Blogging the democratic revolution
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…
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty was able to have an exclusive interview with Kyrgyzstan’s interim president Kurmanbek Bakiev, in which he talks about constitutional reform, separation of powers, and the free media. Bishkek, 27 April 2005 (RFE/RL) — Interim President Kurmanbek Bakiev said today in an exclusive interview with RFE/RL that he supports constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan, but added that he believes the branches of power need more authority if such reforms are to be implemented. “The power of the president elected nationwide has to be greater, because he is elected by the entire Kyrgyzstan nation,” Bakiev said. “At…
…that he can trust his military anymore? Not very. He’s got more things to worry about from his army than he can list. My own analysis of the galaxy of factors is here.
… among the Chavistas and the white coats are calling. Just another sunny day in Caracas. Read it here and here.
I spent the day on the phone, talking to people in Chile. Somehow, Chile’s famous world-class social security system always got brought up, and on every occasion, Chileans, no matter who they were, expressed a vibrant enthusiasm for the program. I can’t describe how intense it was – and it was utterly real. As the U.S. debates adopting the wonderful Chilean system – which, by the way, has a lot to do with why Chilean stocks are so hot in the market – Miguel Octavio asks the penetrating question of: Why isn’t the rest of Latin America looking at Chile’s…
Israel’s long-planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is almost ready to go ahead, and it is becoming clearer what will take the place of Israeli administration there – a coalition government between the Palestinian Authority (run by the secular Fatah Party) and the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. The debate over the Gaza pullout has just about pulled Israel apart. Those who favor the pullout argue as follows: Since everyone knows that Israel will eventually have to leave Gaza, and since it is such a financial burden to maintain the few settlements there, it is better to leave now, even in…
Hat tip to Stefania for letting me know about this. Tell me everyone, how often do you see this happen? DAMASCUS: Chanting “freedom, freedom,” about 200 Syrians protested on Sunday outside a Damascus state security court where a prominent human rights campaigner accused of opposing the state was on trial. The area was sealed off by about 50 riot police as demonstrators, including many Kurds, carried posters of the defendants and banners denouncing the emergency law in force in Syria since the Baath Party took power in 1963. Among three activists on trial Sunday was prominent campaigner Aktham Naisse, who…
Constitutionally, the Lebanese electoral law must be passed a month before the elections are to take place. Which means they have have three days left– April 29th. New and short-living Premier Mikati wants to hold the election over a period of three days. Parliament on Tuesday opened a nationally televised debate of a policy statement by Premier Mikati’s newly formed government, which is seeking a vote of confidence on a basis that the elections would be held in three stages on May 26, 29 and 31. The prime minister has made it plain that he was unshakably determined to hold…
It’s a little opportunist, but the Belarussian opposition has to take advantage when it can! They took the anniversary of Chernobyl and turned it into a rally against Lukashenko. MINSK, April 26 (Reuters) – Police in ex-Soviet Belarus on Tuesday detained more than two dozen protesters who tried to present a petition to President Alexander Lukashenko on the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Belarus’s small opposition, which accuses Lukashenko of systematically violating human rights, traditionally stages its largest protest of the year on the anniversary of the accident which contaminated a quarter of the country’s territory. But given…
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…
Alek Boyd has a disturbing e-mail message from someone inside Venezuela’s phone system, reporting the growing signs of a potential Internet blackout in beleaguered Venezuela. If so, this would be the first steps toward making the Internet as accessible to Venezuelans as it is to Cubans. And that’s not a step upward. Read it here.
This editorial suggests that Ecuador’s problems – like its absence of institutions, combined with the availability of technology, and the reluctance of militaries to shoot – could mean other countries may topple too. Ecuador’s action is like the flailing around of the tail of a thrashing snake. It could strike other countries. Read it here. UPDATE: Agencia EFE reports it has started in Peru: Protestors have blocked off Macchu Picchu, a top tourist income source in Peru.
