Blogging the democratic revolution
Sokwanele has turned up with some incredible footage of undercover news shot in Zimbabwe and aired the ITV. The video features protestors running down the street as they flea tear gas being launched at them by riot police, along with interviews and a look at how Zimbabweans are forced to live nowadays. One man describes himself as already dead, a sign that there is so little hope for change in Zimbabwe under President Mugabe that the only thing people have left to do is fight. This is a great video worth watching. What is possibly even more amazing is that…
Cradle-robbing dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe cuts into a huge birthday cake. Courtesy AFP. Mugabe turned 83 on Wednesday — one year closer to his sweet, sweet death (unless he’s a robot like Castro). It promises to be a time of celebration for a few dozen millionaires. This Saturday is the big event! It’s a party worth over $50,000 dollars, enough to pay for the drugs of a few hundred AIDS victims for a year or even tons of grain to feed his people. Meanwhile, the rest of Zimbabwe isn’t doing so well. Inflation is up 1600% in the last…
OK, it was a ratbag of a bill. It lumped in everything that possibly could be lumped in, good with bad. Excellent, friendly deserving nations, like Vietnam, Colombia and Peru, (in short, our equals), got much of what they needed. Nations ruled by disgusting, undeserving, ungrateful governments, like Ecuador and Bolivia got plenty too. Messes like Haiti got the golden goose handed to them. Offshore drilling passed. Everyone got something, in what was kind of the last congressional pinata before the Roundheads (Democrats) take over. But boy it was sloppy. All told, I am happier with things this way than…
As Mugabe’s Zimbabwe spirals further into turmoil — inflation over 1000% and 80% of the population underfed, underemployed, and living in poverty — you might think that such conditions would spur action in people to act against the government. They have tried, and they have tried again, but every single time they fail. This time a national strike was called involving some of the country’s largest labor unions, but at the last minute many withdrew as the government dispatched paramilitary units to arrest opposition leaders. Police arrested trade union leaders and blocked streets and the main square in the Zimbabwe…
Just last year dictator-in-chief Robert Mugave ordered Operation: Take Out The Trash, bulldozing tens of thousands of makeshift homes that Zimbabwe’s people were forced to live in due to his policies. The operation displaced over 700,000 people, leaving them without a place to live. He promised the international community that reparations would be made and that all of the people driven from their homes would be given new housing. One year later, this has not happened. Amnesty International sent a team of researchers into Zimbabwe to get the story. They found that out of all the homes destroyed, only a…
In a moment where the forces of dictatorship and tyranny seem to be pushing back against democracy, the common thread that has successfully aligned nations such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, China, and Sudan have been the supply and demand of energy. While it is encouraging that the relationships forged seem to be more based on Machiavellian pragmatism then aligned ideologies or long term goals, problematic occurrences and diplomatic realignment have debilitated the West????????s efforts to act against undemocratic forces. Increasingly, the ability to act as a geopolitical actor has been taken away from the United States and the UN as…
Deep sea oil rig, Gulf of Mexico Source: National Aeronautics & Space Administration Today, a quiet revolutionary time bomb was presented to Hugo Chavez. He has no idea what it is or what it means. But this gift means it’s all over for the brutal Venezuelan tyrant in the next few years. He won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be bothering anyone anymore. He’s finished. Treasure was discovered in America’s Gulf of Mexico waters today, black gold so vast and so deep and so surprising and so recoverable that overnight, America’s energy reserves have just increased as much as…
The results of the a July 30 election in the “Democratic Republic” of the Congo were announced on Monday. Nobody won an outright majority, but I will give you one guess as to what happened given that it has taken over two millions deaths to lead up to this point. That’s right, people started killing each other, as militias loyal to the top two presidential candidates attacking each others’ supporters. There is an inherent flaw to the way this election has been carried out. They are bidding for the presidency, a position that in African skeleton democracies means protection for…
