Blogging the democratic revolution
This item on Zimbabwe’s smoking ruins made my blood go cold. Read it here. Hat tip: Real Clear
I just received this email from the Young Ethiopian Diasporans relating the declining situation in Ethiopia following the brutal murders of dozens of protestors by the authorities. Here is the latest, as Jimmy Carter looks on calmly: When all else fails, beat up reporters and take 3000 prisoners. Last Friday, Ethiopian PM Meles stated that: ???????There is no turning back from democracy??????? http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050610/wl_nm/ethiopia_meles_dc_1 And how does a ???????Capitalist on the outside, Marxist on the Inside??????? prime minister not ???????turn back from democracy???????? Here are four simple steps: 1) For starters you need to start kicking out western media. Start with…
The two-day work stay away that didn’t turn out so well yesterday fizzled again. A two-day strike called to protest a crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s government on informal traders headed for a total collapse on Friday when most businesses opened as usual for the second consecutive day. A coalition of civic groups, supported by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had urged Zimbabweans to stay away from work on Thursday and Friday to protest the destruction by police of illegal homes and street businesses. Police said a week ago they had arrested nearly 23,000 people and a…
Joe Katzman from Winds of Change pens how Mugabe changed his mind about guns. As many of you know, I’m from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car. Well, my mind has changed. Changed to the point where I see gun ownership as being a slightly qualified but universal global human right. A month ago in Yalta, Freedom & The Future, I wrote: “Frankly, if…
Background: Zimbabwe officially Mugabe’s fiefdom, Opposition to protest Zimbabwe crackdown. It seems that this country, long tortured by tyranny, is at a crossroads in which there is no turning back. Mugabe is crushing the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people, imposing a forced famine, and preparing to scatter his urban opposition to the country side. On this very day, the new parliament will open for the first time and Mugabe will officially unveil his constitutional changes: a rubberstamp senate, the nationalization of land, and domination of the electoral commission. The dictatorship is real. If the people don’t do something,…
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…
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…
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…
Exactly two months ago, this “outpost of tyranny” was holding parliamentary elections that were inexplicably fraudulent. Many foreign journalists were inside the country, so Mugabe made sure that food was given out and gasoline made available — at least in his supporters’ strongholds. Even once he stole the election and secured enough seats to change the constitution at whim, he made conciliatory grunts to the opposition. No more. The cloak of illusion soon came off as these basic commodities have become memories of the distant past. Inflation and unemployment has skyrocketed, making it impossible to save or even to live.…
Glenn posted a link earlier to a report that an EU confidential document says that the elections in Ethiopia were rigged. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s electoral board appears to have lost control of the vote counting for the May 15 legislative polls, European Union election observers said in a report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. The confidential report went on to say the EU might have to make a public denunciation of developments to distance itself from “the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging” of the vote “Ten days after the polling day, the situation is…
I awoke to a Google News alert to this fantastic editorial describing how Togo was betrayed its rightful place among democratic nations. It has only been a few weeks since terribly falsified elections were held in that country, and the political crisis has only deepened since. After hundreds were killed in the aftermath, thousands more fleeing the country, both sides were urged to form a unity government. That just fell through. Togo’s political adversaries have failed to agree on a government of national unity at a summit of African leaders in Abuja, Nigeria. The meeting was held to stem a…
I hadn’t really discussed it because, as far as superficial information goes, the mainstream media and famed international election observers like Jimmeh Carter went ahead and gave the whole thing the green light. WILLisms has a great roundup of the media coverage during the past week, and yes, Ethiopia is one of the more progressive nations on the continent. Relative to everyone else, Ethiopia’s ruling party looks like a model for the rest of Africa. In fact, they were the opposition alliance that overtook the Marxist dictatorship back in the ’80s. Jimmy Carter had some good things to say. Carter,…
Al-Jazeera has run an interview with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir from Khartoum on its popular “Without Limits” program. I thought it was enlightening, and the main impression I took a way from it was that of a man in a very weak position. The issue wasn’t addressed directly (although the feed cut off a couple of times, so I missed part of the interview), but from answers to various questions it was pretty clear that this was not a man who felt himself in control of his country. Some main points: The first big issue brought up was Darfur,…
I’d find it hard to disagree with this. The West African Bar Association (WABA) has called for the cancellation of the results of Togo’s election and formation a government of national unity, according to a statement from its president, Femi Falana. “Any attempt to form a national government on the basis of the flawed elections will be resisted by the Togolese people,” Falana observed in a statement in Lagos Tuesday. Falana said he was not surprised by the violence that greeted the declaration of the result of the presidential election, won by candidate Faure Gnassingbe of the ruling party, because,…
