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:…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…