Kawsachun News was recently in Desaguadero, Peru, to speak to participants of the general strike against the parliamentary coup that took place against ousted President Pedro Castillo.
Peoples Dispatch reported state forces killed 17 people January 9 in Juliaca, Peru, bringing the total during this unrest to 46 deaths, as of the last available press reports.
Clau O’Brien Moscoso, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, is in Peru reporting from the ground. She spoke to Kawsachun News on January 12.
Here is some of her video documentation of the national strike.
BAP Haiti/Americas Team member Claudia O'Brien Moscoso (@PiolinSghost) has been in the streets of Lima with the masses of #Peru's people, who have been protesting the parliamentary coup of @PedroCastilloTe. Check this thread for her documentation. https://t.co/DgNJcLgN46
Editor’s Note: This video report was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
As Panamanians enter week three of national strike against the cost of living crisis, the government has responded with heavy repression. On July 19, the anti-riot units brutally repressed the protesters, who have been blocking the Inter-American highway over the past three weeks. However, within hours, the protesters returned to block the road.
Ronaldo Ortíz of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO) spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the ongoing struggle and attempts to negotiate with the government on their demands.
The Socialist Party (SP) of Zambia is once again the target of persecution by the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND). On June 15, SP President and journalist, Dr. Fred M’membe issued an alert via his social media accounts that the Party had been “reliably informed” that the Police “in collaboration with UPND cadres drafted into the State House security” intended to “abduct” him.
M’membe further accused President Hakainde Hichilema, together with the Deputy Inspector General of Police of the State House, Mr. Fanwell Siandenge, of handling issues of law enforcement in a “gestapo style,” adding that the SP had been informed that Siandenge was “working in cohorts with known UPND cadres in State House security.”
On June 16, M’membe stated that a warrant of arrest had been issued against him. However, he emphasized that no prior police callout had been issued.
Under normal procedure, a callout notice gives an individual an opportunity to go to a police station to respond to the allegations made against them, Akende Chundama, the spokesperson of the SP chairperson explained to Peoples Dispatch. An arrest warrant is issued when the individual ignores the notice.
“What they want is to use this warrant to abduct me,” M’membe warned in a post.
In a later update, he added that President Hichilema, who was in Ukraine on June 16 as part of a “peace mission” with six other African heads of state, had issued instructions that M’membe be arrested before he returned to Zambia in a plan to “insulate Mr. Hichilema from the gestapo style of policing (abductions).”
According to M’membe, the warrant for his arrest is in relation to two letters allegedly issued by government officials that have been shared on social media.
The first letter, dated March 14, 2023 bears the signature of the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security, Josephs R. Akafumba, and requests the Secretary to the Cabinet to petition the Vatican regarding the actions of Archbishop Alick Banda of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lusaka, accusing him of “working with a foreign entity to undermine the sovereignty of the Republic of Zambia.”
The second letter, dated December 7, 2021, titled “Presidential Directive” appears to bear the signature of President Hichilema and is addressed to the Director General of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service, directing him to “contain the influence” of the Roman Catholic Church on “other Faith Based Organizations,” “government and quasi-government institutions,” and “on the Republic” and to contain the influence of the Arch-Diocese of Lusaka on the Republic.
During the 2021 elections, some members of the Catholic Church had supported the Patriotic Front (PF) which was in power then while others had supported a change in government, Akende said. After the election, some members of the Church had started speaking out against the promises that the new government, led by incumbent president Hichilema, had made but did not deliver upon, resulting in the emergence of a wedge between the two.
In a press conference, Ministry of Information spokesperson, Thabo Kawana, stated that the alleged letters were fake, and that action would be taken against those who had circulated them.
Kawana proceeded to list the Facebook pages of the PF, the page of news platform Grindstone Television, and that of M’membe as those who had circulated the alleged letters.
Luki and Phiri were reportedly detained by police and subsequently held at the Woodlands Police Station. Phiri had allegedly obtained the said letters from the Facebook page of UPND member, Matomola Likwanya, according to the SP.
On June 17, it was reported that Zambian police had formally charged and arrested former diplomat and PF Central Committee member and presidential aspirant, Emmanuel Mwamba, and one other person, Andy Luchinde, with forgery and publication of information in relation to the two letters.
Mwamba, who had been detained earlier this week, has stated that he was brutally attacked by a group of men at a car wash before being forcibly taken to a police station. A picture of Mwamba at the University Teaching Hospital where he sought medical care on June 16 shows him with bruises on his arm.
Growing Attacks Against the Socialist Party of Zambia
Meanwhile, this recent episode comes just months after the SP was brutally attacked by UPND cadres during election campaigning in the Muchinda ward in April. While none of the attackers were apprehended at the time, the police in turn arrested and charged M’membe with “Unlawful discharge of a firearm” and “Assault occasioning actual bodily harm”.
M’membe, and the SP, have been a steadfast voice in the resistance to U.S. imperialism in Africa and its coercion, through various means, of countries on the continent to serve its narrow foreign policy and strategic interests.
Within Zambia, the SP has offered an alternative political vision for the people— away from the neoliberal policies of successive governments, and one which addresses core issues of poverty and inequality.
