CHAVEZ GOES JIM JONES
When I went to Venezuela late last year, I came back with the impression that it was heading well into Jim Jones territory. There was too much cult of personality there, starting with the gigantic Hugo Chavez billboard that greets you from Caracas airport before you take the highway into the shantytowns, and within the city, all the ‘Chavez IS the people’ posters, with him looking soulful and thoughtful, if not nauseastingly adored by small children gathered around his side. This imagery went well beyond the political and deep into the cultural realm, and beyond even cultural, to the religious realm.
Well, it turns out this may be more than an impression. Hugo Chavez is proposing to name himself the archbishop of his new quasi-Christian evangelical nationalist cult, with all of his ministers named archbishops. It’s like Jim Jones - the leftwing San Francisco Democratic-party machine cultie leader who took his own brand of far leftism deep into Guyana and tried to set up a whole new society there, remaking mankind from mud in 1978, until he ordered them all to commit suicide. It happened right next door to Venezuela. Now, like Jones, Chavez wants to be everything, renouncing history and remaking mankind from scratch. The guy is a nut.
In one way, his move seems to echo the clerisy power the Church once held over all Latin American society, but I think it’s more than that - it’s an effort to remake society in his own image, for his own glorification and it’s so Jim Jones I can’t believe it.
Given what he is doing to Venezuela’s economy, Chavez’s third term won’t just be a passive administration, but now with his bishop thing, a la Jim Jones, have the full Flavr-Aid ending, too.
http://www.publiuspundit.com/index.php
Pincer movement
I've previously described the brewing regional conflict in Somalia as a race between war and peace, with the country's fate depending on whether a peacekeeping force and negotiating framework could be established before full-scale fighting began. It seems increasingly clear now that the four horsemen are outrunning the 15 Security Council members. Yesterday, the UNSC issued Resolution 1725, authorizing a regional peacekeeping force to deploy in southern Somalia with the limited mission of protecting the transitional government. This deployment exists mainly on paper, though, given that Uganda, which is the only country likely to provide troops, is still awaiting funds as well as authorization from the national parliament. The only clause of the resolution that is having immediate effect is the one that "partially lifted an arms embargo to allow the force to be equipped."
Although the embargo also existed mostly on paper, its partial withdrawal seems to be emboldening the combatants within Somalia, particularly the 6000 to 8000 regulars that a confidential UN report states are in the country. Within the past two days, Ethiopian forces have reportedly engaged in combat in two separate regions of Somalia, in a manner that indicates an organized pincer movement. The first front is opening around Bandiradley, a central town that is near the uncertain border between the Islamist-controlled territories and the autonomous state of Puntland. During the past couple of months, Puntland, the Islamic judiciary and the warlord Abdi Qeybdiid have clashed in this region, and Ethiopia, which is a close ally of the Puntland government, has responded by increasing its troop presence. Evidently that presence now includes artillery, because Islamist militias near Bandiradley have been shelled by Ethiopian forces twice within the past ten days:
Sheikh Abdullahi Ali Hashi, a spokesperson for the Council of Islamic Courts, said: "Ethiopian soldiers have massed around Bandiradley soon after the arms embargo had been lifted and started firing missiles toward our positions." Hashi said that the Ethiopian troops made the attack accompanied by militiamen loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale, who was also known as Abdi Qeybdiid.
Witnesses in Dagaari village, near Bandiradley, said that they saw hundreds of Ethiopian troops and tanks took up new positions near the town in co-ordination with militiamen from the northeastern semi autonomous region of Puntland and Qeybdiid's militia. They said that this new movement puts these forces and their rival Islamic courts' militias only two kilometres apart.
At the other end of the country, there are credible reports of direct combat between Islamist militias and Ethiopian troops near Dinsor in Bay province. Dinsor is located in south-central Somalia and is about 75 miles from the transitional government's capital of Baidoa. The judiciary has been tightening a ring around Baidoa for several months, and its forces reportedly moved into Dinsor about a week ago as part of the encirclement. This appears to have been the flashpoint; rather than retreating and repositioning as they have in the past, militias allied to the TFG attempted to retake the town, and they have been joined by Ethiopians in combat roles. If this report is borne out, it will be the first confirmed instance of Ethiopian regulars fighting against Islamist militiamen, and although sporadic clashes have probably happened before, the Ethiopian involvement this time is on a larger scale.
This could result in the two-pronged assault I anticipated some time ago, in which Ethiopia and its local allies will push south from Puntland at the same time as they try to break the encirclement of Baidoa. This may, in turn, spiral into a proxy war; the same UN report that estimated the Ethiopian troop presence at 6000 to 8000 noted ominously that up to 2000 Eritrean soldiers may be in the country fighting on the Islamist side. In addition to Ethiopia's jitters over the possibility that an Islamist state in Somalia might support domestic insurgencies, its fears of a second front against its long-time regional enemy now seem to be materializing.
And as if this isn't enough, the possibility of Somalia being torn apart in a regional proxy war has a truly ironic postscript. A report on the fighting in the Independent notes sardonically that "the Palestinians are next in line to take over as head of the Arab League - raising the bizarre prospect of the Somali peace talks (if they are ever restarted) moving from Khartoum to Gaza." Bizarre this may be, but not necessarily inappropriate. Given the number of contending factions in Somalia, the diversity of their interests, the unlikelihood that they can be persuaded to compromise and the number of foreign countries that want a hand in the outcome, Gaza might be the perfect place for them to negotiate.
Posted by jonathan at December 8, 2006 07:45 PM in Africa - Politics and Law | TrackBack
http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/archives/033239.html
In one way, his move seems to echo the clerisy power the Church once held over all Latin American society, but I think it’s more than that - it’s an effort to remake society in his own image, for his own glorification and it’s so Jim Jones I can’t believe it. <<<
It fits, with what we know, also his 'giving' poor Americans heating oil.
And how he will help Cuba, when castro dies.
Did you hear on the news that a doctor had flown in to treat Castro and is bringing equipment that is not available in Cuba?
I forgot the docs country, one of the European ones, as I recall.