Dictatorship

Haiti: ‘No To Dictatorship’

February 18, 2021 Aaron Maté, Pushback. Resistance Report Dictatorship, Haiti, State Violence, US Regime Change

Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has cracked down on a wave of popular protest as he tries to cling to power. While tens of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in the face of government repression, the Biden administration is backing Moïse’s effort to remain in office for at least another year. Haitian activist and radio host Daoud Andre discusses the background to Moïse’s power grab; the continued US deportations to Haiti; how the US coerced Haiti into betraying longtime ally Venezuela; the enduring popularity of Jean-Bertrand Aristide — twice overthrown in US-backed coups; and how the Biden administration’s support for Moïse continues a long legacy of US attacks on Haiti’s popular movements and backing of right-wing autocrats.

The Inversion Of Human Rights In Brazil

February 9, 2020 Jacob Blanc, NACLA.org. Educate! Brazil, Dictatorship, Legal System, Torture

Aluízio Palmar, a Brazilian journalist, human rights activist, and former political prisoner, is being sued for defamation by his own torturer. The physical and psychological torture happened 40 years ago, when Palmar was imprisoned by the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. But it was only last month, in a climate defined by Brazil’s right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, that Palmar’s abuser felt emboldened to file the suit. Like thousands of others under the military regime, Palmar was subjected to various forms of torture: electrocution, simulated drowning, and the infamous “parrots perch” where he was strung up on a pole with his hands and feet tied together, his body dangling below, crouched and suspended in the air.

Chile: People Come To This Square For Bread, Not Weapons

December 15, 2019 J. Lynn Jackson, Popular Resistance. Resist! Chile, Dictatorship, Neoliberalism, US coup

On November 14, Chile's indigenous nations called for a day of peaceful solidarity, remembrance, and ritual in Santiago's central square, which still bears its colonial name, Plaza de Armas (Weapons Square). It was the one-year anniversary of when police in the south of Chile killed a Mapuche man, Camilo Catrillanca. On all four sides of the square (about the size of two soccer fields) we counted and photographed no fewer than 40 heavily armed police in military-style riot gear and about five tear gas tanks and two water cannons. This was not for one of the bigger gatherings 10 blocks away in what the pro-democracy protesters now call Dignity Plaza. This massive show of force unlike anything I've seen in the US - supposedly to "keep the peace" - was for about 2000 people who gathered in front of the nation's Catholic Cathedral in order to pray to the four directions, light candles, sing songs, fly flags and dance.

In Argentina, Over A Million March In Honor Of Victims Of US-Backed Military Dictatorship

March 27, 2019 By Tanya Wadhwa, Peoplesdispatch.org Resist! Argentina, Dictatorship, Latin America, March, US Imperialism

On the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, over a million Argentinians mobilized to remember the 30,000 victims of the last military dictatorship in Argentina. On March 24, 1976 a US-backed military coup was carried out in Argentina that installed the bloodiest civic-military dictatorship in the history of the country. In 2002 the Argentine Congress declared that this tragic day would be remembered as the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice.

Relatives Of Chile’s Disappeared Are Exposing Dictatorship-Era Torturers

October 14, 2018 Ramona Wadi, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Chile, Dictatorship, Pinochet, Torture

The return of the right wing to power in Chile has come at the expense of those still seeking justice for crimes committed during the 17-year U.S.-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which ended in 1990. Former President Michelle Bachelet’s failure to close the luxury five-star prison of Punta Peuco that houses ex-torturers and military agents convicted of crimes against humanity has led to repercussions during the first year of Sebastian Pinera’s presidency. Over the years, the Chilean military has lobbied for “understanding” the context in which torture and disappearances occurred, in order to procure release for convicted agents of the dictatorship.

US Provides Military Aid To +70 Percent Of World’s Dictatorships

November 30, 2017 Whitney Webb, informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Dictatorship, Militarism and War, US Imperialism

By Whitney Webb for Information Clearing House - November 27, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - About three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships currently receive military assistance from the United States. This is a strange record for a nation that consistently justifies its sweeping foreign interventions as aimed at “promoting democracy” and “thwarting evil dictatorships.” In the Cold War it was “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Current analysis shows the U.S. militarily assisting dictators the world over, calling it “promoting democracy,” and disingenuously wondering why it’s all going so badly. For much of its history, the United States government has explained or defended its intervention in the affairs of other nations by framing such behavior as necessary to “promote democracy” abroad and to thwart the advance of “evil dictators.” While the use of those phrases has hardly dwindled over the years, establishment figures have been forced to admit in recent years that the U.S.’ democracy promotion efforts haven’t gone quite as planned. For instance, last year, Foreign Policy published an article headlined “Why is America So Bad at Promoting Democracy in Other Countries?” There, Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt noted that most of the U.S.’ democracy promotion efforts abroad end in failure, with nearly a quarter of the world’s democracies having been degraded in the past 30 years.

