Blogging the democratic revolution
The broad picture from many news sources is that Zimbabwe’s voters braved long lines and an unbelievably creative menu of efforts to disenfranchise them – from chicanery to fraud to bribes to murder – and held the line. Returns are showing Mugabe claiming victory, as forecast, and the opposition crying fraud. How they deal with this fraud is the coming question. I have this news roundup organized beginning with a backgrounder or The Stage for action; the the Timeline of events; the Foreign Response; and the observed irregularities: Intimidation, Disenfranchisement and Electoral Fraud. Here is a summary of the news…
…Only after the police tear gassed the protestors. Kampala – Ugandan police used water cannons and tear gas to break up an opposition demonstration on Thursday, engaging in running battles with marchers protesting efforts to extend the president’s tenure. Riot police dispersed the protesters, who were denouncing plans to amend the constitution so that President Yoweri Museveni can run for a third term in office. Police spokesperson Asuman Mugenyi said the demonstration had not been authorised. “They knew that we had stopped it, but they continued inciting people to come and participate in violence and in an illegal assembly,” he…
The Nation magazine has a sugar-coated vision of Hugo Chavez’s Veneuzela, described in an article purportedly written as a “news” story by Christian Parenti, someone who used to spend his time at Young Communist League meetings in San Francisco. Parenti’s trying to make his story appear a respectable reporting job (as Cuban propagandists coincidentally advise) but it’s pretty clear he’s ignoring the biggest parts of the story in his bid to plug Hugo Chavez. Essayist Gustavo Coronel, a Venezuelan who knows the deal, gives a good factual, statistics-heavy rebuttal to this blatant propaganda effort to defend the indefensible. Read the…
Common canard holds that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, whatever his faults, at least is ending poverty through his soup-kitchen programs. Andres Oppenheimer blows the lid off that steaming pot, though, by taking a good look at the Venezuelan government’s own statistics. What he sees appalls him. He writes: Indeed, the latest poverty figures from Venezuela’s official National Institute of Statistics — buried in a mountain of figures deep in the bowels of its Internet site, www.ine.gov.ve — contain the most damning condemnation of the Ch????vez government I have seen anywhere. The figures, on Page 5 of the Institute’s Social Report,…
I’m going to start this off by putting this article in the reverse way that it was written. International human rights organizations and such other groups as the European Union, which on Wednesday called the election “phony,” say the outcome is unlikely to reflect the will of most Zimbabweans. Mugabe controls every daily newspaper, all broadcasting, thousands of patronage jobs, the electoral commission, the courts that would judge accusations of rigging and the dwindling food reserves for a populace on the brink of starvation. Most international election observers have been kept away. And Mugabe increased the budget of his secret…
There’s been a lot of talk with regards to the Iran soccer riots, and it looks like North Korea’s loss to them has triggered riots in the homeland, a rare public display of unrest! Angry North Korean soccer fans interrupted their national team’s World Cup qualifying match against Iran on Wednesday, throwing bottles and chairs at the referee and visiting team. The unrest erupted when North Korean defender Nam Song-chol was sent off for shoving Syrian referee Mohamed Kousa during a 2-to-0 home loss match, which was seen on international satellite television. The violence spilled over outside the Kim Il-Sung…
Wow! It was a quarter ago that I followed John Hawkins’ lead and published a list of my favorite bloggers. Have I been blogging that long already? Certainly my eyesight has gotten worse. Because of changing events in the world, my destinations are certainly different on a day to day basis and the list will probably reflect that. There’ll probably be quite a few changes from last time! But without further ado… 20. Neeka’s Backlog 19. Radio Free Nepal 18. A Step at a Time 17. The Word Unheard 16. Belmont Club 15. Blogrel 14. Barcepundit 13. Bloggledygook 12. Chrenkoff…
Andy has the weekly roundup… up. Everything dealing with Putin and his cronies and the near abroad! Check it out! My personal favorite was Russia’s threat to withhold funding from the OSCE if it doesn’t change its mission from those sickly human rights to security. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
