George Bush has a way of surprising dictators. He gets in their faces when they least expect it. He’s bold. He says what he means and means what he says. Nice to see a real man.

Today he symbolically snapped a great wet towel in the face of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Bush openly met with Venezuelan dissidents, like Babe Of Politics, Maria Corina Machado, giving the NGO leaders from Sumate the full White House tour and VIP treatment, making sure there were lots of cameras around to see the intention. Bush doesn’t do nuance. He likes people who like him back. Like Venezuela’s brave democrats.

This comes as Hugo Chavez is retreating from his bluff about cutting off relations with his U.S. over the Posada Carriles extradition demand and now declaring that he wants good relations with the U.S.

Bush has an answer for him. By meeting Marina Corina Machado, the Venezuelan dissident accused of treason for legally organizing the recall referendum on Chavez last year, Bush warned Chavez that DEEDS, NOT WORDS are the criteria for better relations with the U.S. If he wants good relations with Bush and the states, if his ministers want their Miami shopping trip visas, they damn well better not be abusing dissidents. That’s the word. That’s the laid down law. And Bush means it.

Chavez can put that in his Cuban cigar and smoke it.

See the front page photos of Bush and the Babe here and here. Check out the comments from the Venezuelan ’street’ while you’re at it on that latter item. And Daniel’s got a deliciously rousing analysis of the whole thing here.

It’s called revolution.

Exactly two months ago, this “outpost of tyranny” was holding parliamentary elections that were inexplicably fraudulent. Many foreign journalists were inside the country, so Mugabe made sure that food was given out and gasoline made available — at least in his supporters’ strongholds. Even once he stole the election and secured enough seats to change the constitution at whim, he made conciliatory grunts to the opposition.

No more.

The cloak of illusion soon came off as these basic commodities have become memories of the distant past. Inflation and unemployment has skyrocketed, making it impossible to save or even to live. This, however, is now the least of the problems facing the people of Zimbabwe. Despite the lies that Mugabe tells about a united country, he is now using his constitutional coup to destroy the homes and businesses of every single person who voted against him. It is called “Operation: Clean-up,” a bid to get rid of crime and the black market by explicitly “getting rid of” the people themselves.

Harare - Police in Zimbabwe continued demolishing thousands of shacks and vendors’ kiosks in opposition strongholds on Monday, burning a 10km-long line of curio stalls along the road near Victoria Falls. A spokesperson for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) called the crackdown a “tyranny” and urged people to resist. Lawyers for the party sought a court order on Monday that banned police from demolishing shacks and kiosks, and demanding compensation for the owners of buildings already destroyed in what the government calls a campaign to clean up the cities. Thousands of street traders have been arrested and their wares seized or destroyed since the May 19 start of the crackdown, which the government has described as an urban renewal campaign. Police using torches, sledgehammers and bulldozers have also burned and demolished the homes of the urban poor in informal settlements around the country. “A government that destroys the property of people who are trying to make an honest living is evil,” MDC spokesperson Paul Themba-Nyathi said on Monday after a session of the main opposition party’s national council. “We call on all Zimbabweans to mobilise against this assault on their dignity, livelihoods and well-being,” said Themba-Nyathi, defying tough new security laws that provide a 20-year prison term for anyone trying to “coerce” President Robert Mugabe’s government. “We shall overcome this tyranny,” he said.

Over the weekend, residents in some informal settlements put boulders across a maze of side roads in a futile attempt to keep police and security forces out. However, there were no reports of rioting in any of the townships where police demolished and burned shacks. In the resort town of Victoria Falls, police burned a 10km-long line of curio stalls and claimed to have confiscated a large amount of stolen or illegally imported goods. In the eastern city of Mutare, police said they arrested an American, identified as Howard Smith Gilman, under media laws for allegedly covering the destruction of 9 000 illegal structures there. Zimbabwe’s media laws make it illegal to operate without a licence. MDC legislator Trudi Stevenson said in the preceding 24 hours, police had “at gunpoint” forced 2 000 more people in Hatcliffe township in northern Harare to destroy their houses and leave. On Friday and Saturday, 7 000 were evicted, although they had lease agreements issued by Mugabe’s government. “The people are homeless and sleeping in the open,” she said. Many were trying to salvage building materials in the hope they would be allocated other plots. Harare’s government-appointed mayor Sekesai Makwavarara last week gave dwellers in the city’s myriad backyard shacks until July to vacate, citing health grounds. About half the city’s poor live in such shacks. The government has not explained why it began demolitions before the July deadline.

Mugabe definitely isn’t losing any sleep over this because, while the residents tried to fight back, they simply can’t match machine guns. It is no coincidence that this clean up occurs in every area that is an opposition MDC stronghold. At the end of all this, he may literally have no competition left.

But wait, there’s more. As I said earlier, Mugabe’s “victory” two months ago gave him over the 2/3 necessary in the parliament to amend the constitution at will. Those changes are finally coming. Now that his oppositions’ land and livelihood is being destroyed, he will prevent them from ever returning by amending the constitution to eradicate the private ownership of land.

Harare - Zimbabwe will amend its constitution to allow the state to seize land and claim full ownership without having to deal with court challenges, the lands minister said on Tuesday.

Didymus Mutasa told AFP that the proposed amendment would allow the state to immediately become the owner of farmland once a property had been “designated” for expropriation.

“The problem with our land reform process currently is that people can object to it and go to court, not that they want the land back, but just to frustrate the programme,” he told AFP in an interview.

There are other amendments as well, which would give Mugabe complete oversight of elections and establish a Senate that incorporates ZANU-PF members who lost in the recent ones.

These amendments will declare all land to be state owned; abolish the Electoral Supervisory Commission, leaving the recently established Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as the sole body tasked with running elections; and introduce a 40-member upper house, the senate, whose members would be chosen on the basis of the results of last month’s disputed elections for parliament, which would remain as the lower house.

Ncube, who is also secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said: “Mugabe has indicated that the senate issue is particularly urgent and he wants to see the body fully established within three months of parliament’s opening next month.”

He said that Zanu-PF proposed to establish four senate seats for each of the 10 provinces, allocated on the basis of the outcome of the March 31 elections. This would give the MDC just 12 seats in the senate and Zanu-PF the rest.

Mugabe has already assured some of his supporters who were defeated in the elections that he would find seats for them in the senate. This should help him heal cracks in the party.

So what is the west to do about a man whom it has no leverage over? Usually we would defer to a regional democratic power, such as India with regards to Nepal. In this case, I can imagine that South Africa would be the nation of choice. Sadly, however, their government is all too ideologically friendly with Mugabe. Besides affirming the fraudulent elections and failing to condemn the systematic abuse of human rights for what it is, they are actually trying to take the same path. Despite all studies to the contrary, South Africa will be pursuing its own land reform program.

So the French have rejected the proposed new constitution for the European Union. This is a vote of potentially massive importance for the future of Europe and the Western world as a whole. The European project for an “ever closer union” has long been an elite one, and especially over the past decade the gap between the elites and European populations grew large. All maintream French parties supported this constitution, yet the French people strongly rejected it.

The Communists, Greens, hardline socialists and the National Front voted overwhelmingly against the treaty; the moderate socialists and the center-right Gaullists of President Jacques Chirac voted strongly for it. The affluent and the urban voted for, while the rural and the working class voted against. Nearly 55% of French voted against the treaty, a margin of almost ten percent, and with 70% turnout, the vote had special force. France is so central to the European Union project that this one vote alone might kill it, and combined with a likely rejection by the Dutch on Wednesday, it almost certainly will.

