[Music]
Security. I get
[Music]
Welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me, George Galloway, and me,
Gayatri. There's an awful lot of coffee
in Brazil, as the jingle famously said.
An awful lot of corruption in the
political class, too. Almost every party
has its leader either on trial, awaiting
trial, or with charges looming. The one
person not accused of any personal
dishonesty is the president, Dilarus.
So, of course, he's the one that's being
thrown out of the office. In a fairly
impressively executed maneuver, the
workers party presidency is no more.
After 12 years, their 54 million votes
swept aside. With the death of Chavez,
the travailes of Maduro, the defeat and
now trial of Kchner, are we beginning to
see the end of the process in Latin
America? Joining us to discuss this is
Dr. Karolina Mats of City University in
London. Dr. Mats, thanks for joining us.
Let's establish this first. Is the
workers party presidency over or is
there any possibility of her coming back
from the dead as it were? That is a very
good question and that is the key of
what the country is currently facing. Um
the fact of the matter is that in the
last two months that's there's been a
growing dissatisfaction with the whole
impeachment process and this has
resulted in the last days with also an
anger towards the new current government
and the ways in which it is has in only
three or four days in office reversed
many rights including extincting the
Ministry of Culture um human rights
rights, uh, equality, race, the
secretary of women, um, also talking
about, uh, revisiting many of the social
programs and benefits. So, there's a lot
of anger now and also a few people who
had voted for the impeachment because
they were upset because of after 13
years of government. Um there were many
mistakes that the left did including um
uh not just in the economy but also
regarding some members of its parties
who had been involved in corruption. So
these people were disillusioned but now
they are also seeing that perhaps the
impeachment thing was not a good idea
after all. So the future is still
uncertain. Um there has been a serious
defeat. Yes. But there's also a
perspective that this either could lead
to new elections or to a possibility of
her returning or to the continuity of
Tema. What is certain is that Temer
himself, the person who is now acting
president of Lebanese extraction like so
many that's right uh politicians in
Latin America in recent times is himself
facing exactly the same kind of
corruption allegations. and there's a
process underway that might well put him
in the dock. And so that doesn't sound
like a very stable uh situation to me.
That's true. But it also looks like the
High Supreme Court is not going to take
that forward from what I've seen in the
last um few days. The fact of the matter
is that um the justice system has shown
itself to be very biased and against the
workers party. um despite of the fact
that the car wash investigations have
been good in many ways of having um put
some corrupt politicians um in jail. The
car was operation being the petrol bus.
Yes, that's right. The fact of the
matter is that for instance it has been
very lenient on the right-wing
politicians such as Eduardo Kuinga that
has only been taken out now after the
impeachment when this had been ongoing
for more than a year and he was doing
everything um in Congress and acting
threatening people even and he was not
put aside and so the thing with Tema now
is also a question mark will they really
force this forward. Um, another person
who has also been uh uh involved in
allegations of corruption is Ast from
the Pestir, the opposition party who was
defeated four times in a row and also
was defeated with he was the
presidential candidate when when Dilma
ran for her election in 2014. And from
that day one when he lost that is when
they started to create the whole climate
towards the impeachment. and he has been
um accused eight times in the car wash
investigations. Only in the last month
did the justice um um court decide to
investigate him and they put this
forward to the Supreme Court. But in one
day they already suspended the
investigation. So that means it's not
going to continue. So this is another
element that has emerged in this crisis
is the the disillusionment that people
have had with Brazilian institutions
when people were thinking that actually
it was about cleaning the corruption
process. It was actually something
serious. Again, in the last months,
people have started to doubt this, which
is why The Guardian, for instance, in
its editorial highlighted that the whole
Brazilian political system was the one
that needed to be on trial, not just a
blaming of one person. Of course, uh,
scorpions sting because they're
scorpions and right-wing forces act in
the way that they do because they are
right-wing forces. I'm more concerned
with looking at the workers party and
its mistakes and shortcomings
uh because that's of Brazilian but also
wider uh importance. Now I was struck
uh as someone who lent $200 to Lula in
1983. Now think of the interest on
that. I was struck by the fact that the
workers party today has only around a
million members in a population of 200
million. British Labor Party has getting
on for a million in a country that is uh
a third of the size. Why is the Workers
Party not bigger?
Why has the high hopes of Lula's initial
political entry into power appear to
have dissipated so much that not one
worker in Brazil is on strike over all
this? Not a shot has been fired in
defense of the workers party government.
