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okay I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri
peace processes like true love never run
smooth but few breakdowns attract the
attention that the rejection in a
referendum of the long and painful
process of bringing about an end to the
bloody conflict in Colombia has a 50y
year war more than 50 years actually has
been waged there between the
Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia
the farc and the Colombian State the
process was supposed to leave the far
unarmed and in the political system
instead the narrow rejection of deal has
plunged the country and the region into
deep uncertainty joining us to discuss
it is journalist Nick McWilliam who was
in Colombia during the campaign Nick
thanks for coming on board what went
wrong everybody assumed this was a done
deal yeah me included um what went wrong
it's a very broad question I mean um
people are still talking about that
people are still not defined an actual
an actual cause um there's been
everything has been listed as as factors
in the in the no vote success from um
hurricane the hurricane which hit the
Caribbean coast um on Election Day oh
sorry election day referendum day um
which prevented a lot of people from
voting in the Caribbean uh cities Carter
Hena Santa Martin these regions the yes
vote was polling very highly um the
hurricane they people are saying could
have prevented up to 4 million people
from voting wow um that's a good reason
to run it again is it the well mat let's
let's get mat yeah Matthew that's the
one um the difference between the yes
and the no vote was 55,000 people so you
know you've got all this amount of um
people who were unable to vote but
that's just one reason being put forward
um there there's been several there's
also the fact that there was perhaps a
sense of complacency on the part of the
of the Juan Manuel Santos government in
the sense that they staged this very
elaborate and celebratory signing
ceremony in Cena the week before the
referendum which kind of with
hindsight seems a bit arrogant now and
perhaps one angered no voters um which
as we see was quite a large now
proportion of the country and two also
gave the sense that uh peace was a
formality and and therefore perhaps
create this sense of complacency that
people didn't necessarily need to go and
vote you know peace was coming and and
great and everybody's celebrating those
are kind of a couple of reasons but
there's deeper reasons than that I mean
one um the Colombian right um was
campaigned very strongly for the no vote
the political right led by the former
president Alvaro urbe and his political
party the the Democratic Center um was
played not very Democratic and not very
Centrist they're not very Centrist
definitely not no they are Colombians
who I SP tend to call them La ultraa the
ultra rights not even the extreme right
the ultra right so urbe was the
president between 2002 and 2010 he
enacted a very military um response to
the
Insurgency uh um violence and the
conflict kind of peaked under arbe uh
this was also when things like plan
Colombia which is the um agreement with
the United States for military funding
for Colombia was mainly enacted and the
US was putting billions per year into
into Colombia's War economy ostensibly
on on a counternarcotics War on
Drugs um kind of mission um but you know
researchers found that this was much
more focused on counter insur gency um
and was the Colombia military um actions
engaged under the plane Colombia rubric
were by and large in in regions
controlled by the Fark so so ree's kind
of political background or presidential
background he's he goes much um prior to
that as well shows the kind of his
attitude towards the Insurgency so in
2010 arbe was replaced by Juan Manuel
Santos who is the current president of
Colombia and Santos who acted as the
ur's defense minister and perhaps had
been expected to continue this kind of
militarized um attitude yeah exactly
hawkish towards the f um kind of
Switched and that was perhaps unexpected
he even you know he was photographed
shaking hands with the park leader so
yes exactly um well this is Santos and
urbe are consistently portrayed in the
Colombian media as like mortal enemies
now um that you know Santos betrayed
arbe because he he then suddenly you
know advocated this peace uh and
negotiations with the Fark Santos is No
Angel though let's let's be let's be
clear on that his his record not
particularly no of course but only
someone on the right could have made
this uh peace deal it's like Nixon and
the recognition of China uh it needed
someone like Santos uh who had a
right-wing constituency to to say look
I've fought them and now it's best that
we end this war by diplomatic uh
means Colombia has become a byward in
recent decades for horrific abuse of
Human Rights Trade union leaders and
activists being murdered and
disappeared and uh a kind of gangster
regime uh an American imperialist
Outpost in Latin America at a time when
most of Latin America was moving to the
left now beginning to change um how
accurate was that picture uh of Colombia
and was that a contributory factor to
the farx long-standing uh military
campaign were they given basically a
steady stream of recruits and support by
virtue of the right-wing nature of these
governments um I would say yes it was a
factor um so
this Colombia is a very fragmented
country historically uh it's kind of
been split between urban well it's his
political domination has been through um
