Long before this year’s Georgian war, I chatted to a European foreign policy expert recently returned from the Caucasian flash-point. He was shocked to discover that UN peacekeepers there did not patrol at night (similar limitations beset the UN in Congo, a problem during the ongoing crisis there). Now that the EU has its own monitors in-country, are they any better after dark? Maybe not…
EU cease-fire monitors in Georgia claimed a small victory when Russian forces pulled back from a disputed village near breakaway South Ossetia, but witnesses have said they returned with nightfall.
Georgia has condemned the Russian presence in Perevi as a violation of the cease-fire brokered after their five-day war in August, when Russia intervened in its ex-Soviet neighbor to halt a Georgian military assault on pro-Russian South Ossetia.
News of the troops’ departure eased fears of confrontation in the area, where some of the 1,100 villagers had packed up and left. European Union monitors said the pullback came at their insistence and followed discussions with the Russian Foreign Ministry and military.
But by nightfall, a regional police source said around 20 Russian soldiers with a single armored vehicle had returned to a checkpoint in Perevi. A police spokesman confirmed the account. An EU spokeswoman said a patrol would check the village in the morning.
Nevermind the bargains at Woolies this week, Country Road Casual Wear in Harare is the place to go if you’re a member of Zimbabwe’s army – as Tom says to Nick the Greek in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: “It’s a deal, it’s a steal, it’s the Sale of the fucking Century!”
Meanwhile Mugabe is cracking some hilarious jokes – his latest one: “there is no cholera”! According to The Herald newspaper:
George Charamba, Mr Mugabe’s spokesman, said that the octogenarian president was using “sarcasm” when he made the statement.
There are many reasons why American foreign policy has been so teeth-grindingly awful during the Bush years, but the hiring policy for ambassadors probably didn’t help.
Thomas Schweich had three senior diplomatic jobs under Bush. Each time, he had to run the gamut of the politically-appointed ‘kids’ (sons and daughters of Bush supporters, campaign workers etc) who had taken over the personnel department. What they lacked in experience, they made up for in attitude, he says.
“For two of these jobs, my appointment was preceded by an effort by a 20-something in personnel to place an unqualified friend in the job,” he writes. “In the third instance, the State Department went out of its way to avoid the personnel office by appealing directly to a senior assistant to the president.”
Others had a similar experience:
Another top foreign service officer called me after his interview to be ambassador to a volatile African country. “The problem was,” he told me, “the kid interviewing me could not pronounce the name of the country I was being interviewed for. It made for an awkward interview until he just started saying ‘the country we are considering you for.'”
This is a response to some thoughtful reactions to my earlier post on democracy in Thailand, and to arguments made in last week’s Economist about the situation there.
My arguments are no vindication of the PAD, whose reckless actions I find condemnable and ultimately counter-productive and whose proposals (including the 70% vote) are misguided. My intention was to provide some background on the current political situation, background that I found lacking in my main news sources. And to challenge the simplistic notion that what we are seeing is a rejection of democracy by rich urban elites who feel threatened by a democratic government that cares for and represents the poor. There are many valid reasons why ordinary citizens from all walks of life united against an elected government: their primary motive was not to defeat democracy, rather to fight its abuses.
The portrayal of the current political crisis as a battle of rich urban elites versus a majority of poor rural folk united behind the popular Mr. Thaksin is inaccurate and unhelpful. Poor farmers in the north like Mr. Thaksin. Poor city-folk in Bangkok don’t. Poor Muslims in the south hate him. While Mr. Thaksin’s party gained the most seats in parliament, more people voted against him than voted for him. He doesn’t have the kind of broad-based popular mandate that many commentators credit him with.
Conversely the PAD are not a homogenous group. As last week’s Economist put it: “the PAD is a motley bunch, united only in its fanatical hatred of Mr. Thaksin”. It is Mr. Thaksin’s abuses of power that they are outraged about, not his policies to help the poor. People did not take to the streets in protest when Mr. Thaksin first announced and implemented his “populist” policies. Neither were there street protests when his crack-down on drugs led to extrajudicial killings of hundreds (thousands?) of supposed drug traffickers many in dubious circumstances. Neither did they take to the streets when he botched up the relative peace in the south. Thais have a high tolerance for politicians’ professional shortcomings.
But what many Thais could not stomach was Mr. Thaksin’s reckless bending of the system to suit his own personal needs. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Thaksin used some cunning structures to avoid paying tax on the sale of Shin Corp to Temasek. He also had changed a law to aid in this sale. That was what brought people into the streets in protest, and led to the formation of the PAD.
