Blogging the democratic revolution
While last week’s eulogy of President Niyazov that I posted was largely sarcastic and bordered on the maniacally gleeful, I did manage to go into some detail of what I thought would occur with regards to the transition from all Turkmenbashi, all the time to whatever form the next government takes. Mentioning the huge amount of natural gas the lies underneath those sands, there will certainly be a power struggle within the country unless its elites create some form of Politburo-style consensus powersharing. There will certainly be no democratic transition, and this is certainly echoed by every major power that…
Merry Christmas everyone. It’s time for everyone to get some downtime in, and frankly the traffic just isn’t large enough over the holidays to warrant a large amount of posting! I personally am on my way to Madrid where I will spend the time off with my family. So everyone, stay safe and get lots of presents.
The great and illustrious leader of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, died today from a heart attack. Pretty impressive way to go for a guy who was supposed to live forever in all of his godliness. Of all the countries in the world, Turkmenistan is perhaps one of the worst in terms of poverty, economic and politics freedoms, and just about every other indicator to the general health of the society. Turkmenbashi was able to create such a utopian society through the careful construction of a massive cult of personality since the end of the Soviet Union. In fact, the man has…
A The Belmont Club Richard Fernandez discusses the propaganda of Islamic radicals who, at the moment, are ten steps ahead of the West in terms of spreading its message. The speed at which the message is spreading, the reach that it is attaining, and the sheer quantity cannot hope to be matched by the bureaucratic structures of Western Europe when terrorists operate fast and free-cell. The unique nature of the enemy poses a great challenge for the United States in its war in Iraq. While it can never be defeated militarily, it can easily be demolished politically if it doesn’t…
The news of the defeat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s allies in elections for both local councils as well as the Assembly of Experts is good news to those of us who want to see the influence of the madman diminished. The winners are a general alliance between former President Rafsanajani’s “pragmatic” conservatives and reformists, an alliance which could make way for a slow transition even past where Iran was before Ahmadinejad took power. Here is the Guardian’s article on the subject: The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faced electoral embarrassment today after the apparent failure of his supporters to win…
YouTube is a great site. I’ve seen videos thay have ranged from the hilarious to the downright terrible; a feature of user-driven content. Perhaps another feature is that everyone who posts video is merely trying to become the most popular user by appealing to the masses, usually through comedy, which is why it is rare to find incredible quality and depth of message in a site where so much time is dedicated to making people laugh. Here at Publius, not only did we extensively cover the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, which revealed a strong desire in its public for a…
The State Department has put out a press release detailing new initiatives to support human rights that will begin next year. By and large, the plans focus on supporting NGOs that operate under fierce government repression, thus countering the global trend of cracking down on such organizations from Russia to Venezuela. Here is a list of the three programs: 1) Human Rights Defenders Fund In countries where tyranny persists, and even in states with some semblance of democratic institutions, human rights defenders are frequently put in jeopardy by the nature of their work. They are harassed, physically threatened or harmed,…
With the victory of leftists Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua just in the past month, it would seem as if a year-long string of defeats for the Bolivarian Revolution — most exemplified by Mexico and Peru — has been broken. With Fidel Castro regrettably still alive, Evo Morales looking to impose his will on Bolivia’s productive regions, and Hugo Chavez ready and willing to steal the up-and-coming election in Venezuela, things are looking less optimistic than ever. However, I think that the image of such waves and counter-waves (like the “leftist wave” sweeping Latin America, and…
See you all on Monday! I have a very special anniversary to celebrate this weekend, so Publius goes on hold until then… :)
A much talked about concept (and concern) over the summer and autumn in EU foreign policy circles has been the birth of what is being called the “Kosovo double-standard,” by which the EU and United States support Kosovo’s independence from Serbia while declining to recognize the supposed self-determination of Georgian breakaway provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The idea came about this year as talks began in February over Kosovo’s status, as well a vote this summer which allowed Montenegro to declare independence from Serbia. If last year was the year of democratic revolutions, then this is certainly the one of…
America is the strongest single country in the world, and in this position it has made many enemies of those who oppose such things as democracy and the free market. Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez, just to name a few. But these three especially are bent on the destruction or obsolescence America itself as well as what it stands for. It stands to reason then that such people would do anything possible to make this happen; from building nuclear weapons to clearly subverting American elections. Hugo Chavez is exactly the kind of man that would do such a…
Opposition protests in Kyrgyzstan (that I wrote about last week) against President Bakiev’s proposed constitution — which favors a strong president, go figure — has culminated in near-total parliamentary opposition to his choice. In fact, as RFE/RL reports, the protests have culminated in a tent town and 40,000 people on the streets around the presidential palace, with 2/3 of lawmakers breaking from Bakiev to set up a constituent assembly for the express purpose of writing a new constitution. PRAGUE, November 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) — In the latest development in Kyrgyzstan’s political crisis, two-thirds of the Kyrgyz parliament has established a…
Dropping off the map (figuratively) for awhile is Kyrgyzstan, the site of March 2005’s Tulip Revolution in which a few thousand people chased former President Akaev from office. The protestors are now back to the streets, in ever greater numbers than before, and they are demanding the reforms that were promised and since stalled by the newly elected President Bakiev. The center of the reform debate is the approval of a new constitution; either one which favors a strong executive or another which favors a strong parliament. Judging from all that I’ve read of the situation, it appears that Bakiev…