These are hard facts that we have to
confront. What's your analysis of that?
Well, this has this is very complex, but
it has to do with first the
disillusionment that most of the left
has had with the party, which was
basically um when it entered politics,
it it said that it was going to change
the whole ethical procedure and
unfortunately it had to adapt to the
whole structure in terms of um being
omissive or lenient towards corruption.
Another thing has also been the fact
that this um dissatisfaction coming in
from the left that you say and from
workers has grown particularly in the
last two to three years when the economy
started to go down and the recession hit
and this was something that Dilma for
instance did not manage to handle
properly and that started to produce
unemployment. So you combine that recipe
of corruption allegations, a strong also
campaign coming from the right taking
the advantage of that plus a media
coverage highly uh questionable and
partisan including uh journalists,
former journalists like myself and
others who have been brought up with a
professional objective mainstream
journalism criticizing from inside the
mainstream media. uh resulted in this
explosive uh h a sense that in order to
solve the problems um the impeachment
was the best solution. So it's a
combination of factors right and the
assessment of the good things that the
workers party have done in the last uh
uh uh decades also have been minimized
in the mainstream media. So the
perception was much more the negative
than the positive and this culminated in
the lack of support. But as of what I've
said in the beginning, what has happened
in the last two or 3 months is that
people are waking up to the reality of
how the situation's much more complex
than a black and white scenario of the
good guys and the bad guys. Well, on the
subject of black and white, Gatri had a
a point to make about the makeup of the
new cabinet. which is obviously all
white European descendant and all men
and then in um to compensate that Tammer
I I I understand has appointed the the e
economic or the bank with the with the
female head but how is that being
perceived in Brazil? Well, it's been
highly criticized. And the thing is, as
I mentioned before when I talked about
the campaign of the right, we need to
understand the difference between what
the right in Brazil is, the conservative
sectors, towards what the right is in
Europe and in the UK. What you have
there in Brazil is a right that is
extremely
traditional conservative with values
that date back some argue to the 1960s
of the dictatorship or we can even take
this as far as the 19th century. So the
views of women for instance are
traditional views of women's role in
society. This came out quite clearly
when Dilma was um put aside with stories
um in the the the the mainstream
magazines talking about the future first
lady of Marcela and how beautiful and
from the home she is. Right. She's he
she's 40 years younger than him. That's
right. 42. That's right. Nice work if
you can get it.
And this is something that comes in
contrast to last year which was
considered the year of the female Arab
Spring in Brazil where women took the to
the streets to pressure for more rights
wanting Dilma and the current government
to advance their rights and also because
they feared the right-wing backlash and
they feared Kuinga was also pushing
forward a project uh um which would
criminalize abortion and the victims of
rape which would have to make them go to
um uh a a doctor to try to prove that
they were raped. So what we have is not
the fact that people want a left or a
right. The thing is both the left and
the right need to learn from the
mistakes. The mistakes of the left I've
just told you now the mistakes of the
right is that it needs to update itself
and become a modern right if it argues
that it looks to the future. So the
project of tema is the project called
project to the future and people are
criticizing it and saying well actually
that's the project to the past the only
thing in terms that they have any
connection towards European politics is
the neoliberal or the economic agenda
that is the only thing on that they're
on the same page but Dr. Carina, we have
to leave it there. It's been a
fascinating tour the horizont of the
Brazilian scene. I'm really grateful to
you for joining us on the Sputnik.
Coming up next, it's Nakba time again.
It's a catastrophe, but nobody knows it.
Don't go away.
Welcome back to Sputnik. As Israel
celebrates its independence, the
Palestinians mourn their Nagba or
catastrophe. The day their country
ceased to exist, their people banished
to the four corners of the earth as
refugees. Hundreds of their towns and
villages were destroyed and built over.
