 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Give the people what they want, brought to you from People's Dispatch. Today it's just Zoe. Prashant is on a flight. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Happy to be with you. It's the 121st show on April 7th, 2023. Give the people what they want, coming to you, as we said, from around the world. And that's what happens often. I'm speaking to you from Santiago, Chile, where just down the road, you can probably hear in the background, is a ceremony in the Easter weekend. But of course, since this is the 50th anniversary of the coup d'etat against the popular unity government of Salvador Allende, even Easter is, in a sense, sub-on to a discussion about the atrocities committed by the U.S.-backed coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Here there is a, as it were, march along the stations of the cross to Via Grimaldi, which was a torture center of the Pinochet coup regime. People are trying to remember loved ones who had been killed, including a six-year-old child, a very powerful demonstration of the situation of memory and to fight against the kind of undertow of amnesia. I must say, though, that the pressures of something like the coup and the kind of structures put in place after 1973 don't disappear so fast. There's an ongoing debate in this country about the security forces and their role in contemporary Chile, not Chile, of 50 years ago, but today. For instance, there's been a renewed sense of anxiety around the killing of police officers in the country, two police officers killed, at which point sections of the Chilean parliament put forward a bill that would have given, that does give police officers greater latitude in their operations against the public, including using live fire and so on. This bill has created a controversy in the country because it effectively invalidates international human rights laws. Now, given the fact that you have a centrist government, the government as of yet, of course, hasn't had to directly deal with this bill because so far there hasn't been a bill sitting before President Gabriel Boric, whether he's going to sign it or veto it or whatnot, that hasn't actually been there. But still, the debate is ongoing. These are the legacies of a coup d'etat which lasted for several years over a decade. Pretty brutal structures put in place that gave the police a great deal of latitude, as we say. Well, now, will they increase that latitude? Will they return to a period of disappearances of public shooting and so on? Hard to say, but the debate is on. It is not over. Zoe, I was just across the border in Argentina where there is, of course, a major political crisis. 40% of the population under the poverty line, the Argentinian peso, consistently collapsing, unable to hold its own, unable the government of Alberto Fernandez to essentially get a grip of the collapse of the economy, of the difficult standard of living of the people. I know we're going to come back to a discussion of SEALAC and the question of inflation. I know we're going to come back to a discussion about the World Bank and the IMF. In this show, we leave nothing unturned, Zoe. And even if I'm standing in a parking lot while people are singing songs to the disappeared, not far away, we're with our viewers on give the people what they want. We're going to turn now because you, of course, had an excellent visit to Mexico. I saw you and people can watch this at People's Dispatch. Ask President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador an important question. You went there with Rania Khaled. Take us to Mexico where, of course, it's not a crisis as such, but, you know, Mexico has its own challenges with the question of migration, the economy, sovereignty, and so on. What did you find in Mexico, Zoe? Well, it definitely was an interesting trip and I learned a lot, spoke to a lot of different people. And it's, as you said, what's happening in Mexico right now is a very interesting moment. We've been observing for the past several years since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected president, that there's really been a tectonic shift in Mexican politics, in Mexico's position with regards to the United States. For decades, for many, many decades, Mexico was completely subordinated to the will of the United States by successive conservative leaders. You know, their economy completely opened to whatever the United States wanted. It's interesting for people who have been there to see that it has so many U.S. chains, I think compared to other Latin American countries, it looks more like the U.S. in some respects than other ones. And so when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected president, he announced that they would be embarking on what's called the fourth transformation. This is the fourth and peaceful transformation of Mexico to make the economy work for the people, to make sure that things like healthcare, like education are not privileges, but rights to reject neoliberalism. And so over the past four years, now five years, Mexico has been embarking on this, of course, with many challenges, with many areas where it hasn't exactly gone according to plan, but as we reported a couple weeks ago, for example, on the issue of energy sovereignty, this has been extremely successful. And also