Following a disputed but highly publicized report that North Korea apologized to a Chinese envoy for its nuclear test, the hermit kingdom has decided to rejoin 6-way talks regarding its nuclear program. China, the United States and North Korea agreed in talks Tuesday to resume the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs “at a convenient time in the near future” after a break of almost a year, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said. Christopher Hill, U.S. head delegate to the six-party talks, told reporters after meeting with his Chinese and North Korean counterparts that while the precise date needs…
PostGlobal hosted by the Washington Post poses a question for its readers that I think many here would find interesting to discuss: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said bread is more important than democracy, and he may be preparing to try to dissolve the Hamas-led Palestinian parliment. Does a leader have a right to bypass democratic institutions to ensure his people are fed and secure? What we see now in the Palestinian Territories has been long coming ever since Hamas won the parliamentary election last year. Every attempt has been made — from cutting off funding to airstrikes to internal…
Louis Goodman over the the Foreign Policy blog takes a look at this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize, and discovers that the prizes for less science-centric, more socio-culture specific areas are going to people from the developing world. At first glance, this year’s crop of Nobel prizes came out quite nicely for the United States. Americans, after all, swept the prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry and economics. But a closer look suggests room for improvement. Americans dominate in the “easy” sciences????????fields where it is comparatively less difficult to establish consensus????????but lag in the arguably more complex realms of advancing…
I thought that headline might grab your attention. Francis Fukuyama, in an interview with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, said something that reminded me of an idea that I was pondering about a year ago but never followed up on. RFE/RL: Professor Fukuyama, some of your critics say that your ideas about the primacy of liberal democracy created a climate suitable for the self-assured behavior of the U.S. government in world affairs. Do you feel responsible to any extent for this? Fukuyama: Well, no. I think that the Bush administration, to the extent that they thought they were using…
All the oil money in the world can’t help him now! Chavez pulled out all the stops to get a rotating seat on the United Nation Security Council, all in the name of challenging U.S. imperialism. Oil contracts with China, bond buyouts from Argentina, subsidized energy all over the world. Billions of dollars in political influence flushed down the toilet, being lost to U.S.-backed Guatamala, who never raised a peep during the whole affair. This is what a real vote looks like — something Chavez hates — so imagine how much he can’t stand democracy now! So far it looks…
David Sasaki has an interesting post on “The Freedom of Familiarity” — or alternatively, the slavery of choice. He discusses the boundaries of freedom of choice, such that there is some point that so many alternative choices are available that either a person cannot simply settle on one thing or he may simply never be able to decide. The context in which he writes this is a very familiar scene: going to the cafe to read the newspaper and drink a cup of coffee. There are three cafes here in Caracas where I have my morning coffee, palmera or cachito…
Apparently, an anarchic landmass with a nuclear weapon. I feel like this post should have been written back in 2002 when it was revealed that North Korea was working on a nuclear weapons system. The end result seemed inevitable even then. With thousands of pounds of artillery armed just miles from Seoul and the prospect of mushroom-cloud catastrophe just about anywhere, Kim Jong-Il had everyone blackmailed. He was going to get what he wanted no matter what and nobody had the balls to stop him. But really, there is only so much the United States can do short of invasion…
It is traditional thought to immediately consider a military coup bad because they usually are. Take the many horrors of Africa and Latin America, for example. There have certainly been ambiguous exceptions, such as Pinochet’s coup in Chile which still inspires much debate. But nowadays things are a bit different. Military coups are occurring for the explicit purpose of creating national harmony and moving forward with democracy. Look at Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania, where coups have led directly to increases in civil and political liberties with a progression toward elections. The most recent coup that inspired international condemnation was in Thailand,…
Not that he ever really had it, but President Bachelet was considering supporting Venezuela’s candidacy for a rotating seat on the United Nations security council that’s coming up. Possibly no more. A.M. Mora y Leon already posted up an article showing Bachelet’s absolute fury over remarks made by the Venezuelan government that the Christian Democrat Party had betrayed Salvador Allende as well as the revolution. The fallout was absolutely astronomical. Relations between the two countries have never been so low. If Chavez ever thought he had a chance of gaining Chile’s support — probably one of the most important countries…
The European Commission has announced that Romania and Bulgaria are set to join the European Union at the beginning of 2007. It truly is an historic achievement; something that bodes well for the future of the two countries and the continent as a whole. The European Commission has announced that Romania and Bulgaria will be admitted to the EU in January 2007, but under strict conditions. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said both countries had made enough progress to join the union. But they will be checked for progress in curbing organised crime and corruption, and ensuring food safety and…
Gates of Vienna posts and interesting article, along with his own commentary, regarding a recent referendum in Switzerland in which around 2/3 of the population voted to tighten the country’s asylum laws. This is what happened: According to early poll projections, Switzerland has voted heavily in favour of making it harder for asylum-seekers to gain entry to the rich Alpine state. Despite warnings of damage to Switzerland’s humanitarian reputation, some two-thirds of voters appeared to have said ‘yes’ in referendums on laws limiting access for non-European job-seekers and making the country’s asylum rules amongst the West’s toughest. They seemed also…
Manfred Nowak, the UN’s chief man on anti-torture, said today that torture in Iraq is worse now than it was under Saddam. “What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand,” Mr Nowak said in Geneva. “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.” The State Department is outraged about this, taking the comment as hypbole and moral relativism. A State Department official in Washington, asked about Professor Nowak’s comments, told The Times:…