The United Nations flew into Beirut Sunday night to make sure that they’re “really gone.” Let’s see how well they can do that. But UN jabs aside, this is actually really good news, with some corrupt pro-Syria Lebanese security heads resigning as well. SYRIAN troops complete their withdrawal from Lebanon today, ending almost 30 years of occupation and paving the way for the country????????s first free and fair elections in a generation. Positions were bulldozed and checkpoints dismantled as the last tanks and artillery guns were removed for the short trip home. Lorries filled with troops and equipment belched black…
One of the most hilarious and scary headlines of the day has been that Putin mourned the downfall of the USSR in his “State of the Nation” address. In his annual state of the nation address to parliament and the country’s top political leaders, Putin said the Soviet collapse was “a genuine tragedy” for Russians. “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” Putin said. “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves…
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…
Dedicated readers of Publius Pundit will have noticed that when I contribute to this blog, I attach a link at the bottom of the post to my blog, Window on the Arab World, and More! Up until today my blog was hosted by Blogger, a free blogging service which is wonderful for what you pay for it, but which otherwise has a variety of problems and limitations. I have today completed my design at my new Movable Type formatted blog, and will therefore be posting more regularly after two weeks of light blogging. That also means more posting here at…
I have been wondering this question for a really long time now, as the main Pora! site I visited hasn’t been updated in quite a while. There has been news of the new student youth movement in Russia called Red Pora!, but that news is sparce. Thankfully, we have orange revolutionary Dan McMinn. He has a great post up outlining the history of the youth movement and where Pora! is going. The Basic Ultra-Abridged Description of Pora Pora sprung up in fall of 2004 as a primarily youth protest organization focused on the election of 2004. During the Orange Revolution,…
Regime Change Iran’s week in review is up. Email alerts are your friend. A very important item, I think, is the news of a petition signed by 2.8 million Iraqi Shiites against Islamic Iran’s intervention.
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,…
None other than blogger Alek Boyd – who’s been featured in a Sunday front page feature in El Universal, the top newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela for his awesome blogging exposing the corrupt political networks of the Hugo Chavez political machine in the U.S., something for which the U.S. owes him a debt of gratitude. Who says blogging doesn’t lead to revolution? Check it out here, here and here. UPDATE: Free Republic has an excellent English translation of the interview. Be sure to read it to see the depth of Alek’s grasp of the current issues surrounding the Venezuelan government’s propaganda…
You didn’t hear about it. I didn’t hear about it. Almost all contact with the outside world has been cut off for a week due to widespread protesting. Belize, the only English-speaking country in Central America, disappeared off the map for the past week and almost no one noticed. Since April 15 the tiny country the size of Wales has been without telephone links as a result of strikes and protests. Only a few internet cafes with satellite connections provide a tenuous link to the outside world. The prime minister, Said Musa, said technicians at the main telephone company had…
I just came across this article in Mosnews saying that $5 million has been set aside in the soon-to-be approved emergency war spending bill for democracy programs in Belarus. The U.S. Senate has approved an extra $81 billion war budget that includes $5 million for programs aimed to support democracy in Belarus, RIA Novosti reports. The programs will be under the control of the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The Bureau announced earlier this month that $2 million would be spent on ???????consolidation of democratic parties??????? in Belarus. I started looking around the bill for it,…
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…
Communist regimes don’t just white out the images of newly designated enemies of the state. Given the attention these photoshoppings get, and their capacity for changing history (as the phony Dan Rather memos did in the U.S. elections), the Chavez regime of Venezuela seems to be beginning a new tactic of simply and systemically ignoring names of enemies, designated enemies and potential enemies in photo captions. There’s a very good analysis of this new trend here.
If there is going to be a revolution in Venezuela, it’s going to involve the military. There are increasing signs of distrust between Chavez and his military. American Thinker Web site is down, so I posted my own analysis of the growing signs temporarily here.