one of the pillars and one of the cornerstones of the fourth transformation is, of course, attacking the issue of corruption and the issue of drug cartels. Mexico has a serious issue with violence, with the war on drugs, with numerous heads of states and local governance having direct relationships with these drug cartels. So while the Mexican governments would say that they were fighting the drug cartels, while they would have large contracts and agreements with the DEA and with the U.S. government, now what a lot of investigation shows is that these same leaders and these same rulers had deep links with the cartels, were benefiting, were getting campaign money from them, were allowing their safe passage and essentially allowing them for them to proliferate. So during this government, during the administration of Morena, there's been a concerted effort to combat this, to combat the drug cartels, to make sure that local governments don't have these links, to make sure that the actual attack and trying to address the root of the violence is done. And so that brings us to kind of the current day where right now there has been sort of a back and forth between conservative U.S. senators such as Lindsey Graham, he's been kind of leading the charge on this, and the head of state in Mexico, Andrés Manuel, Lindsey Graham has essentially started making very provocative statements saying that Mexico wasn't doing enough to attack the cartels, that the fact that fentanyl exists in the United States, which is one of the major killers of people in the United States when they get laced with heroin, it can be extremely deadly, and of course we know there's a very, very big opioid crisis of addiction in the United States, and fentanyl is one of the reasons why people are dying. And so he's basically saying that it's Mexico's fault that this fentanyl exists. The reason that it's in the United States is because of Mexico and therefore the U.S. should invade Mexico militarily, should designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and other such measures. This has provoked of course a very, very strong reaction from the Mexican government who is of course pointing out the fact that they have sovereignty, that the U.S. cannot make these kind of provocative statements calling for military intervention, you know, really threatening the territorial integrity of this country, but also undermining really what the Mexican government has been doing to attack the drug war and the war on drugs, et cetera. The Mexican government has also pointed out that a big issue in this fentanyl crisis is the fact that the U.S. isn't addressing the root causes of why people are using drugs, how the drugs are actually getting throughout the country, and so this has created a kind of tense situation on Dresman well also called on China to collaborate in this saying that much of the fentanyl is exported from China to Mexico. China has since said that this is not true, that there's no illegal exportation of fentanyl. All that to say that it's become more and more a tense situation. It doesn't seem really possible that Lindsey Graham will actually follow through on his threats even though there is a bill in Congress, but it's definitely a situation to watch when Mexico stands up for its sovereignty. Some of the people in its neighbors do not like this. It's interesting what Lindsey Graham said about designating the drug cartels as terrorist organizations and so on. His colleague from the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio, was on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News where Marco Rubio bemoaned the increasing move by many countries to not use the dollar as the principal currency of inter-country trade and regional trade. And what Marco Rubio said, one of the reasons why the United States government, people like him, perhaps Lindsey Graham, should be alarmed by what is known as de-dolarization is this would then mean that the United States wouldn't have the necessary tools to sanction countries and of course to sanction drug cartels and so on, that de-dolarization weakens the U.S.'s ability to squeeze countries. A very interesting statement made by Marco Rubio. Obviously, this has an impact for him on his current obsessions with sanctioning Cuba, which has been designated by the United States government as a state sponsor of terrorism, bizarrely. Anyway, the point is that the tools available to these people are much less than they were. Well, in mid-April, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will have their annual meeting in Washington, D.C., where there will be a lot of discussion about things like the use of the dollar, the declining use of the dollar in certain kinds of transactions, international transactions. There will be a lot of discussion about the question of the debt crisis in Africa. