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Showing posts with label separatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label separatism. Show all posts

Monday, July 06, 2009

"Scores killed in China protests," BBC, July 6, 2009.

[This is not a new conflict. There is a history of violence on both sides. Why now? Is the Beeb playing a role in this, do you think? -jlt]

Violence in China's restive western region of Xinjiang has left at least 140 people dead and more than 800 people injured, state media say.

Several hundred people were arrested after a protest, in the city of Urumqi on Sunday, turned violent.

  The Xinjiang government blamed separatist Uighurs based abroad for orchestrating attacks on ethnic Han Chinese.

  Most of the violence is reported to have taken place in the city centre, around Renmin (People's) Square, Jiefang and Xinhua South Roads and the Bazaar.

Read the rest here =>

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

"Tax havens, sovereignty and coalition government," December 15, 2008.

  But here we see the so-called separatists persistently advancing a position for the benefit of Canada as a whole.

For a lot of Canadians, the sticking point in the Liberal-NDP coalition is that it is in league with the Bloc Quebecois.

I don't know much about the BQ, but I do know one thing I can share. A couple of years ago, I was researching a story on tax havens. Canadian companies use deliberately weak tax laws like Barbados, Cyprus or Malta to avoid paying taxes in Canada.

It's a big story that is almost completely unreported--like so many others: electoral reform, genocide in Darfur, sexual violence in Eastern Congo, blood diamonds or Uganda's multi-million dollar gold trade, to name just a few.

Ralph Nader writes about tax havens. In an article for CounterPunch, he cites Lucy Komisar of the Tax Justice Network in the US. She says “The tax haven racket is the biggest scam in the world" (Jun 12 07). It's one of those inherently international problems that will never be discussed by municipal councils or even provincial legislatures.

The OECD has taken up the problem of harmful tax practices and lists 36 countries as tax havens. In 1992, the Auditor General estimated that the existence of tax havens, including but not limited to Barbados, has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced Canadian tax revenues. More recent estimates by Statistics Canada run to tens of billions of dollars.

Nader's colleague, Lucy Komisar says that "...corporations and the rich have opted out of the tax system." and estimates that “half of world trade is between various parts of the same corporations.”

But this morning isn't a story about tax havens per se. You can find out more by reading the Nader article in CounterPunch or, for Canadian information, Hansard for the House of Commons. In 2005, Bev Oda was the Conservative Party's Canadian Heritage critic. During the 1st session of the 38th Parliament, she introduced what is the most comprehensive and detailed public information I have seen about tax havens in any jurisdiction.

The point for now is simply that this is not an inherently left- or right-wing, liberal or conservative issue. But since the Conservatives have come to form the government in 2006, they haven't said much about it.

However, one party has consistently raised the issue and introduced motions in the House to restrict or eliminate the use of tax havens. In 2001, Mr. Yvan Loubier, who was at that time the finance critic for the BQ raised this matter (Hansard Mar 2 01).

Again in 2003, Pierre Paquette (Joliette, BQ) moved: that in order to ensure tax equity, the government should terminate Canada's tax convention with Barbados, a tax haven, which enables wealthy Canadian taxpayers and companies to avoid their tax obligations, and that Canada should play a leadership role at the international level in activities to eliminate tax havens. (Hansard Sep 18 03)Again, in 2005, BQ Member of Parliament Mr. Guy Côté presented a similar motion. (Oct 6 05)

Like so many groups the mainstream media characterizes as "extremist," the defining characteristic--in this case "tearing Canada apart" or some vividly overstated version of the same idea--is really a conclusion reached after years of facing defeat, marginalization, misrepresentation, stonewalling and indifference on numerous other issues of importance.

Often there is a debate with in the "extremist" group about the value of democracy and even nonviolence as opposed to armed resistance.

But here we see the so-called separatists persistently advancing a position for the benefit of Canada as a whole. Whether the Liberal-NDP coalition with BQ support survives or not, it may be time to start choosing the less inflammatory terminology for framing the issue of Quebec sovereignty.

If we look at sovereigntist/separatist movements around the world in Chechnya, in Tibet or Xinjiang province, the Iwo in Nigeria, the Basques, or Irish republicans--to name just the best known--Canada has fared especially well in finding a political accommodation within Parliamentary democratic traditions.

