FTS 12:30 17-03: Cuba, IV Colloquium Patria kicked off

teleSUR English

17/03/2025 FTS 12.30  *Honduras, votes concluded in pending centers *Guatemala, social activist marches

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to From the South, I'm Alejandra Garcia from Telesur Studios in Havana, Cuba.

00:15We begin with the news.

00:28The Padre International Colloquium kicked off in Havana, Cuba, an event that brings

00:32together in the Cuban capital nearly 400 guests from Cuba and 47 countries, who will pay a

00:39special homage to the 20th anniversary of the multiplatform Telesur.

00:43With a lane of wrath to the Julio Antonio Meya monument by the hands of the president

00:48of the multiplatform Telesur, Patricia Villegas, the fourth edition started at the University

00:54of Havana, the main venue of this event.

00:57Under the premise, we are people's waving networks, the event will be held from March

01:0217 to March 19, aiming to explore how power is transformed in an interconnected world.

01:10Until Wednesday, attendees will participate in conferences, panels and workshops to discuss

01:16the unprecedented possibilities of social interaction in a context marked by the rise

01:21of misinformation, hate speech and manipulation.

01:25In upcoming segments, we will have first-hand information with our correspondent in Havana,

01:30Belén de los Santos.

01:39Panamanian power grid was re-established on Sunday after the outage suffered on Saturday

01:44night due to the explosion of a transformer.

01:48On a press briefing, the National Authority for Public Utilities explained that after

01:53an exploratory visit to the Pan-AM thermoelectric plant in the Chorrera district, they confirmed

01:59that the blast left no human losses and no injuries.

02:04The visit served to corroborate the cause of the power outage.

02:07Administrator of the National Authority, Selmar Rodríguez, informed that an investigation

02:13will be opened Monday to know thoroughly the event's causes.

02:22Elections were held this Sunday in the two polling stations in Tegucigalpa, the capital

02:27of Honduras, that did not take part in the March 9 elections.

02:32Voters at the Maximiliano Zagastume Basic Center and the National Institute of Culture

02:37were unable to exercise their right to vote due to irregularities in the delivery of electoral

02:43material.

02:44As a result, the country's National Electoral Council decided, in accordance with the electoral

02:49law, that the missing centers would have to carry out the process this weekend, which

02:54according to the Electoral Authority was successfully completed this time.

03:04In Guatemala, the people of Ixcantxiche are dismayed by the deaths of three firefighters

03:10who defend the right to health of the marginalized.

03:14With a caravan, they paid tribute to the commitment they fulfilled until the end.

03:18Watch the following story by our correspondent, Santiago Bouton.

03:25A mother, with her son in her arms, joined the crowd that came out to dignify three social

03:30activists who died in a traffic accident while returning from the Guatemalan capital to demand

03:35the right to health for the Ixcanico people.

03:39We return with sad and regrettable news that today leaves us with a great void within the

03:43people of Ixcan and within the entire committee of struggle.

03:49Among the deceased are a professional nurse and two community authorities, one of whom

03:54is Pedro Ricardo Gómez, re-elected on January 30, who swore to defend his land and just

03:59cause us.

04:03It is unthinkable that we should have to ask for projects, but hopefully the death of these

04:07three brothers will make our rulers aware of the neglect they have done to their people.

04:12In Guatemala, more than 40% of the population does not have decent access to health care.

04:21In the municipality of Ixcan, it is even more critical because eight years ago, a hospital

04:26project was abandoned due to corruption, according to those affected.

04:31What we want is the continuity of the hospital, that it be completed because we want dignified

04:36care for our population, and that was our objective for the trip.

04:42The fight for the right to health care, denied by the state, is only part of a long battle

04:47that several of the more than 200 marginalized communities have been waging since they settled

04:52the land more than half a century ago, they say.

04:57We have this history of struggle and resistance and this is the reality of Primavera, but

05:01we take these steps in defense of human rights, for the common good of the community and of

05:05the municipality and at the national level.

