Foreign Digest: Spain, Iraq and Russia

Spain: Catalonian independence referendum

            A referendum on independence from Spain was held last week in the Spanish province of Catalonia.  The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of independence, but voter participation was well under 50%.  Spain does not recognize the referendum’s validity and insists that the actions by Catalonian authorities to advance independence have been illegal.  Alas, Spanish authorities acted in a heavy-handed manner in attempting to thwart the vote.

            Catalan-speaking Catalonia is the most prosperous province of Spain.  Catalan is a Romance language between Spanish and French.  Spain is a diverse country with both non-Romance speakers (the Basques) and other Romance-languages, such as Aragonese and Galician.  It has maintained its unity since the marriage of Isabel of Castile and Leon and Ferdinand of Aragon in the Fifteenth Century.

           

            Hundreds of thousands of Catalonians rallied today in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, for unity with Spain, while there were rallies in support of Spanish unity in other European cities.  The European Union is concerned about the possible breakup of Spain.  The Russian Federation has engaged in active measures in support of splitting up Spain, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to weaken the West.  Spain is an ally of the United States in the War on Terrorism.

Iraqis defeat the Islamic State

            The “Islamic State” violent jihadis were ousted last week from their last stronghold in Iraq by Iraqi government forces.  The terrorist organization, which is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, holds only some dwindling swaths of territory in Syria while a few scattered former al-Qaeda organizations throughout the Islamic world remain loyal to the its self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.  Like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State remains a threat where they are based and inspires Islamist militancy and terrorism around the globe.

Russian democratic opposition protests

            More protests by the democratic opposition have been occurring across Russia against the corrupt, authoritarian regime.  These protests were timed for the birthday of Russian Federation tyrant Vladimir Putin.  Each time, there are arrests of demonstrators, including of the opposition leader, as the dictatorship does not tolerate dissent, including the freedom to assemble peacefully.  

           The United States Congress over two months ago approved increased economic sanctions on the Russian Federation for human rights violations, which were also widely perceived as punishment for Russian interference in the American presidential election.  Donald Trump, who signed the sanctions into law, despite his opposition to the sanctions and the diminishment of presidential authority to lift them, has missed the first 60-day deadline in the process of their imposition.