On Friday night I watched France’s Snake Oil Salesman-in-Chief go on national television and make the case for the “oui” - France would have more votes in the new EU, this would protect France from the “ultra-liberalisme” of the wicked Brits and their Cowboy Cousins, it would protect France’s agricultural subsidies, it would it would make the EU a power in the world, and thus enhance France’s global position, and so on. Nothing about how France was giving up its status as a free nation. I actually started feeling sorry for the French. Then I remembered that they had elected this guy - about a dozen times.

I’ll have some comments below, but here is a rundown of news stories on the repercussions of this vote from Europe’s English and French-language media:

- See the European Union’s official response to the French vote rejecting the constitution. Note the comment about how European leaders must do more to “explain the true scale of what is at stake, and the nature of the answers that only Europe can offer.” In other words, the French people are just stupid.

- To see a copy of the proposed, but perhaps now defunct, EU constitution, click here.

- Le Monde provides a really cool interactive electoral map of France, showing province by province which ones voted for “oui” or “non” and by what percentages. You do not need to be able to read French to understand it.

- For French speakers looking for video, check out this in-depth report from France 2. It is today’s 1:00 p.m. news broadcast.

- Reuters reports on Chirac’s plans to replace his prime minister and set new policy priorities, with a move toward strengthening the social welfare state.

- Separately, Reuters reports on how this could be bad news economically for Europe, to the extent that it will mean structural reforms will be put off.

- The Independent reports on how Tony Blair is preparing for a “bruising battle” over whether Europe would move toward a freer market versus the French statist model, while Chancellor Gordon Brown and his supporters prepare to push Blair himself out of office.

- The Times of London frames the issue now as a “Battle for the Heart of Europe.”

- Le Monde reports on how “Jacques Chirac attempts to reassure his European partners,” encouraging other countries to go ahead with the ratification process and promising that France will fulfill its obligations in Europe.

- The Guardian explains why Britain, which had a referendum on the treaty planned for 2006, is now prepared to ditch the whole thing.

- The Guardian writes that the Dutch could “kill off” the EU charter on Wednesday with a no vote, something which is widely expected with polls showing opposition even stronger than in France.

- Le Monde’s news analysis of the results and problems ahead.

- Le Monde reports on “La gauche de non,” dealing with the split among the socialists and their need to come up with a new program to challenge a weakened Chirac.

- Anthony Howard at the Times of London discusses the implications of the vote for Britain’s Tories, suggesting that it could help them make a fresh start.

- The Belgian La Libre reports on how the European Commission has affirmed that it intends to move forward with its program of budgetary discipline and market liberalization, which were the principal reasons the French voted the way they did.

- Le Nouvel Observatuer provides its own review of the press in various languages, including English.

- The EU Law Web Log has a list of dates for when other countries plan their referenda, assuming they don’t cancel due to the pointlessness of the whole thing.

Some notes from Brit blogs…

- The North Sea Diaries has an in-depth analysis of voting patterns as well as an electoral map (but not an interactive one, the one I linked above is better). Most illustrative fact: the post notes that 55% of “no” voters did so because of the “social situation in France,” whereas only 4% thought “Europe’s place in the world” was the key issue.

- The always witty EU Serf has several posts on this, one of which notes that if the French want to maintain their statist, unemployment-prone economy, they can have it, and Britain can go its own way - that is the beauty of the nation-state.

- The Adam Smith Blog writes about how “The nation state strikes back.”

- EU Rota has several posts, the best of which points out that Article II-77 would make it easier for the state (or superstate) to take private property.

- Great quote at Eurorealist, from Jean-Claude Juncker, current EU President: “Many of those who voted ‘no’ were voting for more Europe. If some of their votes are added to the ???????yes???????? vote, we have won.” Translation: Those stupid French, they really just wanted more of us, even if they thought they wanted less. Let’s just add the votes again a different way.

- And Daniel in Venezuela, who has connections in France, has a good post on this.

And now a few reflections of my own…

Without doubt the most bizarre aspect of this whole debate was this weird dichotomy between what critics were saying about the charter in Britain and France. In Britain, where opposition has been running about 2 to 1, opponents argued that the treaty would (1) undermine British sovereignty and (2) force Britain into convergence with continental economic policies, meaning more power for unions, inflexible labor laws, more taxes, more welfare state, and the like.

In France, some opponents also emphasized that French sovereignty was at stake, but most of the “non” votes came from the Left, and they argued the opposite of point (2) above - they feared that more power in Brussels would mean the end of the welfare state. There was some logic to this; EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has been pushing an agenda of freeing up markets within the EU - ending state support for companies (common in France), cutting back on agricultural subsidies (popular in France), expanding the EU itself into Eastern Europe (unpopular in France) and creating a single-market for services EU-wide (very unpopular in France, because of the East European competition). Some of these measures were actually written into the EU charter, and this is why the French Left opposed it overwhelmingly.

Yet British critics have a point, too. The new charter would permanently increase the power of the EU over British domestic policy by allowing for new policies to be passed by a qualified majority rather than unanimity. So although the current commissioner is pushing broadly pro-market policies, there is no guarantee this would continue.

What does this mean for the future of Europe? Two things mainly. One, it means that much of Europe will remain an economic basket case. With unemployment of over 10% in France and the Eurozone as a whole, slow or no growth in most economies, and rising competition from China, many are worried. The problem is, most in France have concluded that the solution is for France to cut itself off from competition and trade, not only with China but with Poland and Hungary. With France now making a move back toward more social protection and labor market regulation, expect more stagnation.

Two, the “non” vote is a blow to the European elite’s global ambitions of rivaling America. The new constitution would have, among about 487 other things, created an EU foreign minister and a more unified foreign policy. This was supposed to make up for Europe’s divisions over the war in Iraq and other issues. What good it would have done without effective militaries is anyone’s guess, but this is a setback on that track. And while many French voters sympathized with the idea itself, few put much weight on the issue, so it didn’t counterbalance the effect of the more unpopular provisions.

This does not mean, of course, that the elite will just give up on the project of creating a European superstate. But it is a major defeat for them, and may make them more careful about having these referenda in the future. So far, 9 European countries have ratified the treaty, but only one (Spain) by popular vote.

What does this mean for France, and for Kickback Jacques? For French domestic politics, the momentum is definitely with the Left, but the Socialists may be too divided to take advantage of the situation. But there is no question that opposition to this was driven by opposition to economic liberalism. With the Right divided between Chirac’s weakened RPR and three other parties, especially the National Front, a unified Socialist Party could probably win in 2007. France may see an upsurge in support for the more extreme ends of the spectrum - the Communists, the Greens and the National Front.

Were it anyone else, this would be the end. But Jacques Chirac was a minister in the 1960s, prime minister in the 1970s, mayor of Paris during the 1980s, president in the 1990s, etc. Under French law, being president gives Chirac immunity from prosecution, and this is important because of the finance scandals under his watch as mayor of Paris in which some of his associates have been convicted of fraud. So he has to keep running. But Nicolas Sarkozy, the current head of Chirac’s party and his rival for 2007, is the only popular politician on the Right. Chirac is 77 now, will he step down? Will he take his party down in defeat? Or will he find a way to slither back in?

