of democracy must be with us. You're listening to give the people what they want brought to you by people's dispatch and globetrotter. I hope you've bookmarked people's dispatch and go to it. Well, last time I said daily, and I think Prashant and Zoe would like you to come at least two or three times a day. So bookmarked people's dispatch. It's a very important source for movement storytelling. Yes, we are concerned about democracy. That's because our stories are written essentially with the UN Charter in mind. Zoe concerned about democracy. Meanwhile, of course, in the United States of America, in the fine state of Georgia, voter suppression is right there on top of the table, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, in what it likes to call itself as kind of the defender of democracy and the guarantor of democracy globally, there is actually quite strong limits on people's access to democracy. And I think, and this is, of course, on, you know, certain lines on racial lines on class lines with so essentially yesterday, a pretty bizarre vote happened in the in the state of Georgia and the state legislature, you know, passed really quickly called Election Integrity Act of 2021. The law essentially implements a lot of restrictions on voting. So it adds criteria for how to turn an absentee ballot ballots, which of course, you know, in the COVID times, being able to vote by mail, being able to absentee ballot is pretty crucial to be able to participate in the democratic process. It also decreases the use of ballot drop boxes, shortens the time between runoff elections, and makes it illegal for people to approach voters waiting in line to vote with food or water. So on face value, kind of like, what does this really mean? How does this really infringe on voting rights? I mean, I think it has to be seen in the context of the United States where voting rights are consistently infringed upon. And so we've seen, you know, over the past couple of decades, a series of state level laws passed, that, you know, in some way or another restrict people's access to voting. So whether this is requiring a certain type of ID to go vote, or whether it's, you know, changing the period of enrollment and registration. At the last minute, you know, we've seen this in a lot of different states. You know, they just make all these different changes, which restrict people's access to voting. And then of course, in some states, we have the really grave, you know, prohibition of people who have prior felony convictions to be able to vote. I mean, the numbers on this are astounding. In 2020, over 5 million people were disenfranchised from voting because of a felony conviction. And if people know anything about, you know, the system of mass incarceration in the United States, this is a system which disproportionately affects people of color, black people and Latino people in the United States. And so, you know, what are we seeing with all these different voter repression laws is trying to disenfranchise a certain sector of the population, working class people, black people, Latino people from being able to participate. So when we talk about democracy in the United States, you know, this glorious right to vote and participate in democratic process, it's not for, you know, this right is not granted to everyone. And we see with these kind of small law, I mean, it's not a small law. This was actually a really big, significant law, but it's just edging and eroding away on this right in the, you know, every way possible, making it harder, not easier, harder to participate. It was a civil right in a civil duty and obligation, which in some countries is even, you know, an obligation, but in the United States, voting like many other things, like many other things that should be essential rights, human rights, are just for privileged few, you know. You know, it's a, it's a human right. It's, as you say, right after I had mentioned that our standard is the UN Charter where this is very strongly enshrined this idea of democratic principles and so on. In the one hand in Turkey, we see the attempt to actually ban a political party in the same way as they banned Lula from running in the election. And then of course, you're saying that, well, it's even worse in a way that your simple act of the franchise is franchises also in doubt. Gotta look carefully in different countries to see what's happening in terms of the right to vote. You know, in Venezuela, 200 years ago, there was a battle called the Battle of Carabobo, when the Spanish were finally overcome. This process is going to revive a great deal of discussion centered in Carabobo in South America, around the importance of reviving ideas of sovereignty and democracy and so on. I think from today, we're opening up a period of discussion about Carabobo and its meaning for the world and so on. So I mean, I look forward to having more discussions. I hope people will go into their communities and have conversations about what democracy means. Democracy wouldn't mean anything if we're going to continue this mass slaughter that we're seeing in Brazil. For instance, I just looked at the numbers. It's extraordinary. On the 13th of February, 1000 people died that day by the 23rd of March, 3258 people died. There are 12 million infections in Brazil, almost 300,000 deaths. Just pause for a second. In Brazil, there are almost 300,000 deaths. We say that these numbers are second only to the United States. Brazil only has two thirds of the US population. So if you look at per capita, it is beyond a tragedy. Enrique Mandetta, the former health minister, said that this was going to happen, but he was pushed aside by Yair Bolsonaro. The president is extraordinary how horrible it is. Meanwhile, there's vaccine hoarding going on, vaccine nationalism going on. Everything against the principle of Karabobo Prashant. What's up with the whole vaccine business? Absolutely. It's not a mess right now because you have various countries considering or groups considering these kind of export restrictions. The EU definitely did impose export restrictions yesterday and there were rumors that India might do the same. Although India, to its credit, has exported quite a lot of the vaccines produced by the Sedum Institute. But on the one hand, like you said, we're definitely probably entering into a phase of extreme vaccine nationalism. We saw reports of the United States actually hoarding huge amounts of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which it had not given the approval for. But it refused to send to other countries, which will actually need because for whatever reason. So that's happening on the one hand. Of course, on the other hand, there is a very concerned effort which you have discussed in some of our previous shows to actually get the, to remove patient restrictions or copyright restrictions on the vaccine. And this is actually becoming a much, almost a global movement in the sense that India and South Africa had obviously initiated this demand. And now we have at least 100 countries, most of whom are developing to support these demands. We have the WHO director supporting these demands. But this still can't happen because it requires a consensus, the