Mass violence, dubbed by some as even “urban warfare,” has erupted in Togo over the last few days (See Gateway Pundit’s coverage here and some pictures here. Opposition Bob-Akitani has responded to the heavily flawed polls by declaring himself president to his supporters. Togo’s opposition presidential candidate has declared himself president with 70% of the vote, despite official results giving him only 38%. “We must fight with our lives if necessary,” Bob Akitani said, claiming the poll was rigged in favour of Faure Gnassingbe, the former leader’s son. Security forces have again fired teargas at his supporters who erected and…
I guess this means there’s no chance of a unity government, though that was far-fetched anyhow. Here are the cold, dry results. Announcing the results, the head of the CENI National Electoral Commission, Kissem Tchangai-Walla, said Gnassingbe of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) won 60.22 percent of the vote in Sunday’s poll while the main opposition candidate Emmanuel Bob-Akitani captured 38.19 percent. “In view of these results … the candidate of the RPT has been provisionally elected,” said Kissem Tchangai-Walla. The electoral commission chief said the provisional results must be confirmed by the constitutional council under Togolese law…
I’m not sure what day the election results are supposed to be announced, as a date hasn’t been written in anything that I’ve read. I’m going to have to assume that it will be announced whenever they are done counting… and recounting. The problem here is that everybody knows that the longer it takes the government to count the vote, the more chances they have to commit fraud. So get a load of this. Togo’s opposition is awaiting results from Sunday’s presidential election, amid street violence that has killed several people and injured dozens. Voters were asked to choose a…
Togo has become a place of fright as the populace has gone to the polls and voted. It is literally a situation that you cannot believe is real, and that if you blink, it will all go away. But it won’t go away. After living 38 God-forsaken years under a despotic military state, the people of Togo are sick of their government and wish to erase the memories of widespread imprisonment, famine, and poverty. What we are seeing in Togo is what could have happened in Zimbabwe if they had taken to the streets. The outcome now is very uncertain,…
Back in February, Togo experienced a constitutional coup of sorts. ÄDictatorÅ Gnassingbe Eyadema died after a long, treacherous rule of 38 years. The coup happened when his son, Faure Gnassingbe, decided to assume power despite constitutional law dictating otherwise. The UN, of all bodies, said no to this happening, so what did Faure do? He immediately amended the constitution! Immediately afterward, the African Union, the same one that endorsed Mugabe’s reelection, condemned the move and imposed immediate sanctions on the country. So did the United States. Faure stepped down, and on March 3rd, elections were called for April 24th. This…
Immediately after the falsified elections, the MDC had declared that it would not bother with going into parliament and would not challenge the results in court. The strategy since then seems to have changed since then, with the opposition taking its seats today. Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has taken up its seats in parliament, which puts an end to speculation that the MDC would boycott parliament to protest an election it alleges President Robert Mugabe’s party won fraudulently. The 41 Movement for Democratic Change candidates who won in last month’s election were sworn in as…
Djibouti — One of the many unfree places left in the world where a “president” can call the opposition cowards while firing tear gas at them for protesting a rigged election. Djibouti’s incumbent leader, Ismail Omar Guelleh, has won presidential elections boycotted by the opposition and in which he was the sole candidate. The high turnout – 78.9% – was the only unpredictable element in the polls. Mr Guelleh, who won 100% of the ballots cast, told France’s Le Figaro newspaper he regretted “having no opponent”. Earlier on Friday, police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters rallying against…
Previous statements have said that they would not contest the election results in court, as it would be futile given that it is controlled by Mugabe. Now, they have decided to do so in the districts where the most flagrant violations occured. Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has reversed its earlier decision not to challenge the results of last week’s parliamentary election in court. The party is now taking cases of what it calls the most blatant irregularities to the Electoral Court. The Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, will challenge one or two results from…
With Mugabe rigging himself a 2/3 majority, what exactly could the opposition do anyway? Members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s main opposition group, are hesitant about their political future when the new parliament reopens after last week’s general election which delivered President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF a large majority. The MDC is engaged in its most serious debate since it was formed five years ago. The first debate among MDC leaders after last week’s election is whether they should return to parliament. Several MDC analysts say the opposition’s experience in parliament has been “futile and agonizing” and that…
This article caught my eye just before I went to hit the bed. Very sneaky. Very smart. Observer teams from African countries and regional organisations have been unanimous in declaring the elections free and fair, but the US embassy said that although the Zimbabwe government had not invited it to send observer teams from abroad, it had sent 25 of its Harare-based diplomats to observe the process in almost half of the 120 constituencies. Their reports showed “several patterns of irregularities” – the exclusion of observers from four polling stations, the failure to publish the results of each polling station…