Uganda Rises Up In Unprecedented Opposition To 31-Year Dictator

November 16, 2017 Patience Nitumwesiga, wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Dictatorship, Regime Change, Uganda, Uprising

By Patience Nitumwesiga for Waging Nonviolence - During the early morning hours of September 21, nine young activists — all in their twenties — hauled a coffin toward a police station in the northern city of Lira. The coffin was draped with posters of Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni and a number of his other allies in government. Written across the coffin on one side were the words “Change the constitution and bury Uganda” — a reference to a proposed constitutional amendment that would do away with the presidential age limit. At 6.30 a.m., when they arrived at a major intersection, they set the coffin down and lit it on fire. By the time the police station came alive to start the day, the protesters had already left. Not knowing who they were looking for, the officers nevertheless set out on a hunt to find them. Over the next 12 hours, the young people invaded street after street in Lira, chanting anti-constitutional change slogans, lifting up placards and even setting some tires on fire. The small group soon grew into large crowds in all corners of Lira. The protesters had allies everywhere, and as soon as the police set out to stop a protest on a given street, someone would call the protesters and inform them. They would quickly disperse and reorganize at a different place, and the police would arrive too late, finding no one to arrest. Eventually, when the police got fed up with the constant evasion, they decided to storm the offices of the nonviolent training organization Solidarity Uganda, claiming that they were hiding the protesters. Police checked behind all doors and in ceiling boards, finding no one.

Writers: Fascism In The US Will Be Called Americanism

February 5, 2017 Sarah Churchwell, www.theguardian.com Educate! Democracy, Dictatorship

By Sarah Churchwell for the Guardian. In 1944, an article called “American Fascism” appeared in the New York Times, written by then vice president Henry Wallace. “A fascist,” wrote Wallace, “is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” Wallace predicted that American fascism would only become “really dangerous” if a “purposeful coalition” arose between crony capitalists, “poisoners of public information” and “the KKK type of demagoguery”. Those defending the new administration insist it isn’t fascism, but Americanism. This, too, was foretold: in 1938, a New York Times reporter warned: “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labelled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’.”

It May Only Take 3.5% Of Population To Topple Dictator

February 3, 2017 Erica Chenoweth, www.theguardian.com Strategize! Civil Disobedience, Dictatorship

By Erica Chenoweth for The Guardian - The United States has its own rich history – past and present – of effective uses of nonviolent resistance. The technique established alternative institutions like economic cooperatives, alternative courts and an underground constitutional convention in the American colonies resulting in the declaration of independence. In 20th century, strategic nonviolent resistance has won voting rights for women and for African Americans living in the Jim Crow south. Nonviolent resistance has empowered the labor movement, closed down or cancelled dozens of nuclear plants, protected farm workers from abuse in California...

Free People From ‘Dictatorship’ Of 0.01%

August 11, 2016 Vandana Shiva, www.asianage.com Resist! Dictatorship, Ruling Class, Working Class

By Vandana Shiva for The Asian Age - The only way to counter globalisation just a plot of land in some central place, keep it covered in grass, let there be a single tree, even a wild tree.” This is how dear friend and eminent writer Mahasweta Devi, who passed away on July 28, at the age of 90, quietly laid out her imagination for freedom in our times of corporate globalisation in one of her last talks. Our freedoms, she reminds us, are with grass and trees, with wildness and self-organisation (swaraj), when the dominant economic systems would tear down every tree and round up the last blade of grass.

Three Times When World Broke Open — Two When It Might Again

March 9, 2016 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, www.tomdispatch.com Strategize! Civil rights movement, Dictatorship, Gay Marriage, Immigration

By Mark Engler and Paul Engler for Tom Dispatch - A recent article in the Atlantic summed up this perspective with the tagline, "At this polarized moment, it's incremental change or nothing." This view, however, leaves out a critical driver of social transformation. It fails to account for what might be the most important engine of progress: grassroots movements by citizens demanding change. Social change is seldom either as incremental or predictable as many insiders suggest. Every once in a while, an outburst of resistance seems to break open a world of possibility, creating unforeseen opportunities for transformation.

Egypt Will Be Worse Than Pre-2011 With New Terrorism Law

July 7, 2015 Sarah El-Deeb, www.AP.org Resist! Criminal Justice, Dictatorship, Egypt, Freedom of Expression, Law, Revolution, Terrorism

By Sarah El-Deeb in Business Insider - After a series of stunning militant attacks, Egypt's government is pushing through a controversial new anti-terrorism draft bill that would set up special terrorism courts, shorten the appeals process, give police greater powers of arrest and imprison journalists who report information on attacks that differs from the official government line. The draft raised concerns that officials are taking advantage of heightened public shock at last week's audacious attacks to effectively enshrine into law the notorious special emergency laws which were in place for decades until they were lifted following the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Rather than reviewing security policies since the attacks, officials have largely been focusing blame on the media for allegedly demoralizing troops and on the slowness of the courts.

Ugandan Peasant Grandmother Terrifies Her President

May 22, 2015 Phil Wilmot, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Dictatorship, Feminism, Patriarchy, Solidarity, Uganda

Keromela Anek tossed her naked body back and forth in the roadway, blocking a government convoy in the remote village of Apaa, Uganda. Lands Minister Daudi Migereko and Minister of Internal Affairs General Nyakairima Aronda had just traveled to the village that day, April 16, with the plan of redistricting it. That would place Apaa in a new region and help facilitate the sale of the peoples’ land to South African investor Bruce Martin, who hoped to use the heavily forested, currently-populated area for sports game hunting. Upon reaching a roadblock and witnessing Anek and some other women naked and in tears, chanting insults toward the ministerial delegation, Migereko began crying, while Aronda tried his best to avoid looking at the women. Local witnesses claim that Aronda then called Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni — a dictator who has been in power for three decades — and received instructions to have his security personnel open fire on the women.

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