Thousands were massacred to make the
others flee, and they did. 800,000
Palestinians were driven from their land
and homes and were never allowed to
return, though they remain the legal
owners of that land and property. In the
68 years since, their numbers have
become more than 13 million. Next year
is the centinery of Britain's authorship
of this catastrophe. Perhaps it will get
some attention then. It certainly isn't
now, except for here. With us to discuss
it is Palestinian academic and
journalist from Gaza. Welcome Ysef
Al-Heloo. Ysef, first of all, for the
viewers, succinctly describe what
happened in the Nagba. Well, the Nagba,
the catastrophe that started in 1948
marks the expulsion of the indigenous
population of Palestine at the time. uh
Zionist militias uh the Argon um carried
out massacres um forced people to flee
their homes and towns. At the time about
500 towns and villages were wiped off
the map. About 750,000 people were
forced to flee. U massacres were
committed. Um so basically um the
indigenous population were forced to
flee for people from Europe to come and
live in Palestine. And that Nakba sparks
uh the beginning of the ethnic cleansing
project. So the Nakba is still ongoing
until this moment. Uh I'm a descendant
of a refugee. I'm not allowed to go and
even visit the town of my grandfather's
town which is only few kilometers to the
north of Gaza uh strip. Uh like the rest
of refugees uh who are still live in
refugee camps in Gaza, West Bank or
elsewhere are not allowed to visit. Um
I'm well traveled. I've been to so many
countries and I wish one day that I'm
able to visit the town of my
grandfather. Um so each year
Palestinians who live inside or who
those who are in exile, they um stress
on the right of return. Uh it's a sacred
right. Uh people still carry and keep
the keys and documents that approve
their ownership ownership of their
properties. Um um each time Palestinians
also carry out um these events, they try
to um show that they still uh keep their
identity through uh the Palestinian um
embroidery, the the Palestinian food,
the cuisine, um the folklorons. Um in
Gaza alone there are six refugee camps.
Twothird of Gaza population are
descendants of refugee. And uh we hear
comments by Israeli officials that they
will not allow they will never allow the
right of Palestinian uh refugees uh to
return. This is the key point uh because
the first part of what you described the
massacres driving people away and so on.
This has happened lamentably to many
peoples in many parts of the world.
The key difference is that nobody ever
said that because you flee, you're never
allowed to come back. Because you fled,
someone else can live in your house and
own your orchard. Uh but that's what has
happened in the case of the
Palestinians, isn't it? Isn't the right
of return, therefore the absolutely key
demand? And why do Palestinian leaders
uh pay so little attention to that in
their discourse? Well, the Palestinians
have been living in a state of limbo.
Obviously, we have a weak leadership. Uh
the Palestinian Authority led by
President Abbaz. He's, you know, made
some concessions and he himself he
announced that he's willing to give up
his right to return to his original
village. Um and Palestinians were
provoked, were outraged from that
statement.
Um obviously the right of return is a
sacred right. It's the only um I mean
for any lasting peace solution to take
place in the occupied territories
refugees have um to return. Um also
Palestinians came up with the idea of uh
one solution because the Israelis keep
refusing this option saying that the
demographic um level will be in favor of
Palestinians but it's not our um problem
in the first place. golder um one of the
Israeli uh officials at the time said
that uh the old will die and the young
will forget but we say no we will never
forget we will teach the love of our
homeland to our children if it's not in
our lifetime there the next generation
will keep the flag just to add to that
as Arafat as well at the time said very
politically incorrectly worded we will
not become like the red Indians we will
not end up in the museum we will keep on
fighting yeah at the time um they
claimed Zionist um officials claimed
that Palestine was was a land without a
people for a people without a land. But
why should we pay the price of what
happened to our cousins to the Jewish
people in in Germany at the time? I mean
um why do I have to suffer that so for
that other people come and live in my
country? So those examples that you
described, George, um there are so many
examples. People who never been in
Palestine, they um wish one day to
return and um at schools, at events, uh
people are eager to to return. Um you
know, it's it's a human basic right to
be able to travel freely from place to
another place. Well, look, we we've just
made a film about uh about Tony Blair
and in the film there's a piece of
actuality of Mr. Blair saying quite
properly in the Kosovan refugee camps uh
during the Yugoslav war that uh that
these refugees have a legal and moral
right to return to their homes and we
will never rest until they do. That's
true. But why is it only true for
Kosovans and not for Palestinians? Why
is the world so deaf to the cries of the
Palestinians who have the keys and the
title to land that somebody from
Brooklyn or London is living in? Well,
many UN resolutions uh were never
implemented 191 that um states
Palestinian refugees have to return. Um
unfortunately um you know when it comes
to Palestine Israel conflict we know
that um a green light is given to the
Israelis by the American administration.
When it comes to criticize Israel
straight away those comments classified
as anti-Sumite. Um
unfortunately you know this is it's it's
not fair. It's it's the law of jungle.