In the last week or so, Stephen Harper has used the word "separatist" to stoke fear in the western provinces that the only item on the Bloc's agenda is to separate from Canada and that the Bloc would use their position in the coalition to gain concessions, especially in the form of a disproportionate amount of taxpayer's money for Quebec. But when speaking in French he uses the word "soveraintiste" or sovereigntist.

[clip how they choose to be described]

For Terry Noble at the Globe and Mail, "sovereigntist" is "politically correct" and deceptive; "separatist" is "the truth" and "the real word."

Norman Spector takes sovereigntist, separatist, secessionist and splittist to mean the same thing but with different connotations. Sovereigntist is "a positive word that emphasizes the country they hope to construct," while separatist is "a negative word that emphasizes the country they would de-construct."

"Secessionist," he seems to suggest, is neutral. But secession is the word used to describe an especially destructive American form of separation that resulted in the most lethal, fratricidal war ever to occur in the Western hemisphere.

Blogger Impudent strumpet looks at the terms from a linguistic perspective and agrees that "'separatist' is negative and 'sovereigntist,' positive.
"Separatists want to break away from something to which they belong, to destroy an existing union, The connotations are usually a bit extremist and a bit irrational (think Basque separatists, white separatists, black separatists, Tamil separatists, etc. etc.)

"'Sovereignty,' on the other hand, is a good thing. One's sovereignty over one's own body. Canada's sovereignty over its northern waters. Sovereigntists want to preserve their existing rights and freedoms.

"They are two separate concepts. They are separate concepts in most parts of the English-speaking world, and they are separate concepts in cognate languages, including French."

She attributes no motive to Harper for using the negative connotation in English and the postive in French. But Harper is clearly trying to frighten anglophones with the dual sociialist and separatist bogey men. And he is trying to woo Quebec voters.

Whenever Albertans don't get their way, threats of separation pop out of the woodwork. Fully believing that they ARE the West, Albertans have forged a theory of

"Western alienation" from this feeling. Newfie separatists come forward from time to time, regretting, as they say, that they ever allowed Joey Smallwood to convince them of Confederation. There are also separatists in BC who hunger for a chance to test their self-sufficiency.

More serious in the Canadan context are the sovereigntists--both those in Quebec and those among First Nations whose call is for territorial self-determination. Sovereignty differs from separation.

We all claim some form of sovereignty--over our bodies, our minds, our personhood. Canadians assert their sovereignty in the Arctic and worry that their sovereignty is threatened by the NAFTA, the Security and Prosperity Partnership and negotiations for a North American Union.

As Chantal Hebert suggests, this may not be the final form of the coalition.

[clip the discussion of these arrangements will become less foreign]

At least some Liberals are not ready to shut down tax havens. Martin's shipping companies made extensive use of them. Some Conservatives probably are--Bev Oda at the least. The NDP doesn't appear ever to have addressed the issue and cannot really be said to have much of a serious philosophy of taxation. But we all understand sovereignty and we understand the breakdown of democracy.

[clips the people are engaged]

Just recall, for instance, these excerpts from the APTN townhall meeting about the Duty to Consult, played several weeks ago.

[clips conducting band business from jail 2:25]

With the time that remains, let's give an ear to their discussion, with special attention to how the multi-dimensional issues of sovereignty and self-determination arise from a range of other considerations.

Jean Teillet is a Metis lawyer who explains her own credentials toward the end of her presentation. Joan Jack is Anishnabe and a lawyer. She worked on negotiations at Taku Lake.

[clip duty to consult part 2, 17 min]

Audio
A podcast of this piece--with the clips--is available here.

Audio sources of the quoted clips are available from the

At Issue Panel, December 3
At Issue Panel, December 5
APTN townhall on Duty to Consult, October 1


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Friday, September 26, 2008

"Georgia: Bomb Strikes Abkhaz Capital etc." New York Times et al., September 26, 2008.

[This mapping of the Caucasian issue should be understood in the context of earlier reports about the Georgian oppositions call for Saakashvili's ouster. -jlt]

Michael Schwirtz, "Georgia: Bomb Strikes Abkhaz Capital," New York Times, September 25, 2008.