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was in Ghana, where she met with officials and announced, as we talked about last week, an U.S. technical advisor who will be permanently based in Accra to give the Ghanaians a hand. In Ghana, the debt-to-GDP ratio is well over 100%. About 80% of Ghana's budget goes towards financing debt servicing, paying off wealthy bondholders like from the UK various investment funds, but also, of course, the most significant of them all, BlackRock Corporation from the United States. These will be the kinds of discussions that will take place at the World Bank IMF meeting in Washington, D.C. But what people need to pay attention to, and I've written about this for Globetrotter, it will appear today, actually it should appear, is a piece about the new head of the World Bank, Mr. Ajay Banga. Mr. Banga, who is an Indian American, has been nominated by U.S. President Joe Biden. People should recognize that the World Bank head, this will be the 14th head, are all men, and they've all been U.S. citizens. This is by custom, as it were. The head of the International Monetary Fund has always been a European. Well, Mr. Banga will be elevated during the World Bank IMF meetings as the head of the World Bank. He comes to the World Bank from his leadership of several international or multinational corporations. Started his career in India with Nestle, the food multinational. Then he went to Citigroup, where he ran many of Citigroup's operations around the world. And finally, he was at Mastercard, the great predatory credit card lender, where he operated as the head of Mastercard for many years, before he was elevated to chair or become the president of the International Chamber of Commerce. So that's Mr. Ajay Banga, who's going to come to the World Bank as a representative, essentially, of multinational corporations. The net portfolio investments of the World Bank about $100 billion. By the way, it's the same for the new development bank, or the BRICS Bank, which is based in Shanghai, China, whose new head is Dilma Rousseff. Very interesting to compare the two heads. Ajay Banga comes to the World Bank from International Finance and Dilma Rousseff comes to the new development bank or the BRICS Bank, former experienced president of Brazil and before that chief of staff for Lula. In fact, under Lula and then herself as president, Dilma Rousseff was the architect in many ways of the anti-poverty or the poverty eradication program in Brazil. She has very much seized not in the agenda of public-private financing, but of utilizing whatever state means possible, such as in Brazil when they use Bolsa Familia and Brazil's misery. These two programs of the Brazilian government, state programs, were essential in the eradication of poverty. In Washington DC, at the World Bank IMF meeting, there will be no discussion about the need for robust state interventions. You're going to have a lot of talk about private-public partnership with more emphasis on private than public. That's the tenor at the IMF World Bank meeting. Very different tenor at the new development bank where Dilma Rousseff is now in charge, where they are going to establish the importance of state intervention, establish the importance of the integrity of governments over their tax apparatus, external funding and so on. So please keep an eye on what's going on at the World Bank IMF meetings. Very instructive comparison with the new development bank in this period. You're listening to give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch today. It's Zoe, no Prashant. He's on a flight. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Great to be with you. We're trying our best to get this show going because it's just the two of us, but I think we're doing a pretty good job, Zoe. I don't know what you feel. We're talking economics, tough subject, inflation right there on the cards. Most people struggling as bills go up. Energy bills, particularly now that OPEC Plus has decided to raise oil prices. We're going to see a spike in many countries in fuel price inflation. Zoe, what is the discussion taking place in the Americas on this question of inflation? Well, oftentimes we, and especially in this past year, we've talked a lot about regionalism and what it means to have regional blocks and what these blocks can really be capable of. And it's so important to bring this from the more theoretical discussion of the importance of the fact that these spaces like CELAC, which is the community of Latin American and Caribbean states exists, and actually look really concretely what they're doing because I think it's quite interesting. Especially, you know, taking up completely from what you're saying with regards to the IMF and the World Bank, spaces like CELAC are trying to do exactly the opposite of what those U.S. dominated institutions, European dominated institutions do. And on Wednesday, a very, very important meeting convened by, again, Mexican President Andrés Manuel. Again, it can't be emphasized enough the role that he's playing in these regional spaces. And it was about how to combat inflation by forging more cooperation, forging more trade agreements within the region. And at this meeting, there were 10 heads of state present, sorry, 10 members of governments present from Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, St. Vincent the Grenadine, several others, of course, Mexico. And this is such a crucial space. They discussed how, as countries in the region, we all have different kind of output. We all produce different things. So how are we going to contend with the fact that there is inflation, that prices are rising, that, for example, now if we're going to see this increase in oil prices with the OPEC Plus, how can we work as a region to ensure that we all are able to guarantee nutrition and food