Blogging the democratic revolution
Joshua Landis, living in Damascus, has a media roundup from around the world and talks about all of the proposals. The press, for the most part, has seen this as a “great step forward” — Ba’ath words actually — in reform toward democracy in Syria. But if that sounds too good to be true, then it probably is! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it “the great sidestep.” Can you tell that I’m skeptical? President Assad has to worry about international pressure and internal political pressure, both of which will relate to how he proceeds with domestic reform.…
Gateway Pundit has been doing a fantastic job rounding up what’s been going on for the past two days. Students all over the country were peacefully protesting the rigged elections, when the army and police broke it up with brutal force. At the Addis Ababa Tegbare’ed (Technical School), police tried to disperse about 200 peaceful student protester today by brutally beating them. Construction workers threw stones at the police in support of the students. Several of them were arrested, as well as other non-students who joined the protest in the morning. Sapa-AP The police beat up the protesters using butts…
Victor Mallet of the Financial Times seizes on Rumsfeld’s recent comments on June 4, in which he said that China needs to open up its political system. Victor argues that economic growth and western influence — one in the same in China’s case — will bring with it inevitable internal democratic reform, even as the government resists it. He applauded the global spread of democracy, expressed satisfaction that dictatorships were losing power, and suggested that China needed ???????a growth in political freedom??????? and ???????a more open and representative government???????. The Chinese response was revealing. Cui Tiankai, the senior foreign ministry…
President Mesa offered his resignation to Congress as huge protests engulfed the capital for the past two weeks. These protests were led by angry leftist and Indian groups, demanding nationalization of Bolivia’s energy industry. But they are not the only angry group in the country – there are equally angry people in Santa Cruz, where the energy is located. Crucenos, many of whom are industrious immigrants, very much want the oil and natural gas industries developed through private means, as they would be in a normal country, with critical foreign investment so that jobs and a dynamic economy will be…
Two disasters happened this morning in South America. A slew of bombs went off against U.S. retailers in Buenos Aires, Argentina from a previously unknown ‘revolutionary’ group that’s suddenly got a lot of money for bombs. The bombers made no secret of their anti-American intentions as they hit a Citibank, a Blockbuster and attempted to hit a McDonald’s. Worse yet, the heritage of Peru was assaulted, with a historic church built in 1604 going up in flames, a fire that doesn’t seem to have any organic origin. Who set it? It looks like somebody did – someone with no respect…
Where is dictator Hugo Chavez taking Venezuela? Straight to hell. Two powerful essays by Gustavo Coronel and Carlos Alberto Montaner, about the deteriorating situation, one that will cost Venezuelans three generations of progress, are out with the same conclusions about the Chavez vortex of destruction. This is the reality. Don’t miss either of them, this is the work of both writers at their finest. Read them here and here. Hat tip: Real Clear Politics, Venezuela Today.
The awesome President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and all of his presidential challengers are setting up blogs for the upcoming presidential race. It’s going to be hotly contested, but I defy anyone to outdo President Uribe in sheer eloquence. He’s a quiet little academic-looking man, but his power is in his thinking, and not only intellectual brilliance but emerald-grade moral clarity. That’s a lot better than how much hairspray. I think this will make politics less a TV show and more a contest of ideas – which is what blogging excels at. Grim’s Hall has a note about it here.…
Miguel in Caracas, Venezuela has a fantastic picture show, comparing and contrasting the people George Bush associates with, and the people dictator Hugo Chavez associates with. Take a good look and draw your own conclusions about who’s the democrat, who’s the authentic revolutionary. Go see the amazing photos here.