M’membe has condemned the Hichilema administration for carrying out “retaliatory arrests” and political repression. He has highlighted recent arrests including that of Chris Zumani Zimba, a political advisor to former president Edgar Lungu from the Patriotic Front (PF) on the charge of “being in possession of articles for terrorism” as examples.
As M’membe faces a renewed threat of arrest, he has received messages of support and solidarity, including from the International Peoples’ Assembly, which is a network of over 200 trade unions, political parties, and social movements from around the world.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) also strongly condemned the arrest warrant against M’membe in a statement on June 17, recalling how before coming to power, Hichilema had himself been a victim of unlawful detention by the state under former president Lungu.
“We are demanding that Hichilema must stop his senseless and ruthless attacks on members of the opposition … Hands off Fred M’membe, hands off!,” the union said, adding that while Hichilema had been “celebrated by the liberal media when he was elected,” he was “behaving like a tin-pot dictator.”
“His behavior is an excellent lesson to all those who naively believe that liberalism is democratic. Liberalism is democracy for the benefit of corporations … If at that time democracy is dispensable, they will dispense with it, as long as it serves their interests.”
“There is a sentiment of disappointment among the people, of betrayal of what was promised [by the Hichilema government] but has not been delivered,” Akende told Peoples Dispatch.
“These sentiments have grown against the backdrop of the people seeing the Socialist Party as an alternative [political force] in the 2026 general elections … The SP is fighting for the rights and the livelihoods of the people, and the repression will grow, but we are prepared,” she added.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
This October marks the third anniversary of the 2019 popular protests in Iraq. On Tuesday, October 25, a large number of people gathered in the Tahrir square in capital Baghdad and paid homage to the people who were killed in the protests. They raised slogans in support of what has been termed by the protesters as the Tishreen movement.
The countrywide protests in 2019, rooted in the long-term grievances of people against successive governments, went on for months. Before the global COVID-19 outbreak forced them to end, the protests were successful in forcing the then government led by Adil Abdul Mahdi to resign, putting the ruling classes on the defensive and pressing for reforms.
Caretaker prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who came to power in May 2020 after months of uncertainty, had promised to deliver on some of the major demands raised by the protesters, including rebuilding the economy and punishing those guilty for the deaths of over 600 people including protesters and others.
Three years down the line and with a new government on the horizon, none of these promises have been met. This is likely to lead the vast majority of pro-reformers pushing for their demands in the coming days.
Economic and Political Aspects of the Protests
The 2019 protests were one of the largest in Iraq’s history since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Long-term grievances regarding inefficiency of successive administrations and the widely perceived corruption among the ruling establishment were at the center of the public anger. In their slogans, the protesters repeatedly denounced the failure of the system created under the supervision of the US occupation in tackling the issues faced by the people, such as rising poverty, unemployment, and basic services delivery.
At the time of the protests, the official rate of poverty in the country of approximately 40 million people was rising. Even before the pandemic hit in 2020, the poverty rate had risen to above 31 percent. Oil-rich Iraq witnessed an unprecedented rise in poverty during the COVID-19 outbreak. While the government claimed that the poverty rate was coming down after the pandemic, a large number of Iraqis are still forced to live a life as paupers.
Since oil revenues make up the bulk of Iraq’s federal budget–around 96 percent–the economy remains vulnerable to market fluctuation.
Iraqi youth, who make up the majority of the population, were at the center of the 2019 protests. The unemployment rate among the youth–fresh graduates from the university and others–was above 40 percent at the time of the protests.
The majority of Iraqis were forced to live without the basic amenities such as power, sanitation, and health care. Protesters claimed that these failures on the economic front were the result of inefficiency and corruption of the ruling elite. They also pointed to structural reasons such as the system of Muhasasa or sectarian quota based on distribution of political posts for this inefficiency and corruption.
Failure to Address Demands for Structural Changes
The protests were not limited to Baghdad but spread across all urban centers in the country, particularly in the southern regions. The protesters raised the demands of more jobs, better governance and systemic changes, including ending the sectarian quota system and all kinds of external intervention in Iraqi affairs.
Instead of taking initiatives to address the issues related to structural reforms, the ruling class announced fresh national elections in October 2021, a year before schedule.
Partial changes in the country’s electoral laws and introduction of the first past the poll system to replace the system of proportional representation were sold as fulfilling the demand for reforms in the political structure.
However, none of these addressed, even partially, the demands raised by the protesters. The U.S. troops were forced to end their operational presence but, in complete violation of the parliament’s resolution and popular demand, they still remain in the country.
The national elections of October 2021 saw a historically low participation rate with just about 40 percent of the electorate exercising their right to vote amid a call for boycott. This resulted in a situation where no political coalition or group was in a position to claim majority and form a new government for almost a year after the elections.
Mohammad Shia al-Sudani was finally approved as prime minister this week. He was designated to the post by Abdul Latif Rashid who was newly elected as president earlier this month. Al-Sudani’s appointment is expected to end the political uncertainty in the country for now. However, it may not mean an end to the political turmoil despite his promises to deliver on the economic front and tackle corruption.
A sign of the challenges ahead is the fact that disagreements and disputes over the nature of government as well as al-Sudani’s candidacy led to the killing of dozens of people this year.