I think China played a more important role here than generally appreciated. Many Europeans are very nervous about globalization, or else outright opposed to it, and while a few years ago the spread of American culture was viewed as the main threat to French identity, the focus is shifting to China. The French want to maintain their economic status, but they don’t want to work more than 35 hours a week or give up their employment killing labor regulations. And then there are the Chinese and their booming economy built on the export of many products which France makes.

And finally, what does this mean for the United States? I think it means a couple of things, both of which follow from the comments I have already made (I just want to make the implications explicit). First, the U.S. should not count on Europe playing a more constructive role in world affairs than it has over the past few years. It is not necessarily that Europeans are hostile to U.S. foreign policy, because even when they are, it is still not a major issue. Foreign policy plays little role in French politics today, and the same is true for most European countries. Europeans are becoming very anti-globalization, but beyond the elite and its focus on international institutions, there is no coherent alternative being put forward.

Second, the U.S. economy cannot count on Europe to start picking up the slack and buying more American products. European consumer demand is low and will stay low. Perhaps as Japan continues its recovery and, with time, China and other East Asian countries develop a middle class large enough to increase consumption on imported products, this will solve the problems. But don’t expect Europeans to help with global demand any time soon.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell of Window on the Arab World, and More!

This one looks a lot more unstable - stay tuned. Read it here.

Has Hugo Chavez had a heart attack? Been done in by an ex-wife? Gotten an offer he can’t refuse from a fed-up military? He’s disappeared, the descamisados are gathering below his balcony, the streets are shut down, and his spokesmen say all is normal. His minions say he will come to the balcony to address the adoring masses soon. Something’s going on.

Could this be the end?

Here is my Babalu summary here.

Kick back, relax, and take a moment to say a few prayers for the troops who are fighting abroad for freedom. Winds of Change has a Memorial Day roundup and Glenn Reynolds links to lots of photoblogging.

As for me, I’m taking the day off, basking in the glow of Lebanon’s first round of elections. Nothing better to bask in than that. Anyhow, catch you all tomorrow and take it easy!

Nathan Hamm of Registan is hosting this week’s carnival of revolutions! Check it out to read the blogosphere’s best on democracy movements unfolding around the world.

GatewayPundit has a terrific item on a little-noted but huge Hong Kong freedom and democracy march. They’re determined people, those Hong Kongers, and on marches they go all out. GatewayPundit has a couple great pictures of Asia’s most beautiful city, too, making me feel like I’m there.

See it here.

When I lived in Oxford, I remember how tough the U.K. courts were in granting asylum to Romanians fleeing Ceaucescu’s communist hellhole, perhaps fearing a flood of people. They gave almost no one a break.

This being England, things don’t change that much, and I doubt U.K. courts are any less tough. So it tells you something when a British court acknowleged the intolerable reality of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and granted a young Venezuelan couple asylum. Alek Boyd’s gotten hold of some court documents that show the ordeal of the dissidents, and with the court’s note that Venezuela has assumed the economic and political model of Cuba.

Hugo Chavez has turned Venezuela into a den of opppression, and the days are not coming but already here that people flee for their lives to just get out. Hugo Chavez has turned Venezuela into an impossible tyranny. And now it’s bleeding people. This is a part of a great exodus that we will hear more about. Don’t believe me? Then read the original documents here.

It has been widely reported that the referendum on Egypt’s new electoral system was marred by violence. The referendum was passed with 82% of the vote with 54% participation amid a widespread boycott by both Islamist and secularist opposition parties. Meanwhile, multiple accounts were given of opposition protesters being physically attacked by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak and his National Democratic Party. (See my pre-referendum post, Egypt Clamps Down on the Muslim Brotherhood, which provides some background and discusses some of the issues regarding reform in Egypt.)

But how bad was the violence? The Egyptian government, unsurprisingly, is arguing that the violence against opposition activists was unacceptable, but badly exaggerated by the American media (click here for the full Reuters report):

Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad told Reuters he believed the U.S. comments and media coverage in the United States and elsewhere were “unfair and unjustified… When you have more than 54,000 electoral units nationwide, (and) when you have two sad, unacceptable incidents taking place in the greater Cairo area, this is not something to be exaggerated in the way some circles did.”

Awad was responding to comments by U.S. President George W. Bush, who said on Thursday: “The idea of people expressing themselves in opposition to government and then getting beaten is not our view of how a democracy ought to work.”

Witnesses said demonstrators were beaten near a Cairo mausoleum where they were protesting and were attacked outside the Journalists Syndicate. Demonstrators were also hit at another site in Cairo after being pursued by NDP supporters. Awad said public prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed was investigating victims’ complaints. Asked if there would be arrests, he said: “This is something to be decided by the judiciary.”

Since Egypt is accusing the U.S. media of inflaming the situation, let’s take a look at what the pro-Islamist Arab paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi had to say, which included not only accounts of violence but of sexual groping of female protestors by regime supporters:

…The Kifayya opposition movement yesterday accused the government of depredations and offenses against opponents and sexual harassment against girls and women during the demonstrations which took place yesterday against an amendment to the constitution which provides for a presidential election among more than one candidate under conditions rejected by the opposition Äthe link to my post above details what the conditions wereÅ. The statement said that “our honor has been broken and our blood has been spilled and the women among us have been disgraced for the cause of a single man…Äand those guilty of this wereÅ criminals holding a picture of the president (Hosni Mubarak) in one hand and knives and stones in the other.”

Supporters of the ruling national democratic party and police officers in civilian clothes attacked activists from Kifayya… and there was sexual groping of the women, among them some female journalists, likewise they had their hair pulled and were beaten as the security forces opened the way for supporters of the National Democratic Party so that they could arrive at the precise location of their meeting…

Al-Quds followed this with a report on opposition claims that Egypt’s referendum “consecrates a system closer to dynastic authoritarianism.”

Speaking of dynastic authoritarianism, President Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak, gave a speech in front of the American Chamber of Commerce following the vote about economic reforms after the “historic initiative” represented by the referendum. According to the Arabist Network, however, questions were vetted in advance, and no questions about the abuse of regime opponents were even allowed:

ABC, BBC, LA Times, and the Washington Post posed written questions asking whether there would be investigations regarding the women sexually assaulted last Wednesday and if the crackdown on opposition was a contradiction with the policies secretariat????????s view of the reform process. None of their questions were selected by the moderator.

After the meeting ended, the foreign press stringers went to the podium where they were cut off by AmCham????????s executive director (Hisham Fahmy) and executive V-P (Gamal Muhharam). As one stringer told me, ???????They switched from speaking about democracy in American accents to treating us like we were in a local coffee shop.??????? According to reports, ???????Fahmy and Muhharam started saying things in Arabic like ???????you all don????????t have manners and are rude,???????? ???????you are not invited again to an AmCham event,???????? and ???????if you ask those types of questions, you should go and talk to the Americans about them????????.???????

The Western affiliated journalists were offended and told them not to invite them anymore and that it was a waste of time.

It doesn’t seem that the Egyptian government’s theory about an American media conspiracy against them is holding up too well, with even Mubarak’s son unwilling to attempt to refute the allegations. In contrast to the comments from the First Lady the other day, at least President Bush has spoken forthrightly about the violence. The time is now well past for the United States to drop its $2 billion/year subsidy to the Mubarak regime. Our association with it has done enough harm already.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell of Window on the Arab World, and More!

