 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Welcome to Stand Down!Read this firstBlog rollZNet Anti War Campus Anti War LinksAngry Arab Juan Cole |
EventsPropping up 'our' dictator.
By Hidari, Section Events
According to the Washington Post: 'With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Bush administration is now depending on two politicians -- one accused in the 1990s of being a crook and the other still viewed as almost powerless -- to help prop up President Pervez Musharraf and stabilize volatile Pakistan, according to U.S. officials, regional experts and Pakistanis....Asif Ali Zardari, who has assumed the regency of his wife's Pakistan People's Party, is nicknamed "Mr. 10 Percent" for alleged corruption by profiting off government contracts when Bhutto was prime minister in the 1990s, charges for which he spent 11 years in prison. He will remain caretaker of Pakistan's largest opposition movement until their 19-year-old son finishes studies at Oxford and is ready to assume party control -- potentially many years away.
"He represents the old, entrenched faction of the PPP that resisted modernization of politics and sees parties as an extension of family politics, which is connected to the aura of corruption around him," said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the party during Bhutto's eight-year exile, is the party candidate to become prime minister if the PPP wins the largest vote in the Feb. 18 elections and forms a coalition government. First elected to parliament in 1970, he lacks both charisma and clout, according to U.S. officials and Pakistani experts.'
The key purpose of all this is as it has always been: to deny democracy to Pakistan. (984 words in story) Full Story Pakistan
By Hidari, Section Events
Here's a story seemingly unrelated to Pakistan. The headline says it all:
'The press is heavily controlled and its elections are little more than a facade, but Tunisia continues to be held up by the west as a model Arab state.' (The article continues): 'Like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali has benefited from his role as a staunch ally in the US "war on terror", giving him apparent immunity from pressure to open up a stagnant system. The Tunisian was the first Arab leader to visit Washington after President Bush's "forward strategy of freedom" speech in the wake of the Iraq war, but he flew home to business as usual. Europe's record in promoting democracy in Tunisia has been no better. Trade relations with France and Germany have overridden all other considerations. Jacques Chirac famously lauded its human rights record as "very advanced" because "the most important human rights are the rights to be fed, to have health, to be educated and to be housed."' And it ends: 'Prospects for significant political reform in Tunisia, as in Egypt, look bleak.' This article is highly unusual, especially in the New Labour leaning Guardian, in that it draws comparisons between the West's turning a blind eye to dictatorship in Tunisia, as well as turning a blind eye to dictatorship in Egypt. (In completely unrelated news to the continued news of repression in Egypt: 'FAYYUM, Egypt, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 140 Egyptian and American paratroopers on Thursday carried out a joint airborne operation in Fayyum, a governorate south to Cairo as part of a multinational joint training exercise dubbed Bright Star 2007.' And so forth.) This is important as it breaks something of a taboo in the Western media, that, generally speaking, the West promotes democracy. (1325 words in story) Full Story |
Events |
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 2004 The Management