A car bomb exploded in front of a law enforcement building early Thursday morning in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, the breakaway Georgian enclave, causing some structural damage but no casualties, a spokesman for Abkhazia’s Interior Ministry said. Abkhazia’s foreign minister suggested that Georgian intelligence services were behind the explosion, the Interfax news agency reported. Tensions remain high in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the other separatist region over which Georgia fought a short but bloody war with Russia last month. In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital, a 13-year-old boy was killed Thursday when an unidentified explosive device detonated after he picked it up, the separatist government’s official Web site reported.
AFP reports that "The incident came as a 13-year-old boy was killed by an explosive device near the main city in Georgia's other rebel region, South Ossetia, the separatist information agency there said."

AFP provides several quotations:
"Officials and a doorman at the security service building said the blast was caused by explosives packed in a Russian-made Lada car.

"'I was blown down by the blast, but not hurt,' the doorman, who requested anonymity, told AFP.

"Blaming Tbilisi for the blast, the Abkhaz separatists' foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, said: 'Such explosions are an activity of Georgian secret services with which we are well-acquainted.... We simply have no domestic reasons for such terror acts,' Interfax reported.

"Another Abkhaz official linked the blast to approaching independence celebrations on September 30, marking the end of fighting with central authorities in Tbilisi in the early 1990s.

"The claim that Tbilisi was involved was denied by the secretary of Georgia's security council, Alexander Lomaia.

"'These accusations are not substantiated at all. This is not the first case when something happens in these law-free areas,' Lomaia told AFP."
Read the whole AFP article here =>

Civil Georgia (Civil.ge) reports:
"The Abkhaz parliament has ratified a treaty on cooperation and friendship between Russia and the breakaway region, Russian news agencies reported on September 24.

"The treaty was signed by Russian President Medvedev and secessionist leader Sergey Bagapsh in Moscow on September 17. A similar treaty was signed with breakaway South Ossetia.

"Speaking in Parliament on September 24, Bagapsh reiterated that Russia would have two military bases in the region, one in Gudauta and the other – in Ochamchire.

“'The Russian army will have as many soldiers on Abkhaz territory as is necessary for the security of our republic,' Interfax news agency quoted Bagapsh as saying."
The Oregon-based iStockAnalyst passes along this report from Interfax:
(Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English)trackingMINSK. Sept 25 (Interfax) - The leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, have sent letters to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. They asked for Belarusian recognition of independence of their republics, a source at the Belarusian presidential office told Interfax on Thursday.

"Letters, which define the Belarusian position, will be sent to leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," the source said.

(c) 2008 Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
Finally a week-old article from RIA Novosti, Russia reports that the Security Council is interested in hearing from South Ossetian and Abkhazian representatives. However,
"'UN Security Council members have expressed great interest in such meeting, but we have not overcome the well-known obstacle of obtaining American visas and are currently working on this,' Vitaly Churkin said."
Uzbekistan has still not decided whether or not to recognize the two independent republics.
Read the rest of that story here =>

See also this Eurasia.net story about the 2014 Winter Olympic Games =>
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Monday, September 08, 2008

"Saakashvili Vows to Reclaim Abkhazia, South Ossetia," Antiwar.news, September 7, 2008.

With a NATO delegation scheduled to arrive in Georgia tomorrow to examine the damage done to the Caucasus nation’s military infrastructure, President Mikheil Saakashvili reiterated his vow to reclaim the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which were lost after a Georgian military assault on South Ossetia led to a brief war with Russia, claiming the rest of the world would unite against Russia to “restore” his nation’s territorial integrity.

Russia has recognized the independence of both enclaves, though the United States has promised to use its status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to ensure that neither will ever be recognized as independent from Georgia. Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently visited the region, has warned that Russia risks a “confrontation” with NATO, and has expressed US support for NATO membership for both Georgia and Ukraine. President Saakashvili, for his part, predicts future armed conflicts with Russia in the region, and cited the Ukraine-controlled Crimea as the source of a potential future war.