Defying a ban against unauthorized rallies, several hundred people took to the street. Hundreds of supporters of one of Egypt??????s largest opposition groups have defied a government ban against unauthorized protests and taken to the streets of Cairo to demonstrate. Ahead of landmark elections, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood officials chanted that President Hosni Mubarak was no longer fit to rule Egypt. Many demonstrators were detained and remanded in custody for 15 days on charges including “membership of a banned organization, participation in illegal demonstrations and incitement to hatred of the regime,” judicial officials said. Pro-Islamic students at universities in Cairo,…
A few significant things have happened in this arena besides the sale of fighter jets to both Pakistan and India. Secretary of State Rice has recently said that the U.S. aims to make India a world power in the 21st century. Washington: The United States unveiled plans Friday to help India become a “major world power in the 21st century” even as it announced moves to beef up the military of Pakistan. Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as high-tech cooperation and expanded…
I was just going through Google news last night and read an article on The Tufts Daily, an editorial piece regarding the Tulip Revolution. A lot of it had to do with post-revolution relations with Russia and how Kyrgyzstan should move away from its influence. Well, besides being physically impossible to move, I dropped a comment on there that I’ll report here for analytical sakes given then I rarely do that. Kremlin foreign policy post-Orange Revolution has been to work with both governments and opposition parties to ensure steady political and economic relations with Russia despite a change of governance.…
The other day, both parliaments were rivalling for power. That got put an end to, with the upper house dissolving. Bishkek, 29 March 2005 (RFE/RL) — The upper chamber of Kyrgyzstan’s old parliament today followed the outgoing lower chamber in suspending its activities and giving way to the newly elected single-chamber parliament. Muratbek Mukashev, the upper chamber’s speaker, read a statement signed by 32 lawmakers from the 45-seat chamber, saying it would end its work “for the sake of stability and to avoid conflict situations.” Ishenbai Kadyrbekov, speaker of the outgoing lower chamber, said before his chamber disbanded yesterday that…
Damn Nathan for hitting me with this chain letter! I’ll get him back for it! But who can refuse a chain letter? Plus, it’s about books, so instead of me writing about secret crushes and first kisses, I’ll be pointing you in the direction of good bathroom material. He did forward this to me to see my response, so here we go.
I was taking a look at this article about recent demonstrations around Russia — you know, Kyrgyzstan and a little bit about Belarus. One part in particular caught my eye, though. Two Russian ethnic republics, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, have seen mass street demonstrations this week directed against Kremlin-installed leaders. Even in remote Mongolia, the former USSR’s Asian satellite, hundreds of protesters gathered last week to “congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers” and demand a rerun of last June’s disputed parliamentary polls. Amazing how these things almost fly under the radar (just like how Bahrain totally missed the MSM’s map). Partner in revolutionary…
So much is going on in the world that a large roundup of Lebanon has been hard to do, but there’s been quite a bit of news lately so it’s certainly a good time to do one. News: Over the past week and a half three bombs exploded near Beirut in mainly Christian suburbs. Christians have been one of the major backings in Lebanon (as well as Ukraine) in the opposition protests. But this is not the Lebanon of 25 years ago. This is a Lebanon that is united for their own sovereignty above what Syria will do to them,…
Hat tip to Andy for this article. The King of Bhutan, a small country located near undemocratic Nepal and India, has drafted a constitution to allow for multi-party democracy. The king of the Himalayan state of Bhutan announced the end of a century of absolute royal rule yesterday with the publication of a draft constitution to establish a multiparty democracy. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck said that by the end of the year his 700,000 subjects would be given the right to elect two houses of parliament, whose members would be empowered to impeach the monarch by a two-thirds vote. Bhutan,…
Norm Geras has it, and he has been following this one for awhile now. Check it out!
