Foreign Digest Updates: Nicaragua, Italy and Russia

Nicaragua: the Marxist government gives into protesters

            The Marxist Sandinista Nicaraguan Government acquiesced last week to the demands of protestors who had opposed the increasingly authoritarian government’s plans for insurance.  The demonstrations earlier this month were deadly because of the regime’s crackdown.

Italy: update on the Italian Parliamentary Elections

            The President of the Italian Republic gave an exploratory mandate over a week ago to the President of the Senate, a member of the leading conservative party, to see if a coalition government could be formed between the right-wing bloc, which won the most votes and seats in the parliamentary elections in March, and the anti-establishment populists, who were the single party that won the most votes and seats.  After the failure of this mandate, because the populists refused to govern with the Senate President’s party, that of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the President granted an exploratory mandate last week to the President of the lower Chamber of Deputies, who is a member of the populist party, to try to form a government between his party and the center-left party, which won the second most votes, but which was the party’s worst ever result.  The liberals are split over whether to remain in opposition or to try to negotiate the formation of a coalition government with the populists.  There are some areas of agreement between the two parties, but clear differences between the anti-European populists and the pro-European liberals.  A likely result is the failure of this mandate, followed by the calling by the President for new elections.  Both the leading right-wing party and the populists suggest a return to the urns in June.  Based upon polls and the results of regional elections, the right-wing bloc is confident it will again win the most votes and seats, with probably more than it did in March.  The question then would be whether it can gain a majority and which of its two main parties would gain the most votes and thus make a claim to the premiership.

Russia: more protests

           There were more protests in Russia over the weekend as demonstrators took to the streets to protest censorship of the Internet by Vladimir Putin’s oligarchic, authoritarian Russian Federation regime.  There have been protests over the last few months against corruption and the barring of the democratic opposition leader from being a candidate for President.  The freedom of the press and assembly are not respected by the regime and elections in Russia are hardly free and fair. 

Foreign Digest: Turkey, Nicaragua and Hungary

Turkey

            The authoritarian Islamist Turkish Government continues its crackdown after the attempted military coup in the summer of 2016, with hundreds of more arrests earlier this month and another extension of the state of emergency that permits the government to exercise even more powers than usual.  Tens of thousands of Turks have been fired or arrested because of alleged ties to the coup plotters.  The crackdown has given the excuse to the increasingly authoritarian Turkish President to quash all dissent.

Nicaragua

            There have been deadly protests over the last several days against the Nicaraguan government’s insurance policies.  The Marxist Sandinista regime had been dictators who took power in 1979 until they lost an election at the end of the Cold War.  They returned to power in the 2010s by winning elections, but, as I have posted previously, they have been somewhat authoritarian, inspired by the socialist revolution of the late Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez.  Chavez was elected President of Venezuela, but became authoritarian, as his Socialist successor.

Hungary

            There were more protests over the weekend against the increasingly “illiberal” government since the election a week ago that the democratic opposition regarded as not totally free and fair.  In Eastern Europe, as in Latin America and Turkey, there has been a trend towards authoritarianism.  In addition to the Russian Federation, the former Soviet satellites of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic are among examples of the disturbing drift from liberty.   

Foreign Digest: Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Hungary and Syria

Brazil, South Korea and South Africa

            There have recently been several investigations and convictions of former elected Presidents around the world for financial corruption. 

            The former liberal President of Brazil was convicted of corruption and last week began serving his prison sentence.  His successor from the same liberal party had been impeached and removed from office last year for corruption.

The former President of South Korea was convicted of corruption earlier this month.  She had been impeached and removed for corruption.

The former President of South Africa, the leftist who was removed from office last month for corruption, was last week placed under investigation for the same charges.

Hungary

            The far-right anti-immigrant, authoritarian President of Hungary was reelected last week to his third consecutive term and fourth overall. The elections were not completely free and fair, as he has admitted to being “illiberal.” Thousands of protestors took to the streets this weekend to protest the electoral law.  Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic have become less free and, except for Poland, pro-Russian, despite being members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Syria

            After international observers again reported recently that the Baathist Syrian tyrannical regime of Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, including the banned sarin gas, in addition to chlorine, against civilians in Syria’s civil war, the Russian Federation again blocked any action last week by the United Nations Security Council and tried to cast doubt on the obvious facts.  In response, the United States, France and the United Kingdom launched military strikes this weekend against Syrian chemical weapons of mass destruction program (WMD) targets.  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization expressed support for the raid.  The strikes were more robust than those by the U.S. last year that were in response to the Syrian use of chemical WMDs.  However, Donald Trump, the pretender to the American presidency whose election the Russians had supported, telegraphed the strikes to the Syrians and signaled to Syria’s Russian backers ahead of time that they would be limited in scope, focused on chemical WMDs and not regime change.

Russia and Iran are allies of the Assad regime in the war, along with Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist organization sponsored by Iran and Syria.  Russia claims its intervention was intended to fight “terrorists” but it backs the terrorist-sponsoring Assad and focuses primarily on targeting non-Islamist rebels.  Syria and Russia commit war crimes by targeting innocent civilians with conventional weapons like barrel bombs in heavily populated areas and by deliberately targeting hospitals.  Russia has long maintained a base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.  Despite a deconfliction protocol with the U.S., Russian forces have occasionally attacked American positions.  