sovereignty, sorry, security amongst ourselves. And so they essentially met about this, came up with pretty concrete steps, including the creation of a working group, to actually create measures to facilitate trade, to kind of assess who is where, who is producing what, what can be transferred, what kind of technology does each country have that can really support the development of others. And I think this is a crucial step. There's going to be a follow-up meeting in May held with also some business sectors. But for those of you who haven't read it yet, I really encourage people to check out the tri-continental dossier on challenging US multilateralism, on building regionalism, because precisely it's these regional structures that have to be strengthened in order to really challenge US dominance and US hegemony. The fact that this meeting could take place where Venezuela and Cuba and Colombia could be in the same room, and actually discussing not their political orientation, not their position on certain political issues, but actually how can we work together to better the lives of our people? How can we work together to face these issues that we're all facing regardless of what the US thinks about this? I think it's so important to underline and highlight steps like this and really see where they can go and see how this can provide an example for other regions. And see what the possibility of this kind of cooperation can give. So I think saluting this and seeing it as a very necessary step forward, hunger, as we've talked about so much on this show, is the primary issue facing humanity. It's not because there's a lack of food, it's because there's a lack of interest to actually socialize this amongst the people. So the fact that these presidents, these heads of state, these foreign ministers are able to get together and say how can we, as countries in the region, face this is very crucial. So hopefully we'll be seeing some developments on this in the coming months and weeks. It's an important issue if people go to the People's Dispatch website. There is a document on hunger reported by websites from around the world, from Brazil de Pato in Brazil, from Newsclick in India, and so on, an excellent text on the gravity of hunger. We've already talked, Zoe, about Ghana a lot. Right now, the Ghana Ministry of Statistics is showing that inflation is about 50%. You know, there needs to be a serious discussion in various forums about the importance of an emergency packet to counteract inflation. Counterinflationary measures simply not on the agenda. Just to repeat once again, it's not on the agenda of the World Bank and the IMF. They're not putting on the table counterinflationary measures. We're just not seeing that kind of serious discussion. When we talk about inflation, think about a country like India. Very difficult in India to even know what the inflation numbers are. Firstly, it's a very large country. Secondly, there's great regional disparities. And thirdly, it seems like over the last 10 years or so, a statistical measurement has really deteriorated in the country. It's hard to have a good number of what the inflation rate is. Well, if we don't have a good number, we can at least go out there on the street and talk to farmers, talk to workers and so on. Ask them what is the impact of the price of say onions or tomatoes. In India, for instance, the best way to measure inflation is not to measure a basket of goods that includes electricity and so on. The best way is to look at the prices of onions and tomatoes. Basic, not a staple because it's not a grain, but it's a basic element in the everyday food of people. And when tomato and onion prices go up, you know that it's a catastrophic situation for people. Well, just recently, on April 5th, massive protests in Delhi, a Masdoor-Kisan rally, workers' peasants' rally. What is this rally about? It's a rally that is demanding, in a sense, an emergency package against inflation. It's also a rally that wants to put on the table the fact that the exact needs of workers, exact needs of the peasantry, not part of the national discussion in India. It's not something unique in India to have massive farmer protests. We saw this in Maharashtra about six, seven years ago. There was a long Kisan march that went all the way into the capital city of Maharashtra into Mumbai, the financial capital of India. Then we saw major farmer protests in the states of Rajasthan, in the states of Madhya Pradesh, just in the central region of India. And finally, for almost two years, farmers stood in protest all across India, but specifically in the border regions around the capital city of Delhi. This farmer protest, again, went on for months on end. Farmers there were protesting against three bills, pushed through parliament, undemocratically became acts. These were bills that effectively privatized the marketplace where farmers sell their primary produce. Well, the farmer protest at the time was able to get the government to withdraw those bills to open perhaps a discussion about them. Well, that's one thing that has radicalized farmers certainly. Every year as well, for the last 20 years, the Indian workers have come out in a major general strike. I must say the vanguard of those general strikes has largely been many women workers in the precarious sector, in the care sector