When I was in Washington, D.C. last week, I had dinner with the relatives I was staying with at their good friends’ house. These family friends happened to be Iranian. They had a son and two daughters, the boy was the youngest and the girls were about four years apart from each other. I had a conversation with the oldest girl about a variety of things, and by about 15 minutes before her mother had finished making our dinner, it turned political. She was very intelligent, she has one year to go until she achieves her degree in biology from…
Your country has a problem when inflation is at 1200%, the currency has had to be devalued by 60%, production of important natural resources like gold are down 50% over the past three years, teachers/government employees/soldiers are threatening strikes and revolts, 20% of the population has HIV/AIDS, tens of thousands are fleeing in fear, and all basic necessities of life are no longer available. This is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Hell on earth. The culmination of radical land redistribution policies and a totalitarian police state. Watch out Venezuela. This could be your future. Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has actually reached a point where…
Before the Islamic Courts overran Mogadishu, it was revealed that the CIA was supporting various warlord militias with hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to prevent them from taking over Somalia. The plan failed, however, and the group it advancing on the rest of the country. Life may not be good under the warlords, but the promise of a Taliban-like regime on the horizon doesn’t give much hope to the people of Somalia. However, the United States has a backup plan in Ethiopia, which has now sent troops into Somalia in order to stop the Islamic Courts. The U.S.…
Pitched battle on the streets of Kinshasa, ahead of a controversial election Source: AP, via Yahoo! News Ahead of Congo’s first democratic election in 45 years on Sunday, street battles are engulfing the capital of Kinshasa. At issue is electoral fraud. And the indifference of the international community, which, having spent $400 million for supposedly free and fair elections in its most complex election ever, just wants to hold the thing, get it over with, pull up stakes, and get the heck out. Opposition leaders to Congo’s incumbent Laurent Kabila regime say not so fast. Congo’s authorities have overprinted ballots,…
I’m thinking, not much. For decades we have sent nearly $3 trillion dollars in aid around the world that was supposed to be used for development but instead has been funneled into the personal checking accounts of dictators. The GDP per capita of the continent has actually fallen in this time, and the countries that we rank as being the most likely to succeed are actually experiencing negative growth. Every feel-good strategy that has been employed up to this point has failed miserable, causing more pain and suffering than there was before. Nice job, Bono. Now, the one chance at…
ÄNote: The Algerian independence day is July 5Å Algeria????????s independence came on July 5, 1962, after a long and bloody war against France. The Revolution that took place from 1954 to 1962 would soon be abducted by the egos of many powerful men, with names like Ben Bella, Boumediene, and Khider. But, the ideals of the Revolution they stole would not die. The Algerian Revolution was a revolt against exclusion, under-representation, racialism, displacement, colonialism, ignorance and all the other pretty words that come with battles in the name of rights. Algerians today, hold all of these notions close to their…
Isn’t it funny that while Algerians are debating whether or not to abolish term limits for their presidents, Mauritanians have just approved a constitution that provides for term limits on presidents (and compels the president to pledge before God that he will not attempt to modify these limits), and other checks on the executive? 77% Mauritanians turned out for the referendum, with 97% of them voting “yes” to the Constitution. According to Al Jazeera, Colonel Vall, the main ring leader of last summer’s coup that deposed former president Ouled Taya, has also proposed the prohibition of coup members from running…
Washington Post has an extraordinary good essay on the parlous and deteriorating state of Egypt’s democrats as the Mubarak dictatorship grows stronger and the U.S. loses interest in democratic revolution. The author is writing a book on Middle Eastern democratic revoltutionaries. It’s a sad but important story. It is a must-read here.