Um, Palestinians have lost faith in the
so-called international community, the
United Nations, the UN Security Council.
And the only hope they now they pin
their hopes on civil society
organizations, free living people, those
who come up with idea to show solidarity
whether it's BDS or something else,
peaceful demonstrations and Palestinians
are peaceful. You know, it struck me
some um people ask me, "Oh, you come
from Palestine Gaza. Oh, I see that you
are smiling. you are a normal person.
People have this idea about us that we
are violent. We are not. You know, we
are the most loving peaceful people in
the world because we have been living
under oppression for the past 68 years.
Um imagine Gaza has got a coastline 40
kilometers on the Mediterranean and we
are forced to import frozen fish from
the Israelis. Our fishermen come under
fire. Gaza seapport is the only the only
port is closed has been closed on the
Mediterranean since
1967. So we feel that you know the world
has let us down and uh people have lost
faith. Maybe one day um justice will be
done hopefully. When I started working
on the Palestine question in 1973
Mhm.
I promise you, you could have fitted all
the supporters of the PLO into this room
in the whole of Britain, but
now millions of people support the
Palestinians and millions are ready to
march and and boycott and uh divest and
take sanctions and so on. At the same
time, in the Arab world, the support for
the Palestinians, which was once
universal, has slumped almost to zero.
How do you explain that paradox?
Well, I think uh the Palestinian cause
um has caused some headache for the
Arabs who let us down in the first
place. And to be honest, Palestinians,
they value the support of people,
international people, pro Palestinians
such as yourself and other people
because we feel there is real uh spirit
that people show solidarity with the
with the oppressed people. Um you have
people worldwide who would love to go
and break the siege to show solidarity
and they have to hide their identity uh
to say that they are going for tourism
whereas they go to show solidarity. The
facts are c crystalally clear, George.
You know, you have people on the ground
who use the social media nowadays.
Everybody, the young people, um they are
eager to become journalists to to show
the truth, to uh reveal the what's going
on because they are fed up from the
biased coverage of some of the western
media um media outlets most. So, um
people know more now. There's awareness.
uh they go by themselves and Palestine
maybe it's the only country across the
world still occupied um and it's people
show the only the only country I'm
unable to get to uh lastly next year
2017 is the centinery of the Balffor
declaration Britain's authorship of the
Nakba many would say uh what do you
think will happen what would you like to
see happen next year in the centinary of
the Bafford declaration. Well, if you
ask any Palestinian uh who do you blame
in the first place, they will tell you
Britain. Yeah. That gave the right for
these people to come and live in
Palestine. Obviously, during Nakba
events, Palestinians, I interviewed
people, they they hold Britain
responsible saying that Britain has to
do something. Bill for declaration was
the most unjust decision that was made
in in recent history. So this is what
people want like myself you know
everybody has to pray to play a major
role to um implement uh justice. Um
obviously people show solidarity the
officials have to to find a solution to
pressure the Israelis to implement UN
resolutions to abide by international
law. You know, it's enough for 68 years
and each year we commemorate the Nakba
and who knows how long it will take. But
Palestinians have hope at the end of
this dark tunnel something positive will
happen. God willing Yousef, thanks for
joining us on the spot.
[Music]
And now it's your turn to tell us what
you think through the portals of social
media. What's rattling? Well, we asked
what on earth is happening in Brazil and
Wilson Melo says it's a rightist
coupeta. They ousted a clear woman that
was preventing them from stealing. She
was therefore not good for their
business. And Leo says accompanied with
a picture of Dilma back at the time
during the dictatorship on trial says
the Brazilian government has been after
her for a while and backed by the USA.
It's interesting that neither Russia nor
China nor many Latin American countries
have yet recognized this coup d'eta
government. Yeah. And uh who knows uh it
might not yet be the final story. Well,
we didn't discuss this with the with our
guest, but a lot of people on social
media absolutely believe the USA is
behind it. About Britain's role uh in
the Nakba. Jabber says bringing back the
rights to its people is the important
part of sorry else it is useless and
free Hamartulus says talk is cheap but
in Palestine Arab blood is even cheaper
sorry to say but that's true and those
are all the tweets for today which alas
means that's the end of the show but you
can stay in touch with us through the
social media on Twitter rt_putnik or on
Facebook sputnik on Russia today it's
goodbye from me gayatri and from me,
George Galloway. It's been marvelous.
[Music]