Urban liberals and conservative rural
land owners now uh urz very much
represents that conservative land owner
sector um those groups well I mean
you're going a long way back in
Colombian history now but those groups
um the the minant groups have
traditionally used violence as a means
of furthering their interests furthering
their economic um plans um and they have
done that through a political system
which has marginalized vast sectors of
Colombian Society Colombia is a very um
it's geographically fragmented but it's
also very socially fragmented you have a
very large indigenous population a very
large African descendant population who
have never been incorporated into the
into the body politic
when these groups have organized have
mobilized which they do regularly and I
was out there covering um at the end of
May beginning of June there was a a
nationwide
strike agario an agrarian strike they
call it um which reflected this sense of
disenfranchisement of of these kind of
marginalized groups where who have
disproportionately suffered from the
conflict they have their communities are
Destro by resource extraction um things
like coca um eradication policies which
uh involve aerial spraying um this area
of spraying destroys crops uh kind of
pushes people economic deals in Colombia
push certain communities towards Coco
production because it's more resilient
than normal crops it's economically
viable if the choice is that or
starvation then you know it's um that's
of course what people are forced into
doing um and yes the state has been
historically absent um there is not
infrastructure in large parts of
Columbia there's not Education Health
the and there's insecurity and the farc
in certain regions have have provided
that they have provide a sense of social
structure and their recruitment pool has
not been small you know they they the
state has been a historical oppressor of
large parts of the society uh
um and uh and yeah for for many of them
the their primary engagement with the
state is through is through conflict is
through the military rather than through
health or through
education one region that um which is
this is an ongoing crisis in Colombia
which is very very rarely reported on is
in the far north you have uh a deserts
region on the Caribbean coast called uh
laira uh in the last since between 2008
and 2013 more than 4,000 indigenous
children died in this region uh
through uh lack of water malnutrition
and preventable diseases um you know the
media barely reports on it whereas
Venezuela you know there's some stuff
not available and the supermarket
becomes so it's like this imbalance in
reporting and and that can also be
traced back to the failed referendum
just this morning I was reading an
article about how the Colombian media
which is very much a corporate media in
the hands of a few Elite interests as
often um how it has
misrepresented violence in Colombia
conflict so I see there's obviously
certain circumstances that has caused
the no
result uh which otherwise would have
been a yes obviously cuz so what what
are the other really people who have you
know solid Arguments for this no vote
what what what solution you see
otherwise what how is it going to look
like one thing that the right they got
an alternative plan who the the the no
vote Camp I mean do they really want to
go back to the war
um um they say not um but you know the
war has had
a war is big business right so War has
advanced the interests of certain
economically powerful groups or Elites
in Colombia not only in Colombia but
Colombia is a is is a good example of
this by the war
has
displaced you know very large
communities in Colombia um Colombia has
between six and 7 million internally
displaced people um it's uh along with
Syria it's the first or second um
highest number of internal displaced in
the world
now what this does is it opens up large
parts of the country to foreign or or
national but resource extraction uh Agro
industry
these these very powerful multinational
economic interests um which have
benefited from the war now a lot of
people when I was out there um I spoke
to a lot of people you know displacement
victims uh men members of indigenous
communities human rights activists a lot
of these people felt that one of the
underlying motives of the peace process
was uh about opening up the country to
International Investment Colombia is
very very rich in Mineral resource es uh
there's a Latin American Conference of
course in November I'm there every year
that's going to be I'm I'm sure you'll
be there I will be thanks very much for
joining us next coming up next the art
of the Russian Revolution who could
forget it stay
tuned welcome back to Sputnik the
October revolution of
1917 famously described by the American
writer John Reed as 10 days that shook
the world Contin to reverberate for many
decades and gave birth to many things
good and bad including new forms of art
of socialist realism which though not
without critics has never really gone
out of fashion endlessly being rehashed
as perhaps the ultimate in retro and so
when we heard of the film new art for a
new world we just knew it would be on
anybody's DVDs collection on board the
Sputnik I'm glad to say that we can
welcome baa award-winning director
Margie kinmouth to talk about her latest
project you came to an open door here
this show is called Sputnik it's on
RT uh we are big uh fans of uh uh post
Revolutionary Russian Art uh and so when
we heard about your film we just had to
