The Democratic Piece

So this post is completely speculative at this point, but Andrew Sullivan is reports from a number of sites about rumors of a coup. He’s done a great job of following events in Burma and has been finding some great resources.

According the the sites he is linking to, there are reports that General Maung Aye, the second in command of the Burmese military, has deposed of the ruling general Than Shwe and has used the troops under his command to defend the house of Aung San Su Kyi.

Everything seems very up in the air at the moment, but earlier Andrew posted about rumors of mutinies by smaller military units and police forces around the country.

This could all be wide speculation as much of the mainstream communication links have been severed, but it would not be surprising. I actually wrote about this possibility almost a week ago. 

Let’s hope this split is actually occurring. Hope for a transition may be reborn yet.  Time to head home from work, but stay posted.

Reuters India reports the Congress Party has agreed to Maoist demands for a republic. The Congress Party is Nepal’s largest faction going into a long-postponed constituent assembly.

A meeting later today will address their second key demand: full proportional representation for constituent assembly elections.

Fruits & Votes blogged the Maoists’ showdown with the interim government earlier this week. For more TDP coverage of Nepal, click the link in the tags below.

In my last post on the upcoming MMP referendum, I highlighted some challenges the ‘yes’ side faces:

1. A threshold of 60% of votes province-wide.

2. At least 50% voting ‘yes’ in each of 60% of ridings.

3. Most voters don’t know what mixed member proportional representation is, and voters who don’t understand a ballot measure generally default to the ‘no’ position.

Canoe.ca has some numbers for us (emphasis mine):

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Pakistan’s Chief Justice made the latest move in what is becoming a test of wills between the country’s highest institutions: the Supreme Court and the Presidency/Military. The Chief Justice, who was recently reinstated following large-scale civil society unrest over his firing by Gen. Musharraf, has ordered the release of detained opposition supporters and demonstrators. 

The Dawn reports an interesting comment by Musharraf that he had “run the government in a most democratic way,” in contrast to those who had simply paid lip service to the cause. Earlier in the week, Musharraf’s lawyers had announced his intention to hold on to power in some capacity, either as president or military chief. He announced that if he was not re-elected as president, he would continue at his army post. Though in essence, this fails to address the main concern that he is standing for re-election with the full backing of his position in the armed forces, which would undermine the legitimacy of any re-election. The Supreme Court is set to rule on this matter as well.  

So another day of the crack down continues against the peaceful protesters in Burma. Reportedly, a Japanese journalist was shot while covering the events.

Andrew Sullivan linked to two great resources that post regular updates and include some photos when possible:  Mizzima News and Irrawaddy. This pretty much is the best coverage I’ve found so far, I recommend checking them out.

Other interesting Burma related posts. James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly has an interesting post about the Burma vs Myanmar debate and a response from someone in Burma.

I’ve also been meaning to post this Slate article. When I first saw these reports, one of m first questions was “how many monks are there in Burma?” Well Slate’s Explainer soothes my curiosity.

The referendum about to happen in Ontario is important - and not just because it novelly challenges the hegemony of plurality electoral rules in Anglo-America. It could be a referendum on fairness.
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Unsurprisingly, news has been slow out of Burma. The Australian Broadcasting Corp reports that one person is dead, five are injured, and over 300 have been arrested.

Andrew Sullivan has some updates also, along with some links to some background details.

UPDATE: Here is some video footage from the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Newsline (RFE/RL) reports that Belorussian police arrested two main opposition figures, Viktar Ivashkevich, deputy head of the Belarusian Popular Front, and Valery Ukhnalyou, deputy head of the Belarusian Party of Communists yesterday. The two were arrested after leaving a birthday party of a friend. Ukhnalyou was released the following day and Ivashkevich remains in custody. The two men were part of a group planning the “European March for Freedom“on October 14th.

On a related note RFE/RL also reports that a leader of the Youth Front may have his 18-month sentence for leading an “unregistered organization” extended for his failure to testify against the Youth Front. He could face up to three additional years.

The media is reporting that the crackdown against the growing monk-lead protests in Burma has begun. Protests on Monday reportedly numbered between 50,000 and 100,000. After yesterday’s demonstrations the government publicly announced that action would be taken against senior monks if the protests were not haulted.

Today over 10,000 monks and civilians marched towards the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest Buddhist site in the city and assembly point for recent demonstrations. The group was met by military trucks and soldiers.

Security forces also fired tear gas at columns of monks trying to push their way past barricades sealing off the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar’s holiest shrine and the starting point of the mass marches against decades of military rule.

At least two witnesses saw the bloodied body of a monk being carried away after security forces stopped a procession. It was not clear what his condition was.

According to the article, the government began to round up opposition leaders prior to today’s march and the government has reportedly moved Aung San Su Kyi from her house arrest back to prison.

An important note at the end of this article:

China — the closest the generals have to a friend — has remained silent apart from calling for national reconciliation and a “democracy process that is appropriate for the country” at an Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney earlier this month.

China is also responsible for this situation. Their economic agreements with the junta of Burma have undercut international sanctions imposed on the regime. The international community has been somewhat successful in linking issues important for China (ie - Olympics) to pressure China on other fronts. This should continue here. Short of a military invasion, China really is the only country that has much leverage on the junta.

Looking to get involved? Check out the US Campaign for Burma.

Lost in the hype surrounding Ahmadinejad’s visit is the fundamental question: how much does he matter? Democracy Arsenal has the video of Lee Bollinger’s opening remarks and I found it interesting that among the Columbia University President’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad, were Ahmadinejad’s policies and, more specifically, his policies towards women. I’m not trying to defend the guy, but it was Ahmadinejad who was responsible for the law permitting women to attend soccer matches about a year ago and the religious establishment that compelled him to rescind it. So, while Bollinger’s speech sounded nice, we should be careful not to render Ahmadinejad a straw-man. He is absolutely not singularly responsible for the path that Iran has taken.

Then, the real question is: Who Rules Ahmadinejad’s Iran? This is a link to an article that I co-authored with some of my U.S. Institute of Peace colleagues earlier this year. The article summarizes the contents of a meeting of the Institute’s Iran Policy Forum, which brings together most of the top Iran analysts in D.C. and the world. Here’s a teaser:

“… Public opinion also has significant influence on the character of Iran’s decision-making. The results of recent elections furnish evidence of this influence: they have produced presidents as divergent in character and political platform as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohammad Khatami. International pressure and world opinion, particularly public opinion in the Islamic world, affect Iran’s foreign policies as well. Iranian support to groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas stems in part from the support that those groups enjoy in the Muslim world. In turn, Iran’s leaders perceive that support for these groups contributes to the nation’s regional standing; recent popular opinion polls conducted in the Arab world indicated that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and Ahmadinejad are currently the two most popular leaders in that region.

“That said, the power of republican institutions and popular opinion in the Iranian political order is severely checked by non-elected actors and organizations…”

So check out the article by heading to the link above.

No homosexuals in Iran… how about Transsexuals?

Even if there are no homosexuals in Iran, as Ahmadinejad claimed at Columbia, there certainly are transsexuals. Al-Arabiya, of all the news outlets in the world, did a pretty insane report that MEMRI translated and is posted on You Tube. Although MEMRI is not always so accurate, I watched this for an Arabic class and the translation is fine.