Blogging the democratic revolution
Racial and ethnic violence is becoming more visible in Russia as some high profile cases have entered the news. There have been many explanations given for this rise of racial extremism. What tends to be missing however is the view that this is all connected to the general reconfiguration of Russian national identity. The first high profile case was this weeks sentencing of Alexander Koptsev, 21 years old, to 13 years in prison for attacking worshipers at a Moscow synagogue. On January 11, Koptsev broke into the synagogue with a knife. According to witnesses he began shouting ???????I will kill…
As many of you know, in the former communist countries have been created institutes to study the files of the communist intelligence services. In Romania, we have the National Council for the Study of the Former Communist Secret Service Archive (CNSAS). After 16 years from the Revolution against Ceausescu????????s regime, and the atrocious Securitate, we have today people who worked within the Securitate or closely cooperated with it, in key positions, in Parliament, Government, and the Presidential Institution. Ticu Dumitrescu, the man who has initiated the law which established the CNSAS should have finally been elected as President of the…
Democratic opposition protestors who were arrested over the past week following historic demonstrations have gone on a hunger strike. They are rotting in prison cells after having their bodies battered and bruised by riot police for absolutely no reason; being denied even the most basic human rights. Twenty political prisoners in Belarus are on hunger strike, rights advocates have said, drawing attention to conditions at a jail where about 400 opposition supporters are being held. The rights defenders said on Tuesday that the prisoners are being held in crowded conditions, and are being denied water and the right to receive…
Starting with 2007, Mihail Kogalniceanu military base will serve as the general headquarters of the newly formed Eastern European Task Force. In this context, Romania and the Black Sea area will become one of the most important outposts for the American Army in Europe. The Romanian Ziua daily made two assumptions on this topic, 1) that US will invest in its bases from Romania around $60,000,000, 2) the American anti-missile shield might be located in Romania. The next project of the United States, as detailed by General James Jones will be the Caspian Guard. Its aim is to improve the…
Parliamentary elections held in Ukraine yesterday ushered in the resurgence of the Regions of Ukraine bloc, led by former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. Pundits are mockingly calling it the ???????Blue Revolution,??????? and after seeing over half the results counted, one would be hard-pressed to deny that Yanukovich has adapted to the new environment and has become an adept politician on his own ???????? with the help of a few American PR firms and a campaign style similar to the old Orange one of 2004. He has changed positions, calling for Ukraine to join the EU and serve as a bridge…
I co-hosted two interviews on Belarus and Burma at Global Crisis Wacth/Clandestine Radio. The first, Belarus-related, starts from the minute ‘1 and had our dear friend Robert Mayer as guest. The second, Burma-related, starts from the 22’40 minute. Listen to them here I’d like to thank GCW/CR’s Nick Grace and Rich Lafayette for granting me and Robert the opportunity to speak on radio!
After Lukashenko gave the order to clear October Square of any and all protestors in the Friday twilight., it was completely cordoned off by riot police. Access to the square was denied. But thousands, at least twenty to thirty thousand, people showed up for the planned opposition rally and it was held in Yanka Kupala Square instead. Even more would have gone if there had been more space, and if they weren’t hampered from doing so. Democratic opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich called for the creation of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Belarus, part of the opposition’s plan to…
Perhaps the most irritating part about the entire Belarus affair right now is the lies that come out of the Russian media, and the two-faced and often misled reporting done by many news organizations in Europe. For the former, they tell a story completely dislodged from reality; so far off that you can’t really tell if they believe it, or if they’re just trying to hide their grin. For the latter, they either tell the story to the West and repeat the lies to the East, or are simply so lazy in collecting information that they end up benignly repeating…
Lukashenko has finally given the order to storm and detain the protestors on October Square in the early Minsk morning. They have all been arrested. The square is compeltely empty. What does this bode for tomorrow, when a massive demonstration is supposed to be held?… Will is happen? MINSK, Belarus – Police stormed the opposition tent camp in the Belarusian capital Minsk early Friday morning, detaining scores of demonstrators who had spent a fourth night in a central square to protest President Alexander Lukashenko’s victory in a disputed election. The arrests came after a half dozen large police buses and…
The ongoing protests in Belarus since Sunday leave much to be desired; that is, if you’re expecting a colored revolution immediately. Sunday saw well over 10,000 people rallying in October Square, about half that on Monday, and slightly more on Tuesday. You really can’t help but be down on it — the chances are slim to none. The mainstream media especially is hedging its bets against the protestors based on the dwindling numbers. Due to ongoing news coverage, I haven’t really been able to get my thoughts down completely. Here they are. Though there may not be a revolution, here…
A thousand or so Belorussian freedom fighters camped out in October Square all night without much food, tea, or things to keep them warm. Because the police wouldn’t let anyone help or join them. They survived the below-freezing temperatures and the threat of a bloodbath. These protestors swore to be there for good and they are, holding their ground all night and now all day. Having survived, what happens next is crucial. The protest on March 20 seemed to gain, in physical numbers, only about half the number of people as on election night. There were likely no more than…
In just a couple of hours, we will see if democratic opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich’s call to the people for street protests against an obviously fraudulent election will pan out. People are to meet at October Square in the middle of Minsk at 6:30 p.m. wearing smiles first and foremost. They will call for a recount and new elections. Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has condemned the election. The chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Senator Brownback (R-KS) has slammed the election as a complete “farce.” Ministers from the European Union have followed suit, and are…
