We write as a group of concerned despots and monsters with expertise in the area of unconstitutional practices.
Earlier today a letter signed by twenty-seven respected legal academics was published, condemning the wide powers granted to the Government under the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010.
We share the deep concern expressed by Gerry Brownlee, the recipient of these extraordinary powers, about the academics' response when he says:
I am on strongly on the side of people whose lives have been dislocated, not the hand-wringing academics who frankly are contributing nothing to the recovery effort.We remain hopeful that the desire to do “everything we can” in the short term will blind the people of New Zealand to the long-term harms of the actions of their politicians. In particular, abandoning established constitutional values and principles in order to remove any inconvenient legal roadblock is just the sort of thing we like to see. It would have been more fitting had tanks and armoured vehicles been involved in the granting of these wide powers, but we understand that the vehicles used by the New Zealand army can't be relied upon to stay roadworthy.
What our Parliament has done, in just a single day, by unanimously passing the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010 represents an extraordinarily broad transfer of lawmaking power away from Parliament and to the executive branch, with minimal constraints on how that power may be used.
So for passing this constitutional outrage in record time we congratulate the Parliament of New Zealand. In years to come, statues will be erected to the brave soldiers of the realm who preserved us from the dangers of dissension and disorder, and from the ever-present meddling of outsiders. But let us not forget that without this supremely supine act by the representatives who were meant to be the guardians of democracy, there could be no Fatherland.
Signed:
General Idriss Déby Itno, President of Chad
Raul Castro, President of Cuba
Yahya Jammeh, President of Gambia
Aleksander Lukashenku, President of Belarus
Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe
Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt
King Mswati III of Swaziland
Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba
Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria
Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia
Isaias Afwerki, President of Eritrea
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, President of Turkmenistan
Meles Zenawi Asres, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran
Kim Jong Il, North Korean President
Than Shwe, Burmese general and strongman
Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan
Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Blaise Compaoré, President of Birkina Faso
Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda
Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea
Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan
Muammar al-Gadaffi, President of Libya
Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
François Bozizé, President of Central African Republic
In what sense is comrade Chavez a tyrant? He just held yet another democratic election (probably not perfectly democratic, as there are questions of gerrymandering in some rural electorates and so on, but at least as democratic as those of many Western democracies), and got cleaned out in quite a few electorates, and I don't know of a political prisoner in Venezuela. I notice that papers like the Torygraph have to use rather contradictory constructions like 'elected autocrat' to describe him...
ReplyDeleteWell perhaps not a tyrant, but then certainly not squeaky-clean. I'm not an expert on Venezeulan politics or history, but my best friend Wikipedia seems to point to a number of human rights violations under Chavez.
ReplyDeleteAh yes Maps, I was rather dismayed to see Mr Chavez's name on a list of tyrants. I'm rather a fan of the man.
ReplyDeleteAgain, because I’m too lazy to do my own research, my friend Wikipedia sails to the rescue:
ReplyDelete“In 2008, Human Rights Watch criticized Chavez for engaging in "often discriminatory policies that have undercut journalists' freedom of expression." Freedom House lists Venezuela's press as being "Not Free" in its 2009 Map of Press Freedom. Reporters Without Borders has criticized the Chavez administration for "steadily silencing its critics" In the group's 2009 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders noted that "Venezuela is now among the region’s worst press freedom offenders."”
Not the worst, but hardly a model democrat, eh?
Freedom House is a dodgy right-wing organisation which gave people like Pinochet a free pass whilst criticisng leftist administrations. Human Rights Watch and Journalists Without Borders must be taken seriously as sources, but I note that they have criticised countries like the US and Britain very vigorously in recent years over issues like rendition, detention without trial, and, of course, wars in the Middle East. I don't think, though, that you'd include Obama and David Cameron on your list of tyrants, would you?
ReplyDeleteI'm not aware of Chavez shutting a newspaper down, despite the fact that opposition papers have frequently called for his assasination, and supported the right-wing insurgents who have assassinated hundreds of left-wing peasant leaders in the Venezuelan countryside over the last decade. Allende shut a number of newspapers down, after they called for violence against his government: does that mean he was a tyrant? What about the first Kiwi Labour government, which took over the radio industry and put a Labour man in charge of it, and later shut down a slew of publications like Tomorrow and the People's Voice because they criticised wartime conscription? It's hard to think of Michael Joseph Savage as a tyrant, isn't it? I just think there is a little subtlety missing here...
Cheney and his handpuppet Bush surely earned their place on that list above Chavez
ReplyDeleteFrom Amnesty International this year:
ReplyDeleteAmnesty International urged the Venezuelan authorities to stop targeting government critics following a series of politically motivated arrests.
At least three individuals seen as opposed to President Hugo Chávez were arrested and charged in March alone.
“Charges brought for political reasons against critics are being used to silence dissent and prevent others from speaking out” said Guadalupe Marengo, Americas Deputy Director at Amnesty International.
“President Chavez must stop persecuting those who think differently or speak out against his government.”
Arresting people who don't agree with you is certainly a step towards tyranny.
"Cheney and his handpuppet Bush surely earned their place on that list above Chavez"
ReplyDeleteI only had 27 places. Wish I'd included Bainamarama now.
'Arresting people who don't agree with you is certainly a step towards tyranny.'
