Blogging the democratic revolution
Protests in the Middle East are rarely both large and spontaneous at the same time, although often it will appear that way. The same holds for the printing of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohemmed in a Danish newspaper, in which it appeared that many of the Muslim protestors took the same streets, bought and burned…
Tim Russo continues to post his manuscript about his work promoting democracy in Armenia back in the ’90s, and a particularly interesting post for Publius readers would be one of his latest on the “
Nathan Hamm is noting some interesting political developments in the most democratic country of Central Asia, which has culminated in several thousand people protesting.
It’s only lately with all this free time on my hands that I’ve been able to regularly read over Publius’ blogroll, so I stopped over at Tim Russo’s Democracy Guy blog to see if he was talking at all about his time working for NDI in Armenia. More than ever, it seems. He’s self-publishing a…
Somewhat predictably, after the united opposition failed in its attempt to enact a colored revolution in Azerbaijan — or at least prevent voter fraud at the municipal level — it completely fell apart. This Eurasia Daily Monitor article goes into detail about how the Azadliq “Freedom” coalition has split up on the national level following…
Afghan parliamentarian Malali Joya stood up to warlords in the parliament’s first session, accusing them of human rights abuses and refusing to be quiet when they told her to. It was just a blurb in most reports, but this article uses the incident as its main focus. It’s highly symbolic and female Afghanis looking on…
People are voting in presidential elections today in Kazakhstan, though the winner is a forgone conclusion. Oil-rich Kazakhstan, the most prosperous country in ex-Soviet Central Asia, voted Sunday in a presidential election widely expected to give Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has led the country for the last 16 years, another seven-year term. Amid allegations of both…
Falsifying elections is a tough job, so you need just the right authoritarian government to do it. Armenia was another country on the list to do so this weekend, with a constitutional referendum that, despite polling places being nearly empty all day, reported a relatively high turnout. But given that the opposition simply boycotted the…
Looking for a fiercely independent country in the heart of Central Asia, with a penchant for free enterprise and building a working democracy? Then you’re looking for Mongolia, a stab in the heart to all of the region’s dictators. Well, President Bush just made history by being the first U.S. president to visit Mongolia, a…
After more than a half century of war and the threat of nuclear disaster, in which tens of thousands of civilians have been killed by military personnel and terrorist groups, peace between India and Pakistan may closer than ever. Ever since the threat of a new war in 2002 sparked international fears of nuclear annihilation…
While much of South America continues to wrassle over whether free trade is of any benefit to them, Asian giant India – once an inward-looking, narrowly nationalistic state – has now called for a free trade pact for South Asia – or, SAFTA. What a democratic revolution, given what India was in, say, 1970! With…
A crowd of over 15,000 demonstrators gathered in Baku’s Victory Square to protest Sunday’s fraudulent elections. The protests had been sanctioned by the government for today, but it is unlikely that further protests will be officially allowed. Opposition leaders have vowed to continue taking to the streets through the weekend, and if history is any…
Here’s a quick roundup about what all the regional blogs are saying, and then below that will be the aftermath of election day. – New Eurasia is blogging a storm. Just scroll. It includes on the ground reporting, pictures of campaign posters, exit poll information, and an appearance by Ariel Cohen calling the election the…
Parliamentary elections are due to be held in Azerbaijan on November 6, and the opposition hasn’t held back in making it known that it intends to attempt a colored revolution in the event of fraud. However, most observers believe that this event will be more violent than velvet, a repeat of the October 2003 street…
Senators Bill Frist and Richard Lugar have taken the initiative in Congress and presented a resolution calling for the fair treatment of Sanjar Umarov, the Uzbek opposition politician who has presented the most reasonable challenge to President Karimov so far. He was detained in late October. Here’s the text of the resolution. The resolution prompted…
The UN-Afghan joint commission, JAMB, has delayed the release results from parliamentary elections held in September. This is due to some 500 complaints filed related to possible electoral fraud committed at individual polling stations, all of which are being investigated before any final results are announced. The certification of final results from Afghanistan’s 18 September…
One of the world’s most important under-reported stories is the ongoing struggle for political influence and commercial advantage in Central Asia – mainly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyryzstan and Tajikistan – between Russia, China and the United States. Security Watchtower has an important post, The Battle for Central Asia, which is worth reading and which links…
On Academic Elephant’s superb blog, I found a small post that resonated with me: The tendency of the mainstream media to belittle U.S. officials when they visit small countries. There are all kinds of valid reasons to criticize them, and from many angles. But to savage Donald Rumsfeld because he paid a visit to distant…
The big news in Azerbaijan is that, less than two weeks away from parliamentary elections scheduled for November 6, President Aliyev has ordered that NGOs be allowed to monitor the election and that indelible ink must be used to prevent double voting. All of these are measures requested by the OSCE in order to hold…
A parliamentarian was killed while touring a prison, protestors took to the streets to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Kulov, an extraordinary session of parliament was almost held to that end, and it’s coming out that the assassination might have political implications much more far ranging than at first glance. This also follows government…
In its ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy reformists, the Uzbek government has arrested Sanjar Umarov, the leader of Sunshine Uzbekistan and a potential challenger to President Karimov. The New York Times has more, though a lot of the information seems to come from the Sunshine Uzbekistan website. MOSCOW, Oct. 23 ???????? The leader of an Uzbek…
Some jackass “journalists” desecrated their supposed profession: story here. Read the whole thing.
Mark Steyn has a new killer essay at the Spectator about the collapse of Russia and the spread of Islamic fascism. It’s worth reading if only for the, er, fowl pun partway down page one (there’s one that’s actually funny further down, but I won’t ruin it for you). Excerpt: Moscow has reduced Grozny to…
As parliamentary elections on November 6 near, hardliners within the Azeri government are feeling the heat and are cracking down on reformers within their midst. This has culminated in the firing and arrest of Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliyev and his brother Rafiq Aliyev, who is the owner of Azpetrol, the biggest privately owned oil…
I have just published the last in a three-part series the global implications of the attacks in London of July 7, 2005. This last post, After London – The Infrastructure of Terrorism in Pakistan, is the one most relevant to democracy issues because it deals with both the socio-political and the military networks of militant…