It feels good to be right sometimes. Really good. When Mauritania’s military staged a bloodless coup against the president last year, I thought it might be wrong — especially given the focus of this blog — to support such a move. Every government in the world was condemning it; the United States more than anyone, with the official statement being, “We oppose any attempts by rogue elements to change governments through extra-constitutional or violent means.” But when preaching democracy, this statement struck me as highly hypocritical. President Taya himself had come to power in an unconstitutional coup over two decades…
It is not surprising that Sherif Hamdy can write in the Daily Star that China is getting close to beating out the United States in the arena of public relations in the Arab World. I have seen maybe one or two American officials speak Arabic on Al Jazeera or Al Arabiyya regularly, and, according to the Government accountability office (via Foreign Policy Magazine’s blog and Kirk H. Sowell), only about 30% of American diplomatic personel in the Muslim world have proficancy in their host country’s language. At the US embassies in almost every Arabic speaking country I have visited (Algeria,…
Ghana football player John Pentsil after his team’s victory Source: AP, via Ha’aretz What a lovely story! Following Ghana’s tremendous and unexpected soccer victory over the powerhouse Czech Republic, a Ghanaian player whipped out an Israeli flag to show his support for the embattled Jewish state at the moment of his own victory. What a breath of fresh air for Israel, which usually has to hear horrible things about itself in the international political arena. This Ghanaian player wanted to honor them along with Ghana. The soccer player, John Pentsil, plays for teams in Israel between World Cups and feels…
Islamism defeats itself. Every time. This is a simple observation. Take the recent take over of the Somali capital by Islamic militias. This illustrates the archetypical Islamist power grab scenario: in a nation wrought with chaos and violence, and lacking strong leaders of principle, Islamic leaders with machine guns move in to give a desperate land order. Islamists symbolize sound principles and organization. They are often the only faction with a seemingly practical philosophy of governance that is at the same time legitimized in the folk culture of the locals. The Somali warlords of today could just have easily been…
Long overlooked on the world scene, China has been a great destabilizer of several regions of the world by its strategy in seeking to lock up supplies of oil. Sudan. Iran. Venezuela. Ecuador. China is a player in all of these areas and more. China’s efforts to lock up oil may not be as barbaric in means as the Japanese, who went on resource conquests just before World War II but it is the same idea. In any number of ways, it could lead to World War III. It’s no good for anyone. Fausta at Fausta’s blog has an illuminating…
As you might have heard, the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Libya, one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. To even begin trying to account for how this matches up to the stated “Bush Doctrine” of promoting democracy, and how it will benefit the people of Libya, boggles the mind. It does go to show, however, that the world is a complex place and the administration isn’t single-mindedly ideological when it comes to foreign policy. The reasons for this move therefore have little consideration for democracy, and everything to do with how the attainment of nuclear weapons…
For the 45,873th time, communism has failed. Forced confiscations of once-productive farms have left Zimbabwe a hollowed out shell of itself, its people hungry and starving, its government without revenue, and its infrastructure a smoking ruin. How many times do people need to learn this? Is there ever such a thing as learning from others or the past? Does everyone on earth need to learn everything the hard way individually? How anyone could support communism after this is beyond stupid. It can only be evil. Hugo Chavez of course has yet to learn. Anyway, Zimbabwe’s government has “invited” farmers of…
Yesterday, at a meeting with the Algerian speaker of parliament, Ammar Sadani (or Saadani), the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that the years of “discord” among the Muslim countries was over. These years of discord had allowed Israel to occupy Palestine and for the West to dominate the lands of Islam. But, the “enemies” of the ummah had been weakened by recent developments in the Middle East, and, Ahmadinejad said, Iran and Algeria could change the balance of power in the Middle East against Israel and the United States. Sadani, in support of the Iranian president, responded, ever carefully, by…
Algeria handed over $35 million to the Palestinian Authority. I don’t know that I’ve heard of such a massive waste of money since they came out with that whole “pay as you go” cell phone system. The West has refused to keep throwing money at the PA. And because Palestine is oh so important, the Arabs must come to its aid. Yes, so important is Palestine in fact that the Algerian government needs to throw away money there while Algerians can hardly find proper housing or jobs. $35 million. Why not put that towards building these new housing units Boutef…