Read the rest here => Antiwar.news reports are rich with links.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008

Uri Avnery, "On Georgia: Hottentot morality," August 30, 2008.

...from Gush Shalom

But then, how can a country avoid disintegration? Very simple: it must convince the smaller peoples which live under its wings that it is worthwhile for them to remain there.


"If he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good" - this moral rule was attributed by European racists to the Hottentots, an ancient tribe in Southern Africa.

It's hard not to be reminded of this when the United States and the European countries cry out against Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces which seceded from the Republic of Sakartvelo, known in the West as Georgia.

Not so long ago, the Western countries recognized the Republic of Kosovo, which seceded from Serbia. The West argued that the population of Kosovo is not Serbian, its culture and language is not Serbian, and that therefore it has a right to independence from Serbia. Especially after Serbia had conducted a grievous campaign of oppression against them. I supported this view with all my heart. Unlike many of my friends, I even supported the military operation that helped the Kosovars to free themselves.

But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as the saying goes. What's true for Kosovo is no less true for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The population in these provinces is not Georgian, they have their own languages and ancient civilizations. They were annexed to Georgia almost by whim, and they have no desire to be part of it.

So what is the difference between the two cases? A huge one, indeed: the independence of Kosovo is supported by the Americans and opposed by the Russians. Therefore it's good. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is supported by the Russians and opposed by the Americans. Therefore it's bad. As the Romans said: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, what's allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to an ox.

I do not accept this moral code. I support the independence of all these regions.

In my view, there is one simple principle, and it applies to everybody: every province that wants to secede from any country has a right to do so. In this respect there is, for me, no difference between Kosovars, Abkhazians, Basques, Scots and Palestinians. One rule for all.


THERE WAS a time when this principle could not be implemented. A state of a few hundred thousand people was not viable economically, and could not defend itself militarily.

That was the era of the "nation state", when a strong people imposed itself, its culture and its language, on weaker peoples, in order to create a state big enough to safeguard security, order and a proper standard of living. France imposed itself on Bretons and Corsicans, Spain on Catalans and Basques, England on Welsh, Scots and Irish, and so forth.

That reality has been superseded. Most of the functions of the "nation state" have moved to super-national structures: large federations like the USA, large partnerships like the EU. In those there is room for small countries like Luxemburg beside larger ones like Germany. If Belgium falls apart and a Flemish state comes into being beside a Walloon state, both will be received into the EU, and nobody will be hurt. Yugoslavia has disintegrated, and each of its parts will eventually belong to the European Union.

That has happened to the former Soviet Union, too. Georgia freed itself from Russia. By the same right and the same logic, Abkhazia can free itself from Georgia.

But then, how can a country avoid disintegration? Very simple: it must convince the smaller peoples which live under its wings that it is worthwhile for them to remain there. If the Scots feel that they enjoy full equality in the United Kingdom, that they have been accorded sufficient autonomy and a fair slice of the common cake, that their culture and traditions are being respected, they may decide to remain there. Such a debate has been going on for decades in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.

The general trend in the world is to enlarge the functions of the big regional organizations, and at the same time allow peoples to secede from their mother countries and establish their own states. That is what happened in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Serbia and Georgia. That is bound to happen in many other countries.

Those who want to go in the opposite direction and establish, for example, a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state, are going against the Zeitgeist - to say the least.


THIS IS the historical background to the recent spat between Georgia and Russia. There are no Righteous Ones here. It is rather funny to hear Vladimir Putin, whose hands are dripping with the blood of Chechen freedom fighters, extolling the right of South Ossetia to secession. It's no less funny to hear Micheil Saakashvili likening the freedom fight of the two separatist regions to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The fighting reminded me of our own history. In the spring of 1967, I heard a senior Israeli general saying that he prayed every night for the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, to send his troops into the Sinai peninsula. There, he said, we shall annihilate them. Some months later, Nasser marched into the trap. The rest is history.

Now Saakashvili has done precisely the same. The Russians prayed for him to invade South Ossetia. When he walked into this trap, the Russians did to him what we did to the Egyptians. It took the Russians six days, the same as it took us.

