Blogging the democratic revolution
After the opposition called for protests against the government over the fradulent May elections, and people began taking to the streets of Addis Ababa on Tuesday, the unrest has spread beyond the cities with thousands of people demonstrating against the government. Could this be the start of a revolution, or will this one be silenced just as those before it? Addis Ababa – Thousands of students took to the streets in several Ethiopian cities Friday as unrest to protest a government crackdown on the opposition spread beyond the capital. Four people were killed and 11 injured, state television reported. Prime…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has hurled a major strike at the free press. Patricia Poleo, the fearless journalist who exposed government shenanigans over a mysterious car-bombing last year of a prosecutor, has been arrested — and along with a military man, a banker and a Cuban exile, charged with the murder herself. The background to her story is here, here, here, and here. Poleo is a dissident, and has even organized protests against Chavez, like this one we blogged here, but she has never engaged in or advocated violence against the Chavez regime. Her only obsession seems to have been…
It’s time for the Summit of the Americas again, and that means leftists from all over will be flocking to Argentina to protest… well, they don’t really know what, they just know that oil-stealing Bush guy from Texas will be there. And they’ll be in great company, with the likes of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Cindy Sheheen. I can already imagine them all sitting together and enjoying tea and crumpets. George Bush left his problems at home yesterday only to find himself flying into a whole new world of hurt at the Summit of Americas in Argentina, where tens…
Hardcore leftwing ‘activists’ aligned with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Cuban despot Fidel Castro and Bolivian coca-growing champion Evo Morales have served legal papers charging genocide to Bolivia’s finest former president, the elderly Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a superb democratic revolutionary leader who in the early 1990s slew South America’s highest-ever inflation rate, began Bolivia’s natural gas expansion and set his country on the road to first-world prosperity – until he was detestably ousted from power by communistic road-blockers acting as a gang of thugs. He was the first Bolivian I had ever met. I talked with him and wrote about…
A lot has happened in Bolivia since last week. For one thing, elections were declared Dec. 18. That’s probably the most gripping story in the Bolivian blogosphere, and for obvious reasons – democracy has been put back on its rails – or well, apparently, the perspectives are different. Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has his first rate roundup of all the news reported around on Bolivian events at Global Voices. Read the whole thing here.
Luis Ramirez at Voice of America, the best correspondent in East Asia, as we and even Amnesty International have noted before, has come up with some kickass reporting on …. North Korea’s rich elite and the continuing famine in North Korea. It is fearless journalism, and like none other you have read. Even people who look down on VOA have admitted to being stunned by the first-rate quality of this reporting. The award-winning Voice of America bureau chief in Beijing went to Pyongyang and has since come out no-I-wasn’t-fooled journalism on this dark, closed, monstrous totalitarian dictatorship, the very worst…
Awhile back I was disagreeing with someone I respect on the nature of France and its need for democratic revolution, same as the rest of the unfree world. Today, I feel sad but sort of vindicated. The eighth day of rioting in France can’t be called a democratic revolution, but it’s the end result of what happens when you don’t get one. The persistent joblessness, the inability to assimilate immigrants, the government control of every aspect of life and above all the lack of freedom are exactly what’s behind this spreading explosion. Yes, France needs to expand its democracy. Badly.…
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 White House to issue a similar statement of support for Umarov and condemnation of the Karimov government. WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) – The United States issued a sharp rebuke to the Uzbek government on Wednesday over the arrest of opposition leader Sanjar Umarov and…
I’m still sick, everyone. I will see if I can do some blogging today, but at the moment the doctor has me pumped up on anti-biotics. They don’t seem to know what it is (after a week!) so they’ve run some blood tests and will hopefully know soon. Until then, it’s back to bed with me…
I have now posted my Middle East Week in Review news bulletin, albeit two days late. In re to democracy issues, make a point to check out the link to the new national intelligence strategy, which focuses on this point.