have you thanks very much for coming on
board tell us about the film well I was
inspired to make the film about the
revolution because I've made four films
about Russia Russian history Russian Art
Russian culture and it's a kind of place
that's just teaming with stories that
have not been told and every single
story seem to revolve around the
revolution so when the anniversary came
along I thought this is my opportunity
to do something that honors and
celebrates the artists cuz although the
the politics the story of the politics
is better known we don't know that much
about the artist and what what happened
to them afterwards they were infused
with the idea that the October
Revolution was going to bring about a
new world and therefore it a new world
needs a new art tell us what forms
emerged at that time and how they stood
the test of time well the painters were
already up and running because you had
you know pop over and so on had already
started doing abstract art and the
painters were you know there were a lot
of them they very influenced by French
cubis and by Picasso and so on who'd
been exhibited there in Moscow let's
take a look at one of those one of the
classics tell us this talk us through
this one well this is Mal aich who of
course is he's the star of my film
because his story runs right the way
through the whole period and my my film
he's the best known of that period
really he's he's the best known because
he of the black Square so the black
Square was his way of going back to
Grand zero if you like and um throwing
away a figurative work throwing away
everything and starting all over again
and saying the art is the only thing
that matters and this was called
Supremacy and were they following
Picasso or was Picasso following them he
he drew away from Picasso I mean
obviously they loved cubism but they
took their own form everything in Russia
is Extreme they're much more extreme
than the French so they took these ideas
and just ran with them in the most crazy
extreme way and then when the October
Revolution came along um they were
allused this she likes the first I like
the second this is socialist realism at
its best the nobody is in any doubt what
that painting is about and who it
represents and there are the masses uh
converging on the power to change and
make a make a a new world this is less
respectable as an art form yeah
why I love it so much well this became
more of the thing later on this is
called the Bolshevik by custodia and he
did you know a lot of his work was
figurative and it showed the cities and
it sort of demonstrated the politics
with the banners and the flags and so on
um but really it was the abstract
artists and then the photographers were
very important and they were all very
very young in 1917 they were the first
wave of Bolsheviks they really believed
in the revolution and what it was going
to really going to change things and so
they worked with Lenin and Lenin asked
them to work with him they were doing
the propaganda posters they were
creating photo um photo realism photo
montage designing these adverts that
would lat to become the prototypes for
today's capitalist advertising who's
this one now this is Petra vodkin who's
less well known here and very beautiful
he was I mean an extraordinary painter
who is very well known also for his
still lives and um so this is called
fantasy and again this is quite a kind
of you know it's an image which depicts
exactly what it is this this idea of the
red horse flying over the cities and the
new hope he survived later in Stalin's
Time by keeping himself well under the
parit and um he didn't do any propaganda
he kept a low profile he was a teacher
in the art school so he had a job cuz
remember they were very poor they were
starving a lot of them and they needed
well artists are supposed to starve for
at least a little while but this is long
before the Art Market they just they
weren't selling their working but none
of them were selling really yeah yeah
but he later on he did these sort of
coded pictures and you'll see in my film
the way that he he sort of took the form
into the Stalin period of the 30s
managing to portray these houses and
these people you know maybe looking away
with their backs to you maybe doing
extraordinary still lives of just one
single fish which would be a sort of
symbolic thing about starvation or a
little crust and say he really did
reflect what was happening and it's
amazing that he survived and um so this
is a documentary feature length
documentary we know about those we've
just made one ourselves um it's going to
be on Cinemas here and internationally
yeah t tell us your main struggles in
making this film well it's always
difficult to get funding I mean every
single film I make see seems to take you
know a lot of time to get money this was
very difficult we had to sell our house
for ours remind me of I'm glad you
didn't have to do
that well it it was um but you had to
anticipate for the anniversary yeah so
well the timing is perfect yeah it will
soon be the stiner exactly yeah exactly
well I suppose I'm lucky I've always
made films around art and artists and
people who are creative you did one a
great one on the her Heritage yeah yeah
and that was um I've been invited by The
Hermitage Museum to make the anniversary
film and that went really well it went
out in like 30 or 40 countries around
the world playing
theatrically you know it really did good
business so I said we had that model of
distribution and I thought well I'll see