Back at Columbia, my roomate was a Cuban-American lawyer. She insisted that if you are a lawyer, it is an absolute that you can write. All lawyers know how to write, she added. If law school can teach you one thing, it is the capacity to write well. But now an apologist for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez named Eva Golinger, who says she’s a lawyer, has taken to writing malevolent – and sub-literate – gibberings full of raging personal attacks against noted investigative researcher Alek Boyd. Her suspect activities have been exposed by Boyd, and she’s reacted like a cornered…
That is what I wondered when a question was posted to me about him. Hello,because my experiences I hate the term revolution,I prefer movement,the only revolution I love is American in 1776,every other is similar to French. But I love to see criminals overthrowed. What is your opinion on Justin Raimondo -and similar libertarians-,his opinions on Kirgyz,Iran,Lebanon,etc. he is a lazy idiot or even worse? Well, I didn’t really know who the commenter was referring to so I had to Google the name. It’s also ironic that today, just after hearing about him, he sent me some traffic by linking…
Just after many major opposition leaders were released from prison, they’ve decided to make Aliyev regret it. In the beginning of April, the three main Azeri opposition parties will unite and stage a protest against the government. BAKU. March 28 (Interfax-Azerbaijan) – Three Azerbaijani opposition groups – the Popular Front, the Democratic Party and Musavat – have decided to join forces in a protest action early next month, Popular Front leader Ali Kerimli said on Monday. Kerimli said at a meeting of the Popular Front leadership the date for the start of the action would be agreed upon within days.…
My post yesterday questioning whether opening elections to the Muslim Brotherhood might bring about disaster got more responses than any other post I have done on Publius Pundit. I felt that some of the issues raised by the comments had sufficient significance for democratic development theory to justify a full post response. (To read my initial post and the comments, see Egypt: Democracy Enthusiasts’ Toughest Test?) There were some responses with which I agree or at least find reasonable: (1) It is almost certainly true that were the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power in Egypt, this would lead to…
Gary has been reporting on the huge democracy protests that have been going on in Iran and the mainstream media has failed to report them. Here’s the latest: Iran Press News claims hundreds of thousands of Iranians poured into the streets of cities all across Iran last Friday night. Iran’s TV media blamed anti-regime Iranian media abroad for inciting the revolts. The demonstrators were quoted as chanting: “People join us and condemn the executioners and oppressors…death to dictators…get lost hired killer mercenaries… and Bush, Bush, support, protection…” SMCCDI reports that as a result of the failure of the regime to…
The monarchy’s coup in Nepal continues, with demonstrators being arrested. Police in Nepal have arrested at least 120 anti-government activists across the country who defied a ban on protests to show their anger at King Gyanendra’s seizure of absolute power last month. In the capital, Kathmandu, police detained more than 40 protesters who gathered near the Central Secretariat building, shouting slogans such as “Down with autocracy, we want democracy.” The rest of the people were detained in similar demonstrations in nine other cities across the Himalayan kingdom. Monday’s protest in the capital was the largest since February first, when the…
Before I start, I want to say what a hell Zimbabwe is, and it is all Mugabe’s fault. I have quite a few friends from South Africa, one of which was born and raised in Zimbabwe. There’s a reason he doesn’t live there anymore. And it seems like the people still there are sick of it. There are several stories about this, but I liked this article the best as it highlights in particular the massive electoral fraud. CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) — Zimbabweans will be “dancing in the streets” when President Robert Mugabe is gone, a Zimbabwean archbishop…
Those in the United States and elsewhere who are pushing hard for the spread of democracy around the globe (including Publius Pundit) may soon get their toughest test yet. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak recently made a much publicized announcement that the constitution was to be amended to allow for genuinely competitive presidential elections. Today the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Egypt but is nevertheless highly organized and motivated, held protests demanding that they be given a chance to run in an open election. Dozens were arrested, and judging from what I saw on Al-Jazeera today the demonstrations were pretty…