The first round of Lebanon’s first election free of Syrian interference since, well, before I was born has started. The next rounds will take place over the next three consecutive Sunday’s, ending on June 19. Candidates will be competing for 19 seats within three districts within the Beirut region. There are 240 polling stations open and 100 observers from the EU and the UN. But it is unlikely to be much of a competition, with Saad Hariri — the successor and son of Rafik Hariri — looking to sweep every seats with nine seats automatically won unopposed. For more information on the electoral alliances that have emerged, read my previous post.

Let the race begin:

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Voters trickled to the polls in Beirut on Sunday in a parliamentary election starting a month after Syrian troops quit Lebanon, with the son of assassinated former premier Rafik al-Hariri seeking a clean sweep.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati said early turnout was estimated at a modest 12 percent after four hours of voting in the mainly Sunni Muslim capital. “This (election) is a very important achievement and a proof of our commitment to our constitutional institutions,” he told a midday news conference.

Nine of the city’s 19 seats have already gone uncontested to nominees of Saad al-Hariri, a 35-year-old businessman thrust into politics by the Feb. 14 killing of his father.

Of course, the turnout will grow as the day goes on, but don’t expect anything like a million people flooding into the streets to vote. The reason that people are not turning out in extremely large numbers or so quickly is because the outcome is practically guaranteed to Hariri’s opposition list. While ten of the seats are still contested, those running against him are relatively weak candidates and only one or two of these mya even put up a fight. Due to the deals strucks between the Hariri-Jumblatt opposition alliance and the Amal-Hizb’allah Shiite alliance, and Hizb’allah’s urging Beirut’s Shiites to vote for Hariri’s lists, even these will likely be won fairly easily. So we can all just sit back and relax on this one; the real seat-edging fun won’t start until the North and Mt. Lebanon election battles.

It is very interesting to look at the practically predetermined regions and how the Hariri-Jumblatt and Amal-Hizb’allah alliances work. Besides Beirut, the South (and probably the Bekaa) will definitely go to the Shiite coalition of Amal and Hizb’allah. But looking at the electoral lists of Beirut and the South, you’ll notice that some swaps were made. In Beirut, a Hizb’allah candidate has been included on the Hariri list, while Bahia Hariri, the sister of the slain Rafik Hariri and who is running as an independent, has been included on Speaker Berri’s Amal list to make certain that she is elected. Other than that, Beirut is dominated by the opposition while the South is dominated by Hizb’allah and their partners.

With Beirut’s 19 seats going to the opposition, and the South’s 23 seats going to Amal-Hizb’allah, the composition of the new parliament will not be all that different in terms of the various parties involved. Speaker Berri, widely seen as the one who obstructed parliament from adopting a new electoral law, even has a high chance of remaining speaker. Given that the poltiical alliances have intertwined between almost every group in this election, it may be wise to reconsider just what “opposition” means in this case. Certainly, when Saad Hariri predicts that the opposition will sweep up to 90 seats in 128 seat legislature, it would be impossible the leave out the these other parties. What we are seeing here is not necessarily a sweep or a return to pro-Syria politics, but moreso the forming of a governing coalition based on the interests of Lebanon’s internal groups.

I’ll update this post if there are any more developments on the lines of Beirut’s elections. To thank you for your time, here is a picture of Miss Lebanon:

Don’t miss Regime Change Iran, with the most important roundup of events pertaining to Iran that you will ever read.

Dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela breaks everything he touches.

He’s destroyed Venezuela’s democratic institutions, wrecked its judiciary, laid waste to its oilfields, subverted its elections, desecrated its ecology, devalued its money, trashed its free press, busted its banks, stomped its property rights, tore apart its relations with the U.S., gutted its civil service, split its military, wrecked its treasury, bankrupted its companies, shot its demonstrators dead, neglected its tallest skyscraper to burn, turned its hillsides into mudslides and made a smoking ruin of Venezuela’s good name in the world.

That’s not all. The story of how he’s desecrated art is another atrocity. Picassos and Matisses have disappeared from the museums and modern sculptures have been turned into scrap metal. Read the whole sad horrible story from blogger Daniel in Yaracuy here.

Today’s 20-year verdict against Schapelle Corby, supposedly for drug possession and drug running on the island of Bali, has radicalized a major part of Australia. The 27-year-old surfer insists she didn’t do it, but was the victim of an airport smuggling ring that forgot to retrieve its pot from her boogie board bag. Conveniently for them, the film of the baggage sequence has disappeared from airport custody. And no fingerprints were taken from the pot, something Schapelle says would exonerate her. Meanwhile, Indonesia tried her with a real charmer of a judge who said he didn’t believe in acquitting anyone accused of drug running. Typical Indonesian form-over-substance logic. You like to believe Asia has a better education system than the West and then you see that kind of “thinking” among the elites in Indonesia. Especially if they are, at heart, petty clerks.

What can I say? I don’t know if she’s guilty or not.

On the one hand, Australia is loaded with dumb surfers, some of whom might try to smuggle pot into Bali. There’s a huge welfare yob culture Down Under where this kind of thing is important. The woman is right there in that class of people, a ‘beauty therapist’ who’s not exactly an overachiever. The other thing is, the woman is extraordinarily beautiful, so one wonders if the outpouring of Australian sympathy is based on her looks more than facts. An ugly old man caught with nine pounds of pot wouldn’t get such sympathy, for instance. Did her good looks make her think she could get away with anything she’d like?

On the other hand, I’ve been to Bali four times - love the place - and know that Bali is where pot is so readily available anyway you would think it’s legal if you didn’t know it wasn’t. Lots of places in Asia are like that - Penang and Melaka and Phuket and Cebu spring to mind. (Not Singapore of course!) In other words, the law isn’t enforced there, so to enforce it now sounds politically motivated. Not only that, the Indonesian customs agents are idiots - some who aren’t purely incompetent are perfectly bribeable, and a few are both, so one is right to wonder if this case was really good Indonesian police work or a setup. Besides this, Indonesians in the post-Iraq era seem to have a need to make an example of an Australian for its support of Iraq’s Liberation, something they opposed. Culturally indirect, masters of the passive-aggressive, Indonsians have always thought blunt Australians were uncouth if not evil - so it would not surprise me if they wanted to make an example of an Australian. Lastly, this woman has never been in trouble with the law before and no stories of beachside pot-smoking have emerged about her from her Aussie mates back home.

One thing is certain - even if Schapelle Corby is as guilty as the Indonesian court says she is, there’s no question the sentence is disproportionate to the crime, a textbook signal of tyranny. Twenty years for pot. Yes, you add, but sentences can be tough in those Asian countries. Singapore hangs kidnappers and gives the 24-stroke cane deal to gang members. And six strokes to graffiti punks. Philippines executes rapists. China executes bank embezzlers. Thailand shoots dopers, sometimes not bothering with niceties like trials. Vietnam hands pirates one cigarette and one swig of rum before blasting them to the next world.

And you thought Cowboy America was the crazy execution-happy country.

Here’s what justice is like in Indonesia:

Dictator Soeharto, thief of $40 billion and killer of 500,000, the man of The Year Of Living Dangerously’s rivers that ran red with blood in 1966, gets a mild ailment in his dotage, sending him to the hospital and everyone in the supposed new reformasi democrasi government is at the old dictator’s side, wishing him well, bringing him flowers.

Worse yet, the vile Abu Bakar Bashir, one of the world’s foulest terrorists, a man in the same league as bin Laden, Zarkawi, Hambali, Zawahri and Granda, got all of two and a half years’ jail for murdering 200 mostly Australian tourists on Bali three years ago.