The Syrian civil war started in 2011 as Syrians rose up against tyranny.  The war has claimed half a million lives and made ten million people refugees, thus creating the largest refugee crisis for Europe since the Second World War.  In addition to non-Islamist and Kurdish rebels, some of which are American-backed, Islamist terrorists like al-Qaeda and its offshoot, the Islamic State, also participate in the multi-sided war.  An international coalition of mostly Western and Arab states led by the U.S. has been targeting the Islamists in Syria and Iraq.  Turkey opposes the Syrian regime but focuses its efforts against the Kurds.  Israel occasionally strikes Hezbollah or Syrian WMD targets.  There has been no international threat to remove the Syrian regime or even to punish it for its non-WMD atrocities.  

Nine-Year Blog Visit Report

           StatCounter has now entered its tenth year of tracking visits to my blog, which it has been doing since April 2, 2009.  Since then, more than 7,100 strictly-defined visits have been tracked, not counting my own and counting only identifiable visits to specific pages at least one hour apart.  There were around 340 visits, which was nearly an equal number as last year.  There have been thousands of additional page-views. 

            The blog host, Blogger, tracks many more page-views than StatCounter, but its less specificity allows for less analysis than the latter.

            As has been the case in recent years, most visits have been to my blog’s homepage, instead of to individual posts.  The same posts as before remain the all-time most popular, but with a different distribution of visits over the last year.  Useless Cabinet Departments, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2011/03/useless-cabinet-departments.html; The Reverend Monsignor Felix A Losito, Rest in Peace, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2011/11/reverend-monsignor-felix-losito-rest-in.html; Chester Alan Arthur, the Most Underrated President, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2012/04/chester-arthur-most-underrated-us.html; and Commentary on the Roman Influence on America Exhibit at the Constitution Center, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2010/07/commentary-on-roman-influence-on.html were the most popular since the last report.

            As usual, in addition to Pennsylvania, the American States with the larger populations tend to be the source of most visits.  There were no changes to the all-time leaders in countries that were sources of visits, although there have been fewer from predominately Islamic countries in recent years like Malaysia and Algeria, which were the two leading sources of visits outside the States.  There was a significant increase from Germany this last year.  

           Thank you for visiting, as well as following, commenting or providing positive feedback offline.  I appreciate your patronage.  With liberty increasingly under assault both at home and abroad, it is all the more important to exercise the freedom of expression.

Winnie Mandela Was Not an Anti-Apartheid “Freedom Fighter”

           In the reports from the liberal media today on the death of South African Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, as well as in comments by political observers, she is referred to variously as having been a “freedom fighter” who fought against “injustice” and “apartheid,” the South African racial segregation policy, and is praised as a heroine, albeit a “controversial” one.  These reports and observations are misleading.

            Winnie Mandela promoted the cause of her husband while he was incarcerated for 27 years—not for being anti-apartheid, but for sabotage, and was kept in prison for refusing to renounce violence on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC).  See also my post Nelson Mandela Was neither a Political Prisoner nor Imprisoned for Opposing Apartheid from December of 2013, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2013/12/nelson-mandela-was-neither-political.html.   Her words and deeds were not done for freedom and justice, or even primarily against apartheid, but in favor of Marxist revolution.  Furthermore, she did not oppose apartheid justly, but promoted and committed unjustified violence, meaning that the violence was not limited to fighting the South African military or police, but were crimes against humanity that were usually committed against other blacks who opposed the ANC and its Marxist goals.  South Africa’s post-apartheid reconciliation tribunal determined that she had committed assault, kidnapping, torture and murder.  In addition, she had openly promoted murder, specifically by the ANC’s favorite method of “necklacing,” which was the practice of placing tires around the necks of blacks and setting the victims ablaze.  Winnie Mandela escaped justice for these crimes, but was later convicted of and imprisoned for corruption.  Nelson Mandela later divorced his wife because of her adultery.

            It is important to consider that the ANC got into and has remained in power as the dominant party in South Africa because it had murdered many of its black opponents. 

            The reaction from the left to Mandela’s passing is reminiscent to that in regard to Fidel Castro, the Communist Cuban tyrant, at his death in 2016.  Castro was praised and his killing of several thousand Cubans, torture and oppression, support for Marxist revolution abroad and state sponsorship of terrorism was either ignored or minimized or even justified.  There seems to be a double standard for violence committed by Marxists or by those who justifiably oppose them, as well as a double standard for violence committed against blacks by black leftists versus committed by whites.  There is also a double standard on the left between those who are anti-American and the United States and its allies. 

           Although violence can be justifiable and committed in a legitimate manner, Marxism can never be a justifiable cause to commit violence.  Regardless of the cause it is intended to serve, violence committed for evil reasons, such as crimes against humanity, is necessarily illegitimate.  Such evil deeds ought to be regarded as not as only “controversial,” but universally condemned.  True freedom fighters should be supported and praised and held up as better models than criminals.  

Happy Easter!

         
           I wish you a Happy Easter! We are reminded today of the virtue of hope. May God bless you.