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with the cases in question, but if arresting people on political grounds qualifies one as a tyrant, in and of itself, why not include in your list good old Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser, who had loads of people chucked in the slammer for political dissent during the '40s, or Sid Holland, who put Jock Barnes and other leftists away in '51, or Edward Heath, who interned hundreds of Irish republicans without trial in the '70s, or Bush and Blair, who allowed the arrest and detention without trial of scores of men on essentially political rather than criminal grounds, or any number of other Western leaders? I do think the list's conflation of Chavez with someone like the leader of Sudan or Kim Jong-il really is ridiculous.
Now that I look at it again, the list includes Kagame, the more-or-less democratically elected leader of Rwanda. Kagame may not be the ideal democrat, and Rwanda may not be Sweden, but in the context of what went on there in the '80s and early '90s does he really deserve to be labelled a tyrant? From what I read freedom of the press and freedom to form political parties and contest elections exists in Rwanda under Kagame. His forces deposed a genocidal regime and have apparently have had at least some success in rebuilding the country and trying the genocidaires without indulging in vengeance. Kagame may be worth criticising in various ways, but chucking him on a list that includes someone like the leader of Sudan, who is utterly undemocratic and certainly is guilty of causing large numbers of civilian deaths, seems a little insensitive. How did you choose this list, anyway? Did you just run through some of the world's darkie leaders, on the assumption that they must all be bad buggers like that Idi Amin bloke?
“why not include in your list good old Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser”
ReplyDeleteDead people can’t sign letters*.
“or Bush and Blair, who allowed the arrest and detention without trial of scores of men on essentially political rather than criminal grounds, or any number of other Western leaders?”
Almost all the leaders I chose rule countries where media freedom is stifled, opposition to the government’s rule is dangerous, and elections are neither free nor fair. As loathsome as Bush and Blair may be (and I certainly have no love for them) they at least ruled genuine democracies where (at least for the vast majority of their citizens) the rule of law offers protection, and where the media is reasonably free to report what it likes (whether it chooses to is another matter…).
“I do think the list's conflation of Chavez with someone like the leader of Sudan or Kim Jong-il really is ridiculous.”
I wouldn’t want to be ruled by any of the people on the list, though I’m happy to acknowledge that some are much worse than others. I never claimed they were as bad as each other.
As for Paul Kagame, he’s no saint, though again he’s not an absolute monster like Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. Kagame has been accused of being involved in shooting down the plane containing the then Rwandan president, whose death sparked the Rwandan genocide. Kagame was also heavily involved In the Second Congo War, in which Rwanda invaded Congo, and in which thousands of Congolese civilians were deliberately killed by Rwandan forces. Rwandan forces looted much of Congo’s mineral resources during that conflict, and many believe Rwanda’s invasion of Congo during the Second Congo war was motivated chiefly by a desire to exploit Congo’s mineral wealth. Kagame has been condemned by many groups for stifling dissent, and freedom of the press in Rwanda is largely non-existent. A number of opposition figures were murdered during the recent 2010 elections.
“Did you just run through some of the world's darkie leaders, on the assumption that they must all be bad buggers like that Idi Amin bloke?”
They’re not all “darkies” (to use your term). It’s no accident, though, that a lot of the people on the list come from Africa. Africa is the poorest place on the planet because it has so many appalling governments.
I’m sorry you’ve taken this so seriously. It was meant to be a bit of light whimsy. It was never my intention to tarnish the reputation of someone who is only occasionally tyrannical and who only sometimes crushes dissent.
* except where David Garrett is involved
'It was meant to be a bit of light whimsy'
ReplyDeleteBut it's when we're light-hearted that we relax and let slip all sorts of interesting background assumptions we hold, often unconsciously, about the world. That's why Freud found jokes so fascinating.
'Almost all the leaders I chose rule countries where media freedom is stifled, opposition to the government’s rule is dangerous, and elections are neither free nor fair'
My point really is that Venezuela doesn't fit this description - certainly, not more than the the US or the UK or any number of other Western nations. I think it'd be very hard to find any serious commentator on the country who called Chavez a dictator (my academic take on the background to Chavez is reproduced here:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2007/01/
analysing-bolivarian-revolution.html)
Venezuela is far too hot for me to settle in, but I'd be happy to live under Chavez and his PSUV government, if they could be transplanted to these isles - I blogged about what I think we can learn from them here:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2010/09/
lessons-from-christchurch.html
Fair enough about Kagame. I suspect that the deficiencies of African governments have something to do with the legacy of colonialism and with the role African societies play in what is a neo-colonial world economy. And when the Africans get a decent leader (Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara) imperialist nations do have a habit of knocking him off.
Okay, let's do a deal.
ReplyDeleteWe agree Chavez may be a suspect call. I'm not entirely convinced by your argument, but you may well know more on the subject than I do and I'm not going to hold dogmatically to a position that I can't justify without a great deal of research and reading that I can't really be bothered to undertake.
In return we keep Kagame. Peace is restored :)
I agree about the reasons why many African governments are so appalling. Colonialism has a lot to answer for.
"...Okay, let's do a deal..."
ReplyDeleteLawyers. ;P
I don't might you disagreeing with me, but I think that in some ways Venezuela is one of the most democratic countries in the world. One aspect of democracy we haven't touched on concerns the workplace. I'm all for free elections but, as Noam Chomsky once said, why don't we get to vote for our bosses? The separation of political and economic power in Western countries limits the actual control ordinary people have over their lives quite severely. I'm enthusiastic about the experiments in worker control in Venezuela, and also about the co-operative movement there.
ReplyDeleteI thought Gadaffi was one of the good, well, sort of OK guys now.
ReplyDelete