What the hell does that say about Indonesian justice? 20 years for pot, 2 years for the worst terrorist mass massacre since 9/11? Twenty year sentences for Australians who damage Bali by bringing in pot, 2 year sentences for Indonesians who kill Australians in Kuta Beach nightclubs? It’s obvious some kind of injustice is going on, even if Schapelle Corby is as guilty as they come.

One other thought I’ve not seen anywhere: Make no mistake about the obvious hand of Jakarta in this. Although the case is on Bali, take a look at the names of all the court officials here - not one Balinese name among them. They are all from Jakarta, which detests Bali. This is not only because the Balinese are rich, resourceful and cognizant of trade, but because they are Hindu, not Muslim. “Savages,” I’ve heard Javanese call them. Indonesia is a highly stratified society, where government jobs are doled out by political patronage. Once when I stayed on the resort island of Bintan, I was fascinated to learn the geographical stratification of all the workers. All the cops and public officials were Javanese and Sundanese from Jakarta, politically connected. The waiters were Balinese. The ditch-diggers were Sumatrans. Balinese wouldn’t touch such a case as Schapelle’s if they were running things there, let alone hire a judge like that one who “never” acquitted anyone accused of drug running. Here is the implication: The Jakartans are steeped in their urban politics, the politics of Islamofascist resentment. Not so the Balinese. Therefore, Jakarta would probably not give a damn if Australians boycotted Bali, they don’t like the Balinese anyway.

How sad it all is. Indonesia is such a weak state that its citizens can feel nothing but rage and resentment against Australians. The kinder the Australians are to them, the angrier the Indonesians feel.

Indonesians are proud people with the world’s oldest continuous civilization but cannot compete with the material superiority of Australia. They can’t reciprocate. Deprived of property rights, stable currency, equality with elites and rule of law, they can only hope to earn tourist dollars, living off their past. With this weak state, citizens can neither be sincere nor grateful. They feel that Australians’ freedoms are ‘privilege,’ not merely freedom, and being poor people, they resent privilege they see all the time around them. Note that there was a mob outside the courthouse that cheered with glee when the 20-year sentence was read.

But Australia tries to be kind, materially and emotionally to Indonesia. Bali was bombed. Australians returned to the island instead of move on to safer spots out of compassion for the Balinese, most of whom work in the tourism industry. Sumatra’s west coast was wiped off the face of the earth. Australians handed them blood (nine dead on Nias) and treasure ($1 billion in aid) to take care of their neighbor in need. When Indonesia tried to save itself from the IMF through dollarization, only Australia stood by its side back in 1998 while the whole world opposed them. Meanwhile, Australia provides countless scholarships to Indonesians and opens its doors to Indonesian immigrants. It gets bomb blasts at its embassy in Jakarta - unsolved of course, unlike Schapelle’s case - in return.

Bitter fruits. And the reaction from Australians? Apparently, a feeling of having had enough. They are boycotting Bali in a way they didn’t after the terrorist bombing. And look at all these pro-Schapelle sites around Australia, visible here, here, here and here.

In short, Australians have become radicalized. Public officials are telling them to calm down, and apparently this urging is just whipping up political firestorms, intensifying the public anger. Australian Prime Minster John Howard is telling Australians to buck up and respect the verdict. Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer is telling Australians not to boycott Bali because the issue is not about tourism. On the contrary, it’s all about tourism. If tourists are afraid this is a setup and afraid it could happen to them, it makes sense to boycott Bali just for one’s own safety. Off to Fiji. Downer doesn’t have a clue. And Australians are rebelling against their elites, something bubbling under the surface we didn’t know about. This has the churning feel of a revolution.

Speaking of beauty, consider that the Miss Universe pageant, something that tries to stay out of politics, but never does, will be held this Monday in nearby Thailand. The current holder of the title is an Australian surfer. Ironic enough. But consider also that a frontrunner in the Miss Universe pageant this weekend is an Indonesian woman, the country’s first entry to the pageant in 40 years, a girl who will stop traffic. And in a way she is - she’s drawing street protests from ugly old crones in white sheets who don’t approve of beauty pageants on religious grounds. Despite the fact that Islam in Indonesia allows every girl to interpret Islam as she sees fit, these busybodies are after her and have made it a hot issue in Indonesia. Probably not good news for Schapelle. I don’t know exactly what it means, but I’ll be watching that thing this weekend.

Here is an Australian blogger roundup:

The Untitled Document says there are definitely Australians dumb enough to smuggle drugs into third-world places like Bali. He says if she had been caught in Australia doing the same thing, he’s sure she’d be guilty. But he thinks Australians should boycott Bali.

Tim Blair thinks she’s innocent. He points out that a big bust of baggage handlers on the same day Shapelle flew out of the airport raises the likelihood that dopers put drugs in her surf board bag and were unable to retrieve them. Makes sense. Tim has a good roundup of different blogger views.

Currency Lad says she’s innocent and reminds that Indonesia blithely admits its main problem is corruption. He points out that the judge says he’s never acquitted anyone accused of smuggling drugs - some judge! And he also cites the suspicious busts at Australia’s airport. He points out that many neanderthals on the Australian right think she’s guilty because of her low-class name, despite their disbelief in any Islamic system of justice. Between Indonesian justice and a low-class name, the low-class name is worse. Like Blair, he says the sentence is infamously unjust.

Kev Gillett points out a letter to the editor that compares the sentence of the murderers of Australians with that of an apparent Aussie drug dealer. He says he could not say it better.

It’s A Matter Of Opinion opines that Australians have been force-fed a lot of propaganda about this woman’s supposed innocence. He wonders why she was carrying a boogie board bag into Australia when her brother in law, who is Indonesian, owns a surf shop in Bali. He also discounts the drug dealer network busted in the Aussie airport the same day Schapelle was busted - they were smuggling drugs into Australia after all. Besides that, Aussie dope is better than Indonesian dope, giving Schapelle something of an incentive to smuggle drugs into Bali. He also doesn’t care for her low-class name. He says his opinion shifts from day to day, it’s just the media he can’t stand. His blog has a very interesting comment thread accompanying this.

The 52nd State has a cool take on this case, warning that media exposure, among other things, has corrupted it, making a good reading about the woman’s guilt or innocence difficult. “The war is over, we lost,” he notes. He warns against mucking around with rule of law, even Indonesia’s in the Lady-Diana-style heat of public emotion. He also notes that the blogosphere is more circumspect about this case than the Australian “Street.” It’s a good blog.

Dogfight at Bankstown warns Australians to temper their anti-Indonesian rhetoric, be glad the woman wasn’t shot for this, and note that many other Australians (the ugly old men I cited earlier?) have met far worse fates around Asia on drug charges. Interesting insights.

If anyone has more Aussie blog talk about this to post a link to, email me at ammorayleonÉgmail.com

It had to happen sooner or later. The high expectations and aspirations of the Lebanese people are slowly degrading into a state of national melancholy. Undoubtedly, Lebanon will never be the same after March’s Cedar Revolution, but that won’t stop the country’s professional politicians from pulling as many strings as possible to stay in power. Actually, it is no wonder that a sense of disillusionment has set in as May 29 nears. Now that Syria has pulled out, the precedent for a unified anti-Syria opposition has been removed as each party forms alliances and election lists with formerly hostile rivals. All of this is occurring within the framework of the controversial 2000 election law which, due to political squabbling, was not changed in time for this electoral season. In order to understand much of the political maneuverings leading up to Sunday, it is very important to understand the basis of this law and the electoral system.