Welcome to this week’s Carnival Of Revolutions! I’ll take a cue from Nathan and not pull out the humor. I don’t know where I’d pull it from. So let’s cut to the chase, down to this past week’s developments in democracy, elections, tyrannous acts, human rights, and pie. Apple pie. General: The World has a three part series examining pro-democracy movements, and the photos used were by none other than Veronica Khokhlova. A lot of people were pissed (and that’s just a few) that Amnesty International compared Gitmo to gulags and called the United States the greatest abuser of human…
Regime Change Iran is posting this week’s week in review, the most important roundup on Iran you can read. If there was ever any doubt that the voter turnout is going be tantamount to the aftermath of this election, get this: – Townhall.com reported that the son of the late Shah said, Boycott Iran’s Sham Election. – Iran Focus reported an Iranian survey predicts: 92 percent of voters to stay away from presidential polls. – Agence Franc Presse reports that the Iranian public is being told, voting is as important as praying. Also, if you haven’t already, please consider joining…
After weeks of so-called “clean up,” where tens of thousands of opposition supporters have had their homes and trader stalls demolished, trade unions, churches, and civil organizations are banding together to call for a nationwide working strike. A SHADOWY coalition of civil groups and opponents of President Robert Mugabe called today for mass strikes to bring Zimbabwe to a halt, while churches stepped up criticism of a government clampdown on shack dwellers and street traders. Shielding its identity and headquarters in fear of Mugabe’s draconian security legislation, an hitherto unknown organisation calling itself the “Broad Alliance” distributed leaflets and mobile…
The nightmare continues to unfold in Zimbabwe. Publius Pundit has previously reported on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s “Operation Clean Up” which aimes to abolish private property, make homeless masses of people who oppose him, and ban independent traders and small businesses which are the only real economy Zimbabwe still has – see The Mugabe-China Connection, and Zimbabwe is Mugabe’s Personal Fiefdom. This is essentially an update, as the results of “Operation Clean Up” become clear, with excerpts from the Times of London, “Mugabe’s human rubbish dump“: WHEN President Mugabe????????s Government announced plans to ???????clean up??????? the country????????s cities more than…
The Liberator of East Central Europe and Central America, the leader who made the U.S. believe in itself again, the man who changed the world forever, we remember our great President Ronald Reagan. He was the father of the modern democratic revolution. Just consider what the world was like before Reagan became our leader. In the backwash of the 1960s and the moral mud of the Carter era, revolution was the province of violent charlatans like Che Guevara. After Reagan, they became something different, beginning with the Velvet Revolution. Reagan knew that freedom was a concept engraved on every human…
Voting has begun in Lebanon’s southern district. Six of the South seats have already been taken by ticket members officially declared ‘winners unopposed’ in Sidon, provincial capital of the south, and in Jezzine, South Lebanon’s largest Christian city. Jezzine’s population was staying away from the polls to protest the concept of Christians being carried to parliament by overwhelming Muslim votes. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) in the region that sits on Israel’s northern rim and are scheduled to close 11 hours later. About 665,000 men and women are eligible to cast ballots, but the turnout is expected by…
I’m going to take this opportunity to remind you that I’ll be hosting Monday’s Carnival of Revolutions. That means if you have a blog post or know of a blog post relating to democracy movements, tyrannical regimes, the spread of freedom — and all that sweet stuff — be sure to email it to me at robertmayerÉgmail.com. And if you don’t, go on a scavenger hunt so that I don’t have to! Meanwhile, I’m working on a post delving into the complexity of the elections in South Lebanon tomorrow. Stay tuned.