if I can repeat that with Revolution
this new film and was slightly more
difficult because the the politics the
the the sort of world situation have
become a bit more challenging ask you
about that I mean it isn't I mean it's
great timing for the anniversary the
centinary but it's pretty bad timing
because of this rise and Rise of
russophobia how much of a problem was
that for you and how much of a problem
will it be in getting people into the
cinemas well we'll see I mean this is
due to have a wide release on November
the 10th all over the country all over
Europe and then it's opening in America
in March so we'll sort of see if if the
Russian thing affects the tickets what
if Donald Trump gets elected as
president he might come along and cut
the ribbon well we'll be get your
spaceship somewhere I think if Hillary
Clinton wins she'll probably close your
film down yeah uh so you are well it was
difficult to get the funding I mean the
BBC you know they're not keen to look at
these political things Russia they're
very afraid of it so um you know that
wasn't my first Port of Call but because
the cinema is now a place where people
go to look for art it's you know there
is an audience there but I mean I think
that art and culture is a very good way
of you know cutting right through these
borders and sort of joining us together
in a good way in in the long term and um
you know so it you hope the conflict you
know can be resolved through sort of art
and culture as a way of meeting with
these people and I have really good
relationships with the the Russians that
I've worked with you know with G gef
I've made two films with him the
conductor and you know it's been a most
extraordinary experience so um well it's
just like the Sputnik exhibition that
was on recently the cosmonauts the
cosmonauts yeah which was obviously
which was also a fantastic success yeah
well you have certain Museum directors
like you know ziler trulo who is at the
the tachov and she's a very
outward-looking person so she shared the
work there with the yeah I mean but it
needs two to tangle doesn't it and uh to
be fair uh it was the British Science
Museum that put together the cosmonauts
and all that material for the very first
time it hadn't been done in Russia let
alone sent by Russia out to the world
yeah how do you find the environment in
Russia now on these kind of issues uh is
it a Cooperative one do they want to get
their story their art their culture out
to the world well well there's two
things I there's the paintings and so on
which I found in the museums and each
museum is different some of them are
easy to work with and some of them you
feel they're very old Soviet
institutions that don't want to reach
out so you know I have to find my way of
getting my cameras in and filming there
behind the scenes in the store rooms
where it's overflowing with amazing
paintings but the the great thing about
my film is I have the descendants of the
artist in the film and so I've
interviewed these extraordinary
contributors with the most heartbreaking
stories and those were more difficult to
get to you know these people are kind of
shy they haven't been filmed before um
they truly believe they have nothing to
say you have to really you have to go on
and on ringing them up they don't have
answer phones or emails or anything and
you gradually get their trust and so I
sort of did numerous visits and talk to
people and then I gradually go with my
camera and so I built up so the story of
the film The main ballast of the story
is from The Descendants of the artists
and I always like to tell from the
artist point of view I think this is a
really good way of telling a story not
just history curators but artists you
know with all the complications and
complexities of making things I love I
love hearing the artist point of view I
understand that you used you've got
actors as well in this documentary film
yeah who portray these artist yeah well
that was the other thing that um some of
the artists of 100 years ago were also
very good writers so so um Kandinsky
wrote a great deal and I so I needed and
somehow to bring his words into the
story so he's telling his own story and
then malovich is a you know fabulous
writer so Tom Hollander plays malevich
in the film he brings him to life with
the paintings and extraordin Good
Neighbor too one neighbor well look it's
a great start to what's going to be a
momentous year uh uh in uh Russian
Affairs Russian history the very best of
luck with your film thanks for coming on
board the Sputnik
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margi and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's RL so on the
Colombia peace process uh we asked
whether the country will now how will
they bounce back after the no votes and
Ricardo Picasso says well under
Relentless us te their Latin American
fighting spirit is now more than ever
and aaas says Santos and Fark are to be
commanded but ultimately there's no
peace without Justice well that's right
and if farc have sold the pass in making
the deal that they did they'll be
replaced by someone else uh if the
people's needs are unmet exactly by this
process then new forms of struggle will
arise and that's all that we've got time
for today which alas means that's the
end of the show but you can stay in
touch with us on social media Twitter
rtor Sputnik or Facebook Sputnik on
Russia today it's goodbye from me gatri
and from me George Galloway it's been
marvelous
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