Elections will begin on Sunday, May 29, and will continue on the next three consecutive Sundays until June 19. The 2000 electoral law which was re-adopted utilizes the mouhafaza, a big electoral district, as compared to the qaza, a smaller electoral district. Below is an electoral map of the various mouhafazas:

(Courtesy: Ya Libnan)

Given that this law was created and adopted in a heavily Syria backed parliament several years ago, it naturally favors the old political order and has been the source of great controversy since its adoption. Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir has been one of the most outspoken critics of the law, saying — in the least fervish — that it sorely under represents the Christian sects of Lebanon. There are large Christian minorities in regions like South Lebanon and Beqaa, where pro-Syria parties like Hizb’allah, Baath, SSNP, and Amal are guaranteed to win. A newer electoral law, due to the smaller districts, would have given more accurate representation to such minorities. The complaint of the Patriarch is that due to the 2000 law, the seats allotted to the Christian sects will be chosen by Muslim voters instead of Christian ones.

Though he has been accused of stirring sectarianism, something which needs to hurriedly die on the vine, he does have a good point. I think Tony, from Across The Bay, does a fantastic job of describing how the supposedly sectarian system actually serves as a melting pot.

I’ve written this before, but let me say it again here. The categories of “Muslim” and “Christian” are all but meaningless politically in Lebanon. The system is not based on the representation of “Muslims” and “Christians.” This is legally wrong, and assumes that “Muslims” are a monolithic, coherent political cluster, and the same goes for Christians. In reality, each one is divided into several sects, which are in turn divided into subcategories (families, regions, political inclination, etc.). Those are the divisions that count and are reflected in parliament and in the elections. The corollary to that are the alliances in the election and in parliament, which create what’s known as “real representation.” In part, this was the complaint of some in the Christian circles, that some “Christian” candidates on certain lists were really the choice of the dominant political figure or alliance in that particular district, as opposed to being the choice of the Christian voters (or certain Christian parties). In that sense, that particular Christian candidate will for the most part be allied in parliament with the non-Christian figure/list on which he ran. Of course this fluctuates, as evident for instance with the MPs Bassem Yamout and Nasser Qandil who ran on the late Hariri’s list only to stab him in the back (and those are both “Muslim” MPs). Meanwhile, the “Christian” MPs on Hariri’s list (like the late MP Fleihan for instance) were loyal to his line, thus giving him, a Sunni Muslim, a larger “real representation” in parliament, even if they were Christians. The other corollary of course (a positive one) is that this way you get Christians voting for Muslim MPs and vice versa, thus rendering the entire notion of “sectarian bigotry” meaningless (cf. this article by Archbishop George Khodr, which touches on this issue, and this related article by Hazem Saghieh). It also makes Ciezadlo’s claim that “Muslim votes count less” even dumber than it already sounds. Is that clear? Apparently it wasn’t for Ms. Ciezadlo, and those who think like her.

The Cedar Revolution has helped melt these sects together to form a greater sense of national unity, again making these sectarian tensions increasingly irrelevant. Therefore, the problem is not necessarily the lack of representation for Christian sects, but the fact that the current law will allow many of the same players and parties to be re-elected despite the change in the national mood. Syria has left, and so the unifying issue is gone while the “subcategories” Tony speaks of remain to a large degree. This is how today’s bizarre election alliances are taking shape.

Michel Aoun’s return from exile in France and subsequent failure to conjure and alliance with Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt sparked the first real split in the opposition’s ideological direction. He is staunchly anti-Syria, however, has been relatively asinine by taking credit for Syria’s withdrawal because of his support for UNRES 1559. With regards to this, the devil is in the details. Resolution 1559 calls for the disarming of Hizb’allah, the international solution, but Jumblatt and Hariri’s parties support an “internal resolution” and insist that Syria’s pullout was based on the Taif Accord. Insofar, this is true, and it has been the foundation for the alliance between Hariri and Jumblatt with Hizb’allah and Amal. This strange alliance, as well as Hariri and Jumblatt’s willingness to participate under the old election law, are the other reasons for the split.

Up until a few days ago, Aoun was trying to negotiate between them over districts in Mt. Lebanon, as well as with supporters of Sitrada Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, but failed to do so. All that was left was to negotiate with pro-Syria Talal Arslan and Dory Chamoun for coordination on electoral lists. The latter fell through. He will put up a fight, but without ever being tested at the polls, and firing off at people all around, Aoun is in a bad position. He is most likely to run in Jbeil-Kesrwan, a mostly Christian district, where he will have better chances. Mt. Lebanon and the North are looking to be the most contested and interesting electoral battles to watch.

The alliance between Saad Hariri and Hizb’allah’s Nasrallah was born out of a supposed deal struck between Nasrallah and the late Rafik Hariri just a week before his death. This deal was based on the notion that Hariri would not call on Hizb’allah to disarm personally, and Saad has affirmed this. Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party is also part of this alliance, and Nasrallah has urged his mainly Shiite followers to vote for Hariri’s lists in Beirut and Jumblatt’s lists in Aley-Baabda. In fact, many of the seats have gone uncontested and the opposition is likely to sweep them all. But Hizb’allah has also struck a sweet deal with another Shiite bloc, Amal, in order to retain total dominance of the South and likely Beqaa. The Lebanon Daily Star has much more on the nitty gritty of the electoral battle coming up.

As you can see, it is no wonder that people are becoming disillusioned after the Cedar Revolution; not about its ideals but about the politicians that supposedly represent them. The same people that were hosting counter-demonstrations against one another on the streets of Beirut are now joining hands in order to ensure their political toes aren’t stepped on. They still want Syria out, they still want to form a national consensus of unity, and they still want Syria-backed President Lahoud ousted, but they want it all to happen without the political shift that acknowledges the shift of the national mindset. Because of this, it seems like Hizb’allah may be in a stronger political position than before March.

In the very least, there is at least one thing to remember which should evoke hope in this process. After this election, there will undoubtedly be a new election law. And most importantly, the Lebanese elections will be free of Syrian influence. This means that the politicians who will be running the country will no longer have to pander to the Syrian regime, but instead to the people of Lebanon. Because of this, I believe that despite the current disillusionment with the various parties and Hizb’allah’s arms problem, Lebanon has already well begun its trek toward a healthy political environment. To quote Mustapha from The Beirut Spring:

This is why it is no surprise that the leaders and the outside powers are proving responsible: Signs are everywhere: Jumblat has left an empty druze seat on his list so that he doesn????????t humiliate Talal Arslan. Ghattas Khoury sacrificed a guaranteed seat on the Hariri list for the ???????greater good???????. The Americans, French and Jumblat rushed to allay the patriarch????????s concerns by stressing his very important role. Jumblat, Hariri and Quornet Shahwan are making nothing but conciliatory noises in face of Aoun????????s aggressivness. Even Hezbollah is doing some soul searching and are removing from their lists people that are considered provocative. I also expect that the opposition might (just might) leave an empty maronite seat for Franjiyeh in the North.

Thomas Friedman said it best once:
In a Democracy, every day feels like a mess, but after a year, you’ll feel that a lot of progress has been made.

Like I said, I think the Lebanese are getting the right idea.

UPDATE: The first round of Lebanon’s election have started in Beirut.

Of course, that’s rather predictable given that Lukashenko owns the parliament. Due to the spread of “velvet revolutions” in his near vicinity, and the upfront declarations of his neighbors, the EU, and the United States to promote democracy in Belarus, Lukashenko has passed a state security law which will allow the secret police practically absolute access to people and their property without any approval.