To give some short-term background: The Azeri government has, in the past few weeks, really cracked down on opposition leaders and arrested hundreds of people. With this rally, as with all, the opposition applied for approval to hold their rally but they were denied. But instead of staying home, they came out into the streets as planned, and boy, did they come out. BAKU, June 4 (AFP) – Some 10,000 anti-government protestors rallied in the capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan calling for regime change in the former Soviet republic on Saturday. In the first opposition rally not to have been crushed…
Zapatero may have given in to Al Qaeda an easy time after the Madrid train bombing, but the Spanish won’t have any negotiating with the Basque separatists. Victims, relatives, and supporters are marching in Madrid against government plans to negotiate with the ETA terrorists. Great photo here. Spain’s prime minister Jos???? Luis Rodr????guez Zapatero faces the first major demonstration against him today when tens of thousands are to march through Madrid demanding he does not negotiate with the Basque terrorist group Eta. Organisers said at least 200 coaches were due for the march, which has the backing of the main…
It is a unique blessing of the free world that its people can express a wide variety of opinions and choose how to live peacefully without being persecuted by their own governments. These are examples of real, universal human rights that need to be defended and brought to the dark corners of the world. This is why we need human rights organizations that can recognize the difference between sporadic crime in the free world and regimen genocide where the press doesn’t exist to report it. This is the problem with much of the human rights movement today. Its leadership does…
I normally don’t comment on the media, but this bit from the AP is egregious: But in a development that could affect efforts to get Shiites and Sunnis working together, President Jalal Talabani said Saddam, a Sunni, could be put on trial in the next two months. Hello? Excuse me? As though it’s not a ridiculous enough assumption that Saddam Hussein is representative of Iraq’s Sunnis and that his trial could cost the new government their support… bipartisan cooperation efforts are absolutely nowhere on the scale of important issues in trying and sentencing a genocidal tyrant who literally filled the…
The regime is going to be starving for legitimacy if this is true, and by all accounts it looks highly probable. A nationwide survey conducted by an Iranian opposition group showed widespread voter apathy in Iran’s upcoming June 17 presidential elections. The People??????????s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) said in a press release that a survey of 1,730 adults eligible to vote showed that 92 percent of voters intend to boycott the elections. The survey was based on interviews conducted between May 27 and May 30, 2005. READ MORE While the PMOI as an opposition group has clear interests in…
It is not unusual for countries to have “rubber-stamp” parliaments, but they don’t usually make it as obvious as Egypt does. I recently posted a roundup on Egypt’s ruff-up of the opposition in the recent referendum meant to endorse a change to the election law which would superficially allow for open elections while in reality guaranteeing continued dominence of the ruling party. If you missed it and haven’t followed events in Egypt lately, you might want to read that for background. Yet now evidence has appeared which shows that the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, the National Democratic Party,…
A columnist for the Lebanese publication An Nahar has been murdered in a car bombing, in which his car was rigged to explode upon ignition. Here is the report from Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert M????nard, who is currently in Lebanon, voiced dismay at the murder of columnist Samir Kassir of the An-Nahar newspaper, who was killed when his car blew up this morning in Beirut. “We are in a complete state of shock after Samir Kassir’s cowardly murder,” M????nard said. “We have lost a friend, and press freedom has lost a passionate defender. We share his…
On Monday I posted to this blog an entry on the constitutional process in Europe and the rejection of it by the French. See, The French say “Oui” to Sovereigny, and to the Welfare State. That post received some comments, and as they were likely to take us off-topic here at Publius Pundit, I have just posted my full response on my blog; see Response to Comments – the EU Constitution. On that post I have pasted in a detailed comment by a French reader who voted for the constitution, and have then given my reply.
Before anything, read Austin Bay’s fabulous piece fisking Amnesty International on their bizarre claim that Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are modern day gulags, and that the U.S. is the leader in human rights abuses in the world. Hahahahahaha. Right. Anyhow, I received an email with a really good idea: Go to Google News and search for stories about “human rights abuses xxx” where xxx is the name of a country. Let’s see the results as of this moment. United States: 2,740 Iran: 374 China: 824 Sudan: 400 Zimbabwe: 265 Belarus: 39 Russia: 483 Burma: 68 Saudi Arabia: 142 Nepal: 232…
Two weeks ago, Robert Mugabe started his “Operation: Clean-up” which has destroyed the market stalls of thousands of Zimbabweans and now left up to two million homeless. On both the human rights and geopolitics scale, the role that China plays in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular is especially important. They have been making inroads into the continent for years and the effects are starting to show. The opposition Sokwanele blog explains: Now let’s look at more recent developments. Riot police have just been sent into the flea markets in Harare, and been set upon street traders who ply…