After a flawed — to say the least — referendum in 2004 to allow for unlimited consecutive presidential candidacies, Dictator Alexander Lukashenko is running for the third time for president again today. People will go to the polls, voting without freedom of conscience or the knowledge that their vote is even tallied. The regime is looking to avoid the same kind of people power revolution that has brought down entire governments in Georgia, Ukraine, and Lebanon on days that were marred with the kind of phony elections that Belarus is holding at this very moment. To do this, the authorities…
Everybody knows he’s died. Yet, with the exception of the true believers, and folks pointing out Russia playing its usual domestic-politics shenanigans vis-a-vis the old “Slavic Brotherhood with Serbia” chestnut, you can almost literally feel the pause before the blogosphere explodes. Everybody’s waiting for the toxicology reports. Was the former Serbian dictator murdered? Did the War Crimes Tribunal err by allowing healthy skepticism to undermine basic healthcare? As this excellent summary by the IHT demonstrates, part of the problem is that, like most international institutions of its sort, the Tribunal doesn’t particularly feel any need to be transparent with the…
The province of Transdniester is one of the most screwed up places in Europe. Arms, drugs, and sex trafficking run rampant, and are even used to fund the government. Elections are for show. And the leaders pay their respects not to the people, but to Russia, whose military is propping up the government. It broke away from Moldova over a decade ago and established an authoritarian separatist government that, without Russia, would be completely unfeasible. Negotiations have been under way for years, especially in recent months, trying to bring the province back into Moldova while retaining some of its own…
A Serbian rebel leader convicted of crimes against humanity was found dead in his jail cell, having apparently committed suicide. It was not revealed how Milan Babib did it, just that he did. Milan Babic, the Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, committed suicide in prison, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said Monday. Babic, who was serving 13 years for crimes against humanity, was found dead Sunday evening in his cell at the U.N. detention center in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague, said a…
With a presidential “election” just over two weeks away, things are worse in Belarus than they usually are. The opposition is gearing up for the fight of its life, uniting behind a single candidate for the first time. President Lukashenko, on the other hand, is ready to kill them if he has to. Or at least beat them and fire in their general direction. The formidable br23 blog reports in more detail than Reuters ever could about the arrest and beating of one of the opposition candidates, Alexander Kazulin. The details are simply hard to imagine. Afterward, the main opposition…
(Disclaimer: I’m in a heavy-OT zone today, and do not have the time to write this up with the care that it deserves, but the issue needs to be raised, because the “common wisdom” is beginning to accrete in a dangerous direction.) Bosnia has brought up Serbia on war crimes. Yes, the entire nation. This has never been done before, and there’s a good reason for that: the Allies didn’t hang the entire population of Germany for war crimes after World War II, the entire Serbian nation didn’t somehow wake up one morning and think “let’s go murder all the…
This would be a completely irrelevant toss-off post except for its potential significance. The MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum) is raising some eyebrows with a couple pieces of news lately. It needs to, because as discussed before, the MDF is in a fight for its life when it comes to parliamentary representation. If it cannot make 5%, and that’s looking increasingly doubtful, then it’s out there with the also-rans. Which makes it significant that the MDF: 1. Has said they will neither enter into coalition with FIDESZ, nor support them with second-round votes. FIDESZ, whose proposals are increasingly self-contradictory, is no…
Putin has okayed the return of the Sarospatak Library, seized by the Nazis and then by the Russians in WWII. Of course, this raises some eyebrows over the larger repatriation issues, even if the Russian official media feel the need to demonstrate that no new repatriation precedents are being set with the move. Given this, it’s no big surprise that Hungary has agreed to pay the Russians for “storage costs” that Putin’s buds can then turn around and tout as a foreign-policy success. So, what’s going on? A couple of things, as I see it. One, Putin is getting set…
This is not a piece of news, however some may find it interesting.The Truth and Justice Alliance ????????D.A has introduced a new fiscal policy to eliminate, or at least reduce the tax evasion, corruption and eventually poverty. The rate of 16% applies to both personal and corporate income. To my knowledge Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia and Slovakia have already established a flat tax. ???????How is it that such a change appeared in a country characterized by the slow pace at which it has left communism behind? After the fall of communism, in December 1989, the Social-Democratic party inheriting…
The municipal government in Volgograd has decided to close down a local newspaper for printing a cartoon showing Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Moses watching a crowd of clashing people while saying, “We never taught them to do that…” The mayor of the city is quoted as saying that the paper was shut down in order to prevent inter-religious strife; meanwhile, the prosecutor-general is looking to file charges. Jim Hoft wonders if Russia is just being PC or crushing dissent. I’d say both. But more than anything it is being opportunist. Volgograd is in the south-west of the country, has a…
Andy Young of Siberian Light fame is now blogging over at Taking Aim, and he reports now that Russia is expecting a huge shortage of vodka. The issue is so big, in fact, that it was front page news on Komsomolskaya Pravda. Cause? An anti-counterfeiting law that came into effect on January 1 stipulating that every bottle of vodka must have an excise duty stamp on it. It sounds like the Stamp Act of 1765 that helped produce a boycott of British goods and push forward the American Revolution. A shortage of vodka would be terrible politics for Putin. Hell,…
Kill terrorists ‘like rats’ Just so you know.
Adriana Saftoiu, the spokeswoman for Cotroceni (the Presidential Palace) told Cotidianul daily that, ???????President Traian Basescu called Cristian T. Popescu, the President of the Romanian Press Club and asked him to take the necessary steps in order to stop the publication in mass-media of the respective cartoons.??????? Up to this press release there were no official communiqu????s of the Romanian Presidency, Government, or the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on this matter. The Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) declared for the Cotidianul, ???????while we do respect the freedom of expression of the mass-media, the Middle East reactions do not let us unconcerned.??????? Most…