and so on. Well, the fact that there's been this rumbling of protests among Indian workers and in recent years Indian farmers has shown us the importance of mass demonstrations to put on the table, not only for the government, but also for the media, that there needs to be a focus of attention on the lives of ordinary people. Well, this particular protest certainly put these issues on the table, but I want to say once again, the reporting about this protest in the Indian media was minimal, let alone the international media. If not for one of our partner organizations news click, we would not even know what had happened. I highly recommend people go to newsclick.in, go and read the stories, watch the videos. Many of the videos are in Hindi, but you can still get a picture of what you're seeing, you know, what's there. You get a sense of the kind of big scale, the sea of red as it were in Ramlila Medan as the workers in peasants gathered to put their issues on the table. Important events in India, the way you push back, I suppose, and get your stuff covered in the media is either through money power or it's through people power. In this case, the farmers and the workers of India have got us to talk about them Zoe because of people power, not money power, not that anybody gets us to talk about them by money power, not even the coup regime in Peru. Well, we keep talking about Peru. What else is there to say? Yeah, I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy the amount that we're talking about them. But essentially this week, we've been following, of course, the ongoing coup situation in Peru, the coup against Pedro Castillo in December 7, 2022. Since then, Dina Guarte has been leading as the de facto president of the country. She quickly, quickly pivoted to remember she was part of Pedro Libre. She was, you know, from the same party as Pedro Castillo, quickly, quickly flipped and made very, very crucial for her alliances with the right wing sectors in parliament, which as we know, the Congress in Peru is dominated by right wing parties. They have a 90% disapproval rating because of their, you know, countless corruption allegations, countless kind of miscarriages of justice with regards to the people's needs and demands. And it's this same Congress that essentially in this right wing dominated sectors of the Congress that just saved Dina Guarte from an impeachment motion. Left wing Congress members who are of course in the minority in this Congress presented an emotion to impeach her from permanent moral incapacity, largely due to the brutal, brutal repression of protesters in Peru over the past several months. As we know, the estimate is around 50 to 70 people. The numbers vary based on the organization that's reporting it. But the Congress recognizes that at least 50 people have been killed by state repression during these last several months of protests where they have been out on the streets demanding that Dina Guarte resigned, that the Congress, this right wing Congress that is 90% disapproval rating amongst approving people, that the Congress be dissolved, that new elections be held and that a constituent assembly be held. Dina Guarte not only has, you know, stigmatized protesters called them vandals alluded to them carrying out terrorist activities, but she has essentially called for the brutal repression of these protests. As I said, 50 people confirmed to be killed in these protests. And that is why these left wing senators and members of Congress really called for this impeachment motion. And again, this crucial alliance that she entered in with the far right sectors has essentially protected her from any scrutiny, protected her from any possibility of there be action taken against her. She's not going to go quietly. It remains the demand, the principal demand of the people that she not be in office anymore because of all of the suffering that she has caused to the people of Peru, through her government, through her leadership. However, she has friends in very high places. She has friends with the people that she swore that she was going to confront as vice president. And they are very interested in the fact that Dina Guarte stay on. They're interested in the possibility of the military and the police having more and more control in the country. However, two days ago, it was the anniversary of Alberto Fujimori of his coup. Two days of the anniversary of another one, his trial of when he was sentenced to 25 years for crimes against humanity. The people are out on the street once again remembering what Fujimori meant for the Peruvian people and connecting it to the crimes today of Dina Guarte. So the struggle of the Peruvian people continues. They continue to demand action. They continue to demand change and the government of course continues to respond with repression and with ignoring their demands. Well, Vijay, we can't necessarily hear you, but I think you're No, we started in our show today in Chile. We're ending it with Peru, traveled around the world, up to the World Bank meetings. Lots to discuss, but lots for you to read at People's Dispatch. This is from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. You've been listening to Give the People What They Want brought to you by our two media houses eager to get your feedback and your responses. See you next week. See you.