05:10The death of these three health martyrs coincides with the 43rd anniversary of the first massacre

05:15perpetrated by the army in Ixcan.

05:19The Cuarto Pueblo massacre marked the beginning of the Scorched Earth policy in Guatemala.

05:24The army killed more than 400 people, including children, the elderly and pregnant women in

05:29the village of Cuarto Pueblo, Ixcan, on March 13th and 14th, 1982.

05:34Santiago Botón, Telesur, Norte de Guatemala.

05:38And now we have a short break coming up, but first remember you can join us on TikTok at

05:42Telesur English where you'll find news in different formats, news updates and more.

05:46We'll be right back, stay with us.

06:04Welcome back to From the South and join us as we go back to the Patria Colloquium, as

06:22we contact our correspondent in Havana, Belén de los Santos Heibel.

06:26What can you share with us at this hour, what are the updates on this event?

06:31Alejandra, exactly as you were saying, we continue here in the fourth edition of the

06:35Patria Colloquium in Havana, Cuba, precisely in the University of Havana and the colloquium

06:42is underway.

06:43The conference have already started just right now.

06:47Well, as we were saying, this is also the 20th anniversary of Telesur.

06:52So there's a lot of conferences, a lot of discussions that have to do with this legacy.

06:57We're just located right now specifically in the part of the exhibition that honors

07:02those 20 years of work.

07:04President of Telesur Patricia Villegas also just gave a conference on the challenges of

07:10this past 20 years.

07:12And there's been a lot of debate about what this really means.

07:15And also this colloquium as an opportunity to think about the media platforms and the

07:22challenges, but also the possibilities of building new technologies, technologies from

07:27the global South that really allow for these discussions, that really allow for a counter

07:33hegemonic media production.

07:35So at this moment, because we know that we have guests from over 47 countries and at

07:40this moment we are joined by Rob Lucas.

07:43He is from England.

07:44He's the director, the publishing director of the New Left Review.

07:48So thank you so much, Rob, for joining us.

07:51And I would like to ask you in this event, one of the main, one of the main discussions

07:55has to do with the possibility of building new technologies, sovereign technologies.

08:01How does that come into play in this global scene?

08:04Well, I think fundamentally at the moment we're faced with a technological environment

08:12on a global level, which is extremely centralized.

08:15And that's been the case increasingly over the last quarter of a century or so, particularly

08:19with the rise of the web and then web 2.0 onwards, the social media platforms and so

08:26on massively centralized the data and all of the computing power in general.

08:32And that kind of undermined previous visions of a egalitarian social kind of web or internet.

08:40And it's become increasingly hard to see how we can kind of push back on that terrain.

08:47And these platforms in many ways, they're hostile terrain for us.

08:52So for me, that's the fundamental question that needs to be thought through.

08:58Historically, the kind of egalitarian answers on the technological level, but in terms of

09:03software and so on, was free software, software that the users could edit themselves, change

09:10you know, download freely, share freely, use as they wanted.

09:16But when things are being run on someone else's server somewhere, that freedom is in question.

09:23It doesn't, it's not clear what it means.

09:24So there's a, I think what we need to be thinking about is how we can establish infrastructure,

09:29an alternative infrastructure, which makes those things meaningful again.

09:34And that's where, you know, possibly places where, where you do have left parties, movements,

09:39unions, et cetera, of some scale, they can be doing things which reinforce the development

09:45of popular sovereignty or national sovereignty.

09:49It works at different levels at the level of technology as a basis for other kinds of

09:54media.

09:55Okay.

09:56So we were saying that in this colloquium, we have representatives, we have over 400

10:02guests and representatives from 47 countries.

10:05And a lot of what is happening here has to do with that networking from that sharing

10:10of experiences, also of different forms of media outlets, different forms of ways of

10:17covering, well, very significant political scenes and very different political scenes

10:23as well.

10:24How does that networking and the sharing of experience contribute or could it contribute

10:30to this possibility of hopefully in the coming years, being able to build those sovereign

10:37technologies?

10:38Is it in that exchange that we find that possibility?