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 parliamentary elections has been delayed because of fraud complaints. A spokesman for the joint UN-Afghan election commission says about 500 complaints that are still being investigated could affect the outcome of some races. The allegations of fraud include the intimidation of voters, the stuffing of…
Try as he did, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez still hasn’t made America’s coveted ‘Axis Of Evil’ list of nations. But it’s not all a vale of tears for him, he did get Venezuela promoted to ‘Rogue State,’ right up there alongside Syria, quietly raising the likelihood of military conflict with the U.S. No fireworks, no glory, no presidential speeches denouncing him as ‘evil.’ But it is certainly an accomplishment, a badge of honor, a gang tattoo, in Chavez’s circle of friends. Chavez will have quite a bit to talk about at the next UN cocktail party before this new status…
Here in the states, we all had a good laugh when Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez denounced Halloween as part of ‘the U.S. culture of terror.’ He also said that Halloween costumes were terrible efforts to scare people as well as alien to the Venezuelan culture. By the sound of it, you could almost imagine that he actually believed that Halloween’s playful merrymaking with ghosts and goblins was actually real to him. To U.S.-Americans, Chavez sort of sounded like a stereotypical backwoods Christian fundamentalist preacher. I grew up with such people and remember hearing the exact same exhortions against the ‘celebration…
With the ruling party once again stealing the elections back in May and putting down an impending uprising, the people of Ethiopia aren’t ready to give up that quickly. The opposition has called for a boycott of companies and products controlled by the government. It has also called for popular protests. Of course, the government won’t be having any of that, and has continued its campaign of harassment, detention, and even murder of opposition supporters. ADDIS ABABA, 1 November (IRIN) – Ethiopia’s largest opposition party on Monday called for a consumer boycott of products controlled and sold by the ruling…
The United Nations Security Council, at the behest of the United Station, France, and Britain, adopted a resolution by unanimous consent against Syria in order to compel the rogue government to cooperate with the Mehlis investigation and turn over an officials involved. The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution demanding Syria’s full cooperation with a United Nations investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The measure threatens “further action” against Syria in the event of noncompliance, which is weaker than initial language warning of sanctions. But sponsors of the measure say it shows Syria’s…
ForeignPolicy.com has a good and relevant article up about China’s crackdown on civil society following the colored revolutioned in Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the past few years. Georgia and Ukraine were bad enough, but when Kyrgyzstan — also a part of China’s growing sphere of influence — also joined suit, the Chinese government has become wary of a repeat scenario either nationwide or in renegade provinces. The article gives some background, and then talks about how mediums of communication and NGOs have become caught in the crosshairs more than usual of late. The recent democratic revolutions in Georgia,…
Miguel Buitrago has done a very valuable translation of an interview with Felipe Quispe, a Bolivian romantic indigenous leader running for president whose views are even more extremist than those of Evo Morales. It’s positively surreal but an absolute must-read for perspective on what an out-of-it space case this guy is in this election year. He discusses the coming bloodshed he sees as inevitable, his study of Machiavelli, his burning desire for power, his priority of employing all the unemployed intellectuals and his inability to compromise politically on anything. Quispe reminds of Grenada’s Eric Gairy. Read the whole thing here.
Aleksander Boyd has posted a long and extensive report on the state of democracy in Venezuela from its leading democracy advocate, Sumate. The report shows in precise terms the parlous state of Venezuelan democracy and the news is not good. But it is a very important and historic report and Alek read all of it and urges the rest of it to do the same. He writes: Sumate has produced the most comprehensive report about the state of democracy in Venezuela. I highly recommend to read through and analyse the facts presented. By far the best resource for information on…
El Universal has its weekly Venezuelan land-expropriations roundup, illustrating how the increasingly Marxist government is taking ever greater numbers of rights from the people. The disturbing string of ongoing confiscations is here.
Argentina is rapidly hurtling toward the front of the news with the upcoming Summit of the Americas and President Bush’s visit to the beautiful but sinking-economically-to-the-bottom country. All this will be front page by the end of the week. David Sasaki at Global Voices has an excellent blog roundup on all that’s being written in the blogosphere on events in Argentina. It’s a good baseline for news you can’t get anywhere else. Read it here.
Following the approval of the new Iraqi constitution despite opposition by the majority of Sunnis, Sunni Iraqi leaders are getting serious about the political process and their own stakes in the new Iraq. This past week a new Sunni coalition party was formed from three parties – the Iraqi People’s Conference, the Iraqi Islamic Party, and the National Dialogue Council. According to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Bawaba, which emphasized not once, but twice, that these were the Sunnis who benefited from Saddam Hussein’s rule, the new party would be called “The Iraqi Consensus Party.” It program is to encourage Sunnis to…
Zanzibar held presidential and parliamentary elections over the weekend. As with many elections in Africa that we have covered here at Publius the aftermath has been a violent one with protestors clashing with state police forces. The opposition is claiming victory although, as is suspected, fraud is likely to be committed on a wide scale. Results are starting to trickle in from semi-autonomous Zanzibar’s elections on Sunday. The islands’ main opposition group is alleging that serious irregularities have taken place, while the ruling party dismissed those allegations. As the vote-counting was under way, the two key contenders in the elections,…
Speaking at the “World Without Zionism” conference, the president of Iran said that he wanted Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Here is a picture of him at the conference: But that’s not the whole thing. Gary Metz over at Regime Change Iran has the exclusive picture that the media isn’t showing you. That’s the United States broken at the bottom of the glass, just before Israel falls down as well. Make sure to read the rest of Gary’s post, as he outlines the Islamic Republic’s war plans from its own mouth.
It is true that the investigation just about completed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald is not related to the Iraq war, but the incident giving rise to the investigation does relate to one of the reasons why the liberation of that country was necessary. For background you probably aren’t getting from the MSM, see my post, Background to the Plame Investigation: Iraq was Seeking Uranium from Niger for its Nuclear Ambitions. In the unlikely case that you missed the details of the investigation and the indictment of Scooter Libby and need to catch up, check out my post Mr.…
Felipe Calderon’s entry into the Mexican presidential race for 2006 creates a whole new dynamic in the election. It’s something I’ve believed since the beginning. Calderon is from the right-leaning PAN party, same as incumbent President Vicente Fox, but he comes across as a different player because he wasn’t Fox’s choice as successor. Fox himself is viewed as a disappointment by many Mexicans for his failure to really reform the country. He’s not an utter disaster but there’s nothing worse than soured hopes from a man who was brought to office as Mexico’s first opposition candidate in over 70 years…