New law “On Organs of State Security” has taken effect. This is the information provided by Radio Liberty. The human rights activists and the opposition have already referred to this law as “another stepping stone” to a totalitarian Stalinist-type system. However, the Chamber of Representatives think that the new version of the law meets the contemporary threats and Belarus acts in the mainstream of the worldés tendency. What is this law going to change in the life of Belarusians?

The new version of the law “On Organs of State Security” gives broader powers to the operative services. Now they can enter a personés place or any (even foreign) organizationés office without the procuratorés office sanction. The procuratorés permission is not necessary at all, informing the procurator within 24 hours of the entry necessitated by operative reasons will do. “If we find nothing, weéll offer our apologies”, answered the former KGB chair Leanid Ieryn to the question asked by the journalists about how the agents will be punished in the event of a mistake.

Another important innovation of the law is the right of the special service to implant its secret agents into any organization. A person disclosing the identity of a secret agent will be criminally persecuted under the law. The punishment is up to 5 years in prison. The one who makes public a state secret will be imprisoned for the same term???????

Lukashenko is, effectively, digging his trenches early and preparing for all out isolation from the west. Russia’s backing of “democratic change from within” can only be laughed at from this point, as regressive measures are being taken to prevent this from happening. The power of a unified free world will have a lot to do with where Belarus goes by September 2006, and insofar it looks like everyone worth their civil liberties is on board.

Glenn posted a link earlier to a report that an EU confidential document says that the elections in Ethiopia were rigged.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s electoral board appears to have lost control of the vote counting for the May 15 legislative polls, European Union election observers said in a report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The confidential report went on to say the EU might have to make a public denunciation of developments to distance itself from “the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging” of the vote

“Ten days after the polling day, the situation is of political uncertainty and informational chaos regarding the results of the election,” according to the confidential report.

“The National Electoral Board does not seem to be in control of the counting operation by the constituency electoral committees and limits itself to passively receive the reports from a limited number of constituencies.”

While the report was confidential, the observers went public Wednesday with fears that after voting and campaigning that had been unprecedentedly open, the whole election process was being undermined by delays in the vote count that were raising the risk of fraud.

Early results showed the opposition making strong gains — it had held 12 seats in the departing 547-seat parliament — but a lead for the ruling party that has held power since ending an oppressive dictatorship in 1991.

So far, results from 157 constituencies have been released, with 61 seats going to the opposition. Tension was high as the nation awaited comprehensive results, and both opposition and ruling parties claimed victory.

The National Electoral Board had promised to release provisional results Saturday, but only a handful of counts came in. It has been releasing new counts each day.

The EU report also said former U.S. President Carter, who led a team of 50 election observers, undermined the electoral process and EU criticism with “his premature blessing of the elections and early positive assessment of the results.”

Unless there is a “drastic reverse toward good democratic practice” the observer team and EU “will have to publicly denounce the situation.”

“Otherwise, the EU jointly with ex-President Carter will be held largely responsible for the lack of transparency, and assumed rigging, of the elections.”

What an incredible find! I criticized Carter in my previous post, but was certainly erroneous in saying that there was didn’t seem to be any systematic fraud. It has become duly apparent that, in fact, this was the case. President Carter, big heart that he has, is too naive for being such a powerful human rights advocate. It is really unfortunate, because his position should normally be the catalyst for a lot of good. The other side of this double-edged sword is that, due to his tendency to write blank checks to authoritarian regimes, he is actually doing more damage to democratic developments than if he were not there at all.

For a great discussion on the “revolutionary democracy” of the current regime, visit ethiopundit, who very skillfully crafts his writings.

Stefania Lapenna writes a dazzling essay today on The American Thinker, outlining the meaning of Cuba’s democracy conference held in Havana, including many aspects of it that might not be so obvious. Stefania is a brilliant young thinker whose original work will be read for years to come for its insight. Think I’m exaggerating? You won’t after you read it here.

If you want to read something that’s a real treat and explains out well the nature of Hugo Chavez in light of his bizarre claims about becoming a nuclear power, you can’t do better than read Alek Boyd’s excellent - and highly entertaining - essay today debunking the dictator’s nuclear pretentions, which also giving a good skewering to those who take them too seriously. A good Chavez antidote, read it here!

The words of Mexican communist novelist Carlos Fuentes. Coming from him, it’s pretty damning. Obviously, he can’t stand the guy, and among other leftists, he’s influential. Hugo Chavez, beware. Not even the communists are sticking up for you now. Read it here.

Counting oil sands, Venezuela has more petroleum reserves than any country on earth. Even Russia. Even Canada. Even Iran. Even … Saudi Arabia. It’s unbelievable what the Texas-and-Oklahoma-sized country only 1350 miles away from us really has. Venezuela could probably supply the entire world with oil if it wanted. That road you are driving on, if it’s nice, is probably made of Venezuelan-oil-derived asphalt, the world’s finest.

Which is why Venezuela’s declining oil production is such a scandal. Only Iran and Indonesia have comparable production declines in their state-dominated oil industries, but not nearly as intense. Globally, it forces the Saudis to pick up the slack. But it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Today in the Venezuelan blogosphere, writer after writer, some of whom do not even know each other, reach the same conclusion: Venezuela’ s state oil company, under the regime of Hugo Chavez, is being systematically looted by Chavez’s cronies so badly it’s affected production. And hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost. These sums are like Argentina’s default numbers, triple digit billions. It’s coming to a head as a powerful indictment of the Chavez regime, and try as he might to use diversions, like Posada Carriles, Bush, the Norwegians, the IRS, the foreign oil companies, it all comes down to the elephant in the room - the state oil company is bleeding money and Chavez is responsible. And Venezuelans are very angry, angry to the point that Chavez is trying to distract them.

The results are there for all to see.

Charito Rojas writes:

the President of the Republic, his Energy Minister and simultaneous President of PDVSA (greater responsibility in this disaster is impossible), and a whole string of inept people who have ruined the country’s principal industry, still dare to deny a truth that stands before the eyes of Venezuelans who have witnessed the depletion of oil wells for lack of investment, the shutdown of oil rigs, the inoperativeness of the barges, the spills and damage to drill sites, the near-shutdown of the refineries, the continuous industrial accidents with injuries and even deaths, the bloodletting by traders and middlemen who sell Venezuelan oil to third parties. The math does not lie and no matter how pissed off Ch????vez may be, all figures point in the same direction: Venezuela is producing 2.6 million BPD, of which 1.1 million are produced by PDVSA and 1.5 million by foreign companies.

Daniel Duquenal writes:

One thing is certain: we are not any closer to know what really is going inside PDVSA. And closer to the point where only an independent and foreign audit could solve the problem. Obviously the current management does not know how to do arithmetic, nor wants anyone to do it for them. Gee, I wonder why…….

Miguel Octavio writes:

All of this is to me simply a smokescreen. They are trying to create and build scandals and make noise to distract people from the real and very serious problems at PDVSA. It is not whether the foreign companies pay or not taxes (That is the tax office????????s job, not PDVSA????????s), or whether Sincor produces more or not (The Ministry announced it!), or whether the agreements are legal or not (This Government signed similar or worse ones!). The whole point is that PDVSA is producing less and less and they know they are responsible for the deterioration. They have to hide it until they can figure out how to produce more and save their reputations and in the end???????that of the Chavez Government. If not, they will be known as the people that managed to destroy PDVSA. What a revolutionary legacy!

