Blogging the democratic revolution
A plastic-explosives bomb went off in downtown La Paz, Bolivia, today, killing two people at a hotel. An American and a supposedly Uruguayan woman were arrested. Police say they have confessed to doing it. The event is strange in itself. Miguel B. at MABB noted (well, until he changed his post!) that this hasn’t happened on a regular basis since the military regime in the 1970s. I recall one car bomb in front of Petrobras headquarters in Santa Cruz in the past year but that is all. There’s a whole lot of chaos in Bolivia, but it’s not the kind…
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…
Martha Beatriz Roque is a former political prisoner in Cuba and is the leader of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, that gathers several hundreds of pro-regime change Cuban opposition movements inside the island. Since a couple of months, she is literally held as a prisoner in her own house. Daily acts of harassment plainclothes elements of the state security now turn into physical aggression. Some day ago, while she was going back home, a fascist woman of the state security and the rapid response brigades,started insulting and threatening her with beatings and even death. Plus, she and some other…
Glenn at Instapundit has gotten some amazing information about France that you don’t see in the mainstream media, along with a couple incredible pictures. There’s a vast youth counterprotest full of beautiful young people who are standing up against the bandana-swathed firebomb-hurling losers who would burn the city down, all for the right to not have to work hard in their early years of employment. That’s right, sensible heads have prevailed, the protest babes are out, and the revolutionary spirit of Frederic Bastiat is resurrected. That means thousands of industrious French young people have taken to the streets to SUPPORT…
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…
Venezuela’s Viaducto 1, a key bridge on the only highway route that links the vast city of Caracas to its international airport on the northern coast has collapsed down a deep Andean ravine with a huge crash. Holding my breath, it was this bridge I rode out of Caracas across on my last day there in late December. A thin access road in the valley has since been constructed but I do not know its fate since its nominal opening in late February. Miguel Octavio has spectacular photos and along with Daniel Duquenal, analyses of what this actually means for…
Via RealClearPolitics, I read a fascinating essay by Ruben Navarrette on the strategy of protests, which, in one case he says are hurting their own cause. His lede says it all: It used to be that protesters took to the streets to build public support for their cause. Now they do it to show their strength. Instead of moving you to join them, now they want you to know that they won’t be moved. Navarrette is talking about special-interest immigration protests that have appeared around the U.S., but his question has got a lot of relevance to demonstrations throughout the…
Today, March 18, 2006, marks the third anniversary of the “Black Spring”, o Primavera Negra, when some 75 peaceful Cubans were detained by the state security and later sentenced up to 30 years in Castro’s jails for the only crime of speaking out their mind and saying openly that they want free elections and democracy in Cuba. Source: Associated Press . During these three years, much has changed, including – for the worst – a change in the European attitude toward Cuba. The unexpected election ( by Al Qaeda’s help) of Spanish PM Zapatero has been without any doubt very…
DOWN is a good way to put it for today’s world festival of anti-Iraq democracy protests. Because as GatewayPundit has noticed, attendence is down at every single one of these. He’s got a liveblogging roundup of these “antiwar” (who the hell isn’t antiwar?) protests around the world, city by city, showing that this ‘movement’ doesn’t quite have the move it used to. Not many people want to go to these stupid irrational things anymore, not after “peace mom” Cindy Sheehan kissed Iran ally Hugo Chavez on the lips. And even more because given the growing victory of democracy and democratic…
Tchahar-Shanbe Soori (Fire Fiest) has been celebrated by millions of Iranians, who defied the regime’s official ban on this “pagan” pre-islamic ritual, symbol of ancient Iranian heritage, and took to the street to celebrate and protest against the regime in its totality. Thousands of potraits of the regime’s leaders were set on fire and the females bravely took out their mandatory veils and set them on fire, too. Reports speak of copies of Koran and the Islamic Republic’s illegitimate constitution also burned. To see the photos, go here and here.