Nobody can know what was passing through the mind of Saakashvili. He is an inexperienced person, educated in the United States, a politician who came to power on the strength of his promise to bring the separatist regions back to the homeland. The world is full of such demagogues, who build a career on hatred, super-nationalism and racism. We have more than enough of them here, too.

But even a demagogue does not have to be an idiot. Did he believe that President Bush, who is bankrupt in all fields, would rush to his aid? Did he not know that America has no soldiers to spare? That Bush's warlike speeches are being carried away by the wind? That NATO is a paper tiger? That the Georgian army would melt like butter in the fire of war?


I AM curious about our part in this story.

In the Georgian government there are several ministers who grew up and received their education in Israel. It seems that the Minister of Defense and the Minister for Integration (of the separatist regions) are also Israeli citizens. And most importantly: that the elite units of the Georgian army have been trained by Israeli officers, including the one who was blamed for losing Lebanon War II. The Americans, too, invested much effort in training the Georgians.

I am always amused by the idea that it is possible to train a foreign army. One can, of course, teach technicalities: how to use particular weapons or how to conduct a battalion-scale maneuver. But anyone who has taken part in a real war (as distinct from policing an occupied population) knows that the technical aspects are secondary. What matters is the spirit of the soldiers, their readiness to risk their lives for the cause, their motivation, the human quality of the fighting units and the command echelon.

Such things cannot be imparted by foreigners. Every army is a part of its society, and the quality of the society decides the quality of the army. That is particularly true in a war against an enemy who enjoys a decisive numerical superiority. We experienced that in the 1948 war, when David Ben-Gurion wanted to impose on us officers who were trained in the British army, and we, the combat soldiers, preferred our own commanders, who were trained in our underground army and had never seen a military academy in their lives.

Only professional generals, whose whole outlook is technical, imagine that they could "train" soldiers of another people and another culture - in Afghanistan, Iraq or Georgia.

A well developed trait among our officers is arrogance. In our case, it is generally connected with a reasonable standard of the army. If the Israeli officers infected their Georgian colleagues with this arrogance, convincing them that they could beat the mighty Russian army, they committed a grievous sin against them.


I DO NOT believe that this is the beginning of Cold War II, as has been suggested. But this is certainly a continuation of the Great Game.

This appellation was given to the relentless secret struggle that went on all through the 19th century along Russia's southern border between the two great empires of the time: the British and the Russian. Secret agents and not so secret armies were active in the border regions of India (including today's Pakistan), Afghanistan, Persia and so on. The "North-West Frontier" (of Pakistan), which is starring now in the war against the Taliban, was already legendary then.

Today, the Great Game between the current two great empires - the USA and Russia - is going on all over the place from the Ukraine to Pakistan. It proves that geography is more important than ideology: Communism has come and gone, but the struggle goes on as if nothing has happened.

Georgia is a mere pawn in the chess game. The initiative belongs to the US: it wants to encircle Russia by expanding NATO, an arm of US policy, all along the border. That is a direct threat to the rival empire. Russia, on its part, is trying to extend its control over the resources most vital to the West, oil and gas, as well as their routes of transportation. That can lead to disaster.


WHEN Henry Kissinger was still a wise historian, before he became a foolish statesman, he expounded an important principle: in order to maintain stability in the world, a system has to be formed that includes all the parties. If one party is left outside, stability is in danger.

He cited as an example the "Holy Alliance" of the great powers that came into being after the Napoleonic wars. The wise statesmen of the time, headed by the Austrian Prince Clemens von Metternich, took care not to leave the defeated French outside, but, on the contrary, gave them an important place in the Concert of Europe.

The present American policy, with its attempt to push Russia out, is a danger to the whole world. (And I have not even mentioned the rising power of China.)

A small country which gets involved in the struggle between the big bullies risks being squashed. That has happened in the past to Poland, and it seems that it has not learned from that experience. One should advise Georgia, and also the Ukraine, not to emulate the Poles but rather the Finns, who since world War II have pursued a wise policy: they guard their independence but endeavor to take the interest of their mighty neighbor into account.

We Israelis can, perhaps, also learn something from all of this: that it is not safe to be a vassal of one great Empire and provoke the rival empire. Russia is returning to our region, and every move we make to further American expansion will surely be countered by a Russian move in favor of Syria and Iran.