Gustavo Coronel writes:

The fact remains that considerable amounts of money, billions of dollars, remain essentially unaccounted for. Nobody knows where the money is. For a regime that based its electoral campaign in its promise to combat corruption, the financial chaos in Petr????leos de Venezuela represents a major violation of this promise. The material corruption and ethical collapse of the Venezuelan petroleum industry is proof that the pretenses of honesty and the concerns for the poor shown by the Ch????vez regime are a fake.

Tomas Sancio writes:

“Saving the oil” for future generations will only make sense if the future generations have a smarter approach to this income that we receive from underground. Since oil was nationalized in the 1970’s, the country’s GNP per capita has diminished steadily as oil expenditure increased and oil production replaced all of the other economic activities.

Aleksander Boyd writes:

…one can expect PDVSA’s president Rafael Ramirez to have offered yet another ‘promise’ that will not be kept, the intention being to deviate attention from the state of sheer chaos and anarchy in which PDVSA founds itself in at this moment. Ramirez also announced that in six months time PDVSA will be producing 3.5 MBD, from the present output guestimated at 1.4 MPD. Since London bookies aren’t taking any bets on the SEC fillings by PDVSA in June I challenge any chavista apologist to get in touch in order to arrange for a private bet; what’s more I put this site as my offer, should PDVSA deliver I will cede it to the winner.

These are just essays that appear in the English-language blogosphere. What’s written in the Spanish-language press is undoubtedly greater in quantity. But all of these voices, demanding accountability from the government of Hugo Chavez signal a white-hot issue for Hugo Chavez, something a democratic opposition is rallying around. Not only that, the holding of Chavez accountable is one of the few democratic things left they can do. They can’t organize peaceful demonstrations in their newly lawless country, because Chavez’s goons will shoot them, and they can’t settle their differences with Chavez through the ballot box, because Chavez will rob them, but they can hold Hugo Chavez accountable about oil, the very oil revenues he depends on to finance his state-soup-kitchen programs. Chavez may topple on this theft of oil billions and his mammoth destruction of the country’s natural wealth.

You all may have noticed that it has been a slow couple of weeks for my posting in particular. Look forward to that coming to an end. I’m graduating tonight and I’ll be moving to Boston at the end of August. I’ll post by tomorrow afternoon, when I’ve, er, recovered.

While the French are doing their level best to scuttle the EU constitution, Egyptian voters go to the polls today to vote on a referendum to clear the way to multi party presidential elections:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Hosni Mubarak urged Egyptians to vote in Wednesday’s referendum on constitutional changes that would clear the way for the nation’s first multi-candidate presidential elections.

Opponents of the referendum were hard to find in the early hours of polling, but it wasn’t clear whether their absence was due to opposition calls to boycott the referendum because of the proposed strict rules on opposition participation in elections, or disinterest in voting for a measure sure to pass.

Police and government supporters broke up a demonstration of about 20 members of the anti-Mubarak group Kifaya, or “Enough” around midday.

The Mubarak supporters shouted at the Kifaya members from behind police who were closing in. One young woman fainted, and anti-Mubarak protesters were violently squeezed into a tight area while police beat some demonstrators with batons.

Opponents of the referendum point to a provision that makes it very difficult, if not impossible for opposition candidates to get on the ballot. The referendum requires candidates to get endorsements or recommendations from 250 MPs and local council members, in which Mubarak’s National Democratic Party dominates.

The main opposition to the referendum is focused with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood (which, let us not forget, was run for a time by bin Laden’s best bud Aiman al-Zawahiri). Mubarak has used his heavy hand in the past and police recently started to crack down harder on the group:

CAIRO (Reuters) - A crackdown on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has put the movement center stage as the government yields to demands for reform, but the conflict between the state and the Islamists is unlikely to escalate, analysts say.

Police have detained some 800 members of the influential group since March, including several of the leaders active in a broad-based campaign of demonstrations for more political freedom in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

The Brotherhood will take the blows in its stride and bide its time because its powerbase is secure, it knows it cannot outwit the vast Egyptian police force and resorting to violence would only play into government hands, the analysts said.

“They are willing to bear 10 times as many blows. They understand the nature of this phase and understand that any escalation will not be in their interests,” said Diaa Rashwan, an analyst who specializes in Islamist movements.

The prominence of the Brotherhood in opposition to President Hosni Mubarak also raises questions about the attitude of the United States, which says it favors political freedom but has not criticized the crackdown in public.

The Brotherhood has seen periods of repression much more severe than this during almost eight decades as a permanent feature in the Egyptian political landscape.

“They know they are no match to the security apparatus. They will keep a low profile as they have done for the past two or three decades,” said Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.

Abdel Moneim Aboul Futouh, a Brotherhood leader, told Reuters the organization would keep up the pressure, using solely political methods.

“The Brotherhood will continue. There is nothing to fear from the Brotherhood. They remain committed to peaceful means whatever it costs them for the sake of the goals of reform,” he said in an interview.

The balance of power has however shifted in the Brotherhood’s favor because the government faces a broad front of opposition forces demanding free and fair elections and an end to the emergency law which gives the authorities wide powers to detain opponents and restrict political activity.

Secretary Rice has stepped up the pressure of Mubarak, calling for freedom in the Middle East, which groups like the Muslim Brotherhood has seized upon as tacit support.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: See this gruesome report over at Abu Aardvark, which details how Mubarak’s hired henchmen beat dozens of men and women taking part in Kifaya demonstrations. He has the best coverage. Absolutely gruesome.

Of all the disgusting prosecutions, this one, against the great Oriana Fallaci, probably the finest journalist alive, is the most despicable. No one can compare to Oriana, no one has written with more powerful, penetrating insight and determination than she has. You don’t even need to agree with her to appreciate her. I tend to defend Islam, but she is far harsher. Doesn’t matter. No one writes more compellingly than Oriana, a true journalist’s journalist.

Which is why the Italian prosecution’s charges against her are so shameful. My own feeling about how nations want to tailor free speech is that it’s their own business (but thank goodness in the states our freedom as writers is nearly absolute). Now, as I see this selective prosecution, no doubt politically motivated, versus the kind of people they could be prosecuting instead, I am starting to have second thoughts. All speech needs to be free. This prosecution against a great journalist is a vile assault on everyone’s civil liberties. I hope Italians and everyone else who cherishes freedom of expression comes to her defense.

Footballs has the item here and Instapundit has some excellent commentary about this case here.

The Luis Posada Carriles terrorism case has drawn a consensus in the mainstream media about the guy’s guilt and the need to throw him in jail even if it is, or especially if it is, in Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela. Cuban Americans have a different view, though, and a prominent Cuban-American, Humberto Fontova, writes an essay that Val at Babalu has linked, exploring some of the complicating factors. It all looks very different to Cuban Americans who are united in their struggle against the monstrous Fidel Castro.

The fact that the mainstream media is in glee about having a Castro-resisting Cuban exile to bash is not lost on Cuban Americans. Fontova notes that this is the same crowd that sided with Castro on the Elian Gonzalez case, the people who knew Cuban reality oh so much better than mere Cuban exiles who’ve actually lived there. Fontova rakes pompous, ignorant Ted Koppel over the coals for sucking up to a Castroite minion, and then provides a list of real questions Koppel should have asked if he had the guts to be a real journo instead of a self-congratulating jackass. That in itself is delicious reading!