You’d never know this from reading most of the mainstream media, but today in Ecuador, and I don’t mean in just coastal rightwing Guayaquil, but in the heart of the country, in central Quito, the capitol, tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans marched IN FAVOR OF free trade with the U.S. Source: Associated Press That’s right, while much of the mainstream media covered extensively the anti-free trade protests of a few indigenous special interest groups earlier in the week, which are now fizzling due to lack of public support, the real rally was building, the one the vast majority of Ecuador’s…
Here is the press release of a project that I’ve been working on with a bunch of great guys at the Hamsa Project and Harvard University. It’s a concert that we’re hoping will draw a few hundred people, featuring local bands, that we’re also hoping will highlight human rights abuses in Iran. Please check it out if you can, and maybe I’ll see you there if I can get back from Honduras in time! ***** CAMBRIDGE ???????? On Saturday, March 18, Harvard University will host the Iran Freedom Concert, a rally organized by Harvard students to support their counterparts in…
Not since 1968 has France seen so many educational institutions occupied and on strike. Thousands of students and young people have brought Paris to a standstill. Source: Thibautcho They are protesting a new labor law that would permit probationary employment for the first two years of employment for all new workers. That would affect them most of all. France’s young people grow up without the big dreams their American counterparts. But at the same time, they have their consolation. That compensation is that if they can land a job, no matter what kind of job, and no matter what kind…
To give you an idea of just what Chile, a country governed by democratic socialists, thinks of Venezuela’s banana-leftist Hugo Chavez, just click on the link here and get an eyeful. The short story is he cut the pendejo dead. The elderly gentleman featured in the mini-film is President Ricardo Lagos, the honorable outgoing president of Chile, who’s since been succeeded by Michelle Bachelet, the fine new leader of Chile who’s already made her sentiments about the Venezuelan dictator very well known indeed. And for a bit of fun, here’s a shot of President Lagos bidding farewell to Cristina Kirchner,…
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…
An independent board representing Peru’s National Human Rights Coordinator has substantiated claims that Ollanta Humala, the far-left nut who’s a frontrunner in Peru’s April 9 presidential race, did torture peasants in the mountains as an army officer in the 1990s. Peru’s peasants have been making this claim for months and Humala has denied it. Now, his denials show that not only is he a brutal leftist thug, he’s also a liar. The story is here.
It may be the final hours for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, who has been the target of the biggest protests in Bangkok since 1992. Thaksin is the billionaire prime minister of the country who had amassed huge power and a large mandate, but who disappointed his people by his continuous involvement in his business dealings. The Nation reports that the end is near in its continuous and excellent liveblogging of the event from Bangkok. The link is here. UPDATE: This Newsweek essay, by an investment banker, is very good, here.
Miguel Octavio has a short item on the busy, busy, busy Gonzalez family, all 1,921 of whom were born on the same day 32 years ago in Maracaibo, all 1,921 of whom registered to vote on the same day, and most all 1,921 of whom registered at the same center. My, my, my how long that line was! Check out Miguel’s heartwarming birthday wishes to the busy, busy Gonzalezes here. It’s since been picked up by The San Jose Mercury News and The Miami Herald, via Knight-Ridder. Knight-Ridder reports: Venezuela’s records suggest vote fraud MARACAIBO, Venezuela – It was the…
All four of these journalists pictured in this 2002 photo — Marianella Salazar, Ib????yise Pacheco, Marta Colomina and Patricia Poleo — are now facing trouble from the Chavista regime. Pacheco is in jail, Salazar is headed there, Colomina was subject to a murder attempt and Poleo was charged with murder and apparently sent into hiding. Source: BBC The Venezuelan press is under attack as never before. Contrary to Chavista claims that there is no campaign against the press, today Ibeyise Pacheco, a columnist for El Nacional, a newspaper MY OWN words have appeared in, was ordered imprisoned for slander by…
Belarus goes to the polls on March 19 to elect a president. All indication shows that the incumbent, Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, will win reelection by way of genuine popularity and repression against the population. Lukashenko was first elected in 1994 on a vague populist platform which gave him 80 percent of the vote in a fair election. Beginning in 1996, he used a combination of legislative moves and repression to solidify his power. NGOs, human rights organizations, oppostition parties and civil society groups are all under a stiff arm of real or threatened repression. Belarus is now considered by many…
A Hamas spokesman in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) told AFP, the French news agency, that Hamas rejects the two-state Road Map. Assad Farhat said Hamas considers the Road Map an “American Zionist program”, in response to a Russian Foreign Minister’s statement that Hamas has not turned down the Road Map. Farhat said Hamas would only be willing to negotiate with Israel under the these conditions: – “When Israel announces that it will retreat from the conquered territories of 1967 – releases the Palestinian ÄterroristÅ prisoners – stops its aggression against the Palestinian nation – announces its willingness to solve…
A golf outing gone bad among a bunch of cronies has toppled South Korea’s strongest prime minister in its democratic history. No time to post but it’s an important story about the growing public intolerance of offiicial corruption as democracy emerges in this admirable country. I feel there are echoes of this same phenomenon in Thailand, in Philippines, in Hong Kong, and I am going to go out on a limb here, perhaps soon in Singapore. In the late 1990s, the middle class rage was confined to big messy third-worldy hulks of states like Indonesia. Now, the prim, orderly Asian…
Daniel Duquenal has a fascinating post on Colombia’s new free trade pact with the U.S., and explains why it is causing so much distress among the Chavistas next door in Caracas. Their rage has a basis. It turns out Colombia is eating Venezuela’s lunch already in the economic arena and the free trade pact with the gringos will only raise their appetite. Here’s what’s going on: Chavez has driven most of Venezuela’s industries out of business, declaring them a class enemy. That in turn has provided a massive market opening for Colombian manufacturers who have taken over what had been…