So let's not adopt the "Hottentot morality". It is not wise, and certainly not moral.
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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Neal Ascherson, "After the war: Recognising reality in Abkhazia and Georgia," openDemocracy, August 19,2008.

The best thing that the west can now do is to stop talking about "Georgian territorial integrity". It is dangerously absurd for politicians and the media (even the BBC) to describe South Ossetia and Abkhazia as "breakaway regions of Georgia", as if their "illegal secession" can somehow be reversed. It cannot.

The Russian soldiers are not the worst. They have won their victory, and now hang about Georgia mopping up. Much more terrible are the civilians and volunteers who come behind the soldiers, the big-bellied men with guns, knives and army jackets thrown over their T-shirts. They are doing the murdering, the looting and burning, the "cleansing" as they drive the last Georgians out of South Ossetia. The flight of the Georgian army has let them into Georgian territory as far as Gori, so they are following and killing them there.
They are Ossetians, helped by savage warriors from other nationalities in the northern Caucasus and by ultra-patriotic Russian "Cossacks". A year ago, most of these Ossetians probably lived in neighbourly peace with the local Georgians in the next village. But the spark of war ignites madness. The neighbours become "other": traitors, spies, saboteurs, snipers. They must be rooted out, exterminated.

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George Hewitt, "Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution," openDemocracy, August 19, 2008.

[The story of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is not a simple one. Robert Hewitt's sympathies clearly lie with the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and that is a refreshing change from the posturing and gamesmanship that have characterized so much of what has been said to date about the Five Day War between Russia and Georgia. This article has lots of useful links and references to other articles. -jlt]

...since the early 1990s, and notwithstanding its clear culpability in the wars on the two territories, Georgia has - at any point of crisis or argument around either of these "frozen" conflicts - been able to call upon its fellow United Nations members to insist on the observation of the principle of territorial integrity; in effect, saying that Georgia can do as it pleases with regard to its "internal" problems and nuisance-peoples.

The Georgia-Russia war of August 2008 carries a vital lesson: the small territories that broke from Georgia's control in the early 1990s have their own voice, identity, and interest. They must be active participants in deciding their own future, says George Hewitt, the leading scholar of Abkhazian linguistics and history.
On the second full day of the Georgia-Russia war of 8-12 August 2008, Russian patrol-boats operating off the Black Sea shore of Abkhazia sank four Georgian vessels apparently intent on landing in the territory. The identity of these vessels is not yet clear, but it is interesting to note that a published list of military equipment in the possession of the Georgian government - equipment largely supplied over many years by Tbilisi's western friends - includes a ship called the General Mazniashvili.

Why interesting? Because General Mazniashvili (aka Mazniev) is best known for his role in spreading "fire and sword" through Abkhazia and South Ossetia on behalf of Georgia's Menshevik government of 1918-21. The naming of the ship is a revealing indicator of current official Georgian sentiment about a figure central to the pitiless effort ninety years ago to establish control over these two areas. It is also a reminder to Abkhazians and South Ossetians that their hard-won freedom from Georgian rule in the brutal wars of the early 1990s is part of a longer history of defence of their integrity that deserves the world's attention, understanding and respect.

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Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Franz Chavez, "Bolivia: Indigenous leaders beaten and publicly humiliated," Green Left Online, May 31, 2008.

In the city’s main square, they were forced to kneel — shirtless — and apologise for coming to Sucre. They were also made to chant insults like “Die Evo!”


Bolivia may have its first-ever indigenous president, but racism is alive and well in this country, as demonstrated by the public humiliation of a group of around 50 indigenous mayors, town councillors and community leaders in the south-central city of Sucre.

The incident, which shook the country but received little attention from the international press, occurred on May 25, when President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, was to appear in a public ceremony in Sucre to deliver 50 ambulances for rural communities and announce funding for municipal projects.

But in the early hours of May 25, organised groups opposed to Morales began to surround the stadium where he was to appear. Confronting the police and soldiers with sticks, stones and dynamite, they managed to occupy the stadium.

The president cancelled his visit, and the security forces were withdrawn to avoid bloodshed.

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