WTO, obviously the United States, the EU, all these big groups, big players are against it. And this is the impact is disastrous because I think there are reports which say for instance that in the developing countries, the mass of people are likely to be immunized by mid-2022 maybe, whereas in the developed countries, whereas in the developing countries, it might take up to 2024. And this is like a huge gap and we're looking at the possibility of hundreds and thousands, if not millions of additional deaths due to this delay. And most of this comes from the fact that organizations or other countries are not able to produce these vaccines because of the restrictions imposed by patents, because the restrictions imposed by the TRIPS protocol basically. So there is definitely a movement, not a movement but a push by many countries across the world to get this done. We've had recently for instance the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution suggesting that this happened. We've had MPs and parliamentarians across the world writing for it. But at the end of the day, there's still no concrete global will to implement this. And at some level this might look esoterically talking about trade law and intellectual property rights and all that. It's maybe very complicated, but it boils down to a very simple and single point that the rich countries and the rich companies are making profits. Of course, the rich countries are holding their vaccines and making sure that their people benefit. Whereas the mass of the world's population is going to struggle to get access to the vaccine. There is this COVAX initiative by WHO, which is also going to suffer for the same reason because unless these supplies are what you call received by them, they're not going to be able to distribute it. Even now the global map is quite depressing when you go to some of these sites and see vaccine distribution. The amount of concentration of vaccine distribution is horrifying to say the least. And I think it says a lot for us as a global community in terms of how we're not able to do this. So April 7th, of course, is World Health Day. And I think a lot of mobilization by progressive movements across the world is definitely going to be on this demand that there be justice in this regard. Well, it's a very important story. And next week, Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research will release a red alert on vaccines, which is pretty scientific actually. It's all about RNA and DNA and things that I'm struggling to wrap my head around, but look out for that. Next week also on Monday is International Day of Solidarity with Haiti. Important, we've covered Haiti a lot. I would suggest that people go to the various events that are taking place. Perhaps pull down CLR James' book, The Black Jacobins, and have a read of that on that day in Solidarity with the people of Haiti. Started this little segment on Brazil yesterday was the 99th birthday of the Brazilian Communist Party. And well, I suppose the only antidote to the chaos in Brazil in Bolsonaro is if the Brazilian left has its chance to perhaps rationalize the process of the state in Brazil. Rationalize the process of the state. I'm sure everybody's seen that picture of the of the golden class container ship ever given jackknife into the Suez Canal. You see, it's interesting, it's a Panamanian flag carrier with an all Indian crew as it turns out. It's an interesting thing because, you know, I think people need to understand that the Suez Canal essentially is a ditch that was dug in the desert. And it has no real displacement capacity. The company that owns evergreen ever given that's evergreen marine said that there was a big gust of wind. In fact, if you look at the data, there was a gust of wind. The ship very well may have had an accidental jackknife. It's stuck in the canal. It's about nine and a half billion US dollars a day trapped from business by this ship. That's about 400 million dollars an hour. They're trying to move the ship. It's not budging very much. Let's see what happens. It is actually an extraordinary story about the global chain of the movement of commodities. Things are quite fragile in our global chain. This ship ever given has in a sense seized the global movement of commodities. It stopped it. I don't know how long it's going to take to move. They're trying their best to move it. It shows you how fragile things are. Ships are already going south around the Cape of Good Horn. The old journey of Vasco da Gama, Admiral Cheng Ho and so on has to be revived because this ditch has now failed world affairs. There's also vulnerability because of politics in the global chain. I don't want to get too much into this but I do want to mention, because it's an important story, the fight now over cotton grown in Xinjiang. This is long staple cotton. It's a very fine cotton. As a consequence of the debate around Xinjiang and the pressure from the United States and the Europeans on the Chinese, a campaign began to block the use of Xinjiang cotton by companies like HM and so on. But they are stuck because this is some of the world's best cotton and it has become a political football. It's an interesting story and I don't want to get too much into this. We need to actually investigate it more, develop this story more but I just want to point out these are two vulnerabilities in the globalized economy. One, this golden class tanker which has jackknifed in the Suez Canal blocks things up. Secondly, there's a political dispute over Xinjiang which is going to block cotton production. We don't know what this is going to do to producers in Xinjiang. It will have some effect on them. I don't think China can absorb Xinjiang cotton. It's also clear that companies around the world are not keen on this because they would have to use inferior cotton for their products and so on. Things to think about the vulnerability of the globalized system. We've got to dig deeper into some of this stuff. You've been with us for this half hour and we've refused to increase the show to an hour even though the people seem to want that. Some people have even asked us to do two hours. You'd get bored of us for sure. Give the people what they want. It comes to you every week from people's dispatch thanks to Prashant and Zoe. Prashant and Zoe bring you people's dispatch which is one of the finest movement storytellers. Please bookmark the website, go there regularly. Give the people what they want. It's also brought to you from Globetrotter and that's me Vijay. I'm the Chief Correspondent at Globetrotter which is a syndication service. I hope you see our stories here, there and everywhere including most importantly at people's dispatch. It's great to be here on Friday with you. Look forward to coming back next week. Zoe, Prashant, anything else? We're okay. Remember to share the show with your friends and tell them about this bohemian and Bolshevik news program. That's a very good point. Please tell people about this show. We don't have corporate sponsorship. We don't have ads anywhere. We're sponsored by Black Turtle NEX. And we have unique outfits. Tell your friends we want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of the show. See you next week.