10:41Because many of the regional blocs, for example, have been talking about the importance of

10:46developing its own sovereign networks.

10:49How do you see that?

10:51Well, I mean, in terms of the question of countries and blocs developing sovereign technologies,

10:58of course, within the frame of Silicon Valley thinking and so on, one could imagine that

11:05there would be like a local version of Silicon Valley in every country, right?

11:09But probably that's never going to be a realistic possibility.

11:14It's not really going to work.

11:15But what you do have with things like free software is something that's potentially universal,

11:19is something that could be created by people in one place, shared with people everywhere.

11:25And so it can improve the sovereignty of people in one country and those in another country.

11:34It's not necessarily a kind of this country against that country or this bloc against

11:39that bloc kind of problem.

11:40And that's where, in some ways, there's something with a kind of what we might call an elective

11:46affinity with the traditional sort of universalism, egalitarianism of the left.

11:53And in my presentation here, I'm going to frame it in terms of a local tradition, going

11:59back to Jose Marti, where, you know, Cuban nationalism has always had this strange character

12:05of being also an internationalism or a universalism or a humanism.

12:09And in a way, you could think about that in the same terms, promoting a kind of software

12:17and a kind of platform that can be shared globally by people in the global south and

12:22people elsewhere as well, can benefit people here and in all of those other places.

12:27It's not just about here.

12:29Excellent. So before we end this interview, I would like to ask you about one of the other

12:36topics that is up for discussion.

12:38Well, we really think the Patria Colloquium as a gathering, of course, of this leftist

12:43media outlet and really leftist movements that come together to think their own thought

12:49process and also a strategic plan and hopefully a collective plan for the years to come.

12:55So that means to say that our outlets need also be a place of the development and the

13:02creative development of thought that is also linked to all of those experiences that are

13:07happening here in the global south.

13:09How do you see that role, that interconnection between on the ground practices and the

13:16media outlets and the academic also outlets?

13:20How is that happening and how do we need to think it for the years to come?

13:24I mean, we often find that the best new radical intellectuals are produced in moments of

13:31social struggle.

13:32They tend to come in generational waves.

13:35When there is a significant upheaval in a certain country, a wave of demonstrations

13:41or so on, it gives people a whole new experience where they see things clearly for the first

13:47time and they start asking questions and trying to theorize and, you know, five years later

13:52they are significant intellectuals often.

13:55I think that's what we need to look at, in a way the movements are the source and the

14:03point is to look into those movements, who is saying the interesting things, who is thinking

14:08beyond the immediate problem and trying to generalize and find a way forward and then

14:12to try to create a kind of global left culture out of that, have those people talking to

14:18each other, sharing experiences and so on.

14:21Broadly that sort of thing I think is the role that left media can do to try to crystallize

14:28that kind of thinking and that culture.

14:31Thank you so much, Rob, for joining us here in Tell Us Your English.

14:34It's been a pleasure talking to you and also continue to think about these things that

14:39we'll continue to dedicate this year on those ideas.

14:43Thank you so much.

14:44Thanks.

14:45So, Alejandra, as we were saying, this is what is being discussed here and a lot of

14:50ideas, Rob was just saying, that a lot of this, well, intellectuals are actually formed

14:57in this dialogue, in this back and forth analyzing and thinking about our own, our very own processes

15:04here in the Global South and we definitely hope that that is what is happening here today

15:10in Havana, Cuba.

15:11We will continue to bring you all the latest information, hopefully speaking to all the

15:15participants or many of the participants to really gather a little bit at least of what

15:21is happening here at Havana University.

15:23I go back to you, Elena.

15:27Thank you, El, and also Rob, Lucas, for all the information, the firsthand information

15:32and we will keep in contact throughout the day and the upcoming days to know all the

15:36details of this event.

15:38And after this report, we have come to the end of this News Brief, but you can find this

15:42and many other stories on our website at www.tellusyourenglish.net and join us on social media.

15:47We are on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok as well.

15:51For Tell Us Your English, I'm Alejandra Garcia.

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