Tag: coup

76 Pro-Democracy Protesters Killed Since The Coup In Sudan

Three months after the military coup in Sudan on October 25, the military junta has failed to consolidate power in the face of country-wide mass protests recurring every few days. Deploying the army, police, and a notorious militia to meet the protests with force, the junta has killed at least 76 protesters since the coup.

Three of them were killed in the crackdown on Monday, January 24, when mass demonstrations and rallies – calling for an overthrow of the junta and prosecution of the generals who seized power in the coup – were witnessed in at least 23 cities.

22-year-old Thabit Moawya Bashir, who was shot in the head, and 23-year-old Mohamed Amer Elaish, who was hit in the chest with live ammunition, died in capital Khartoum. Later at night, Elaish’s funeral procession also came under fire.

Sudan Coup: The Names And Faces Of The Protesters Killed

On 25 October, Sudan’s top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, declared a state of emergency in the country, ousting the government and detaining the country’s civilian leadership, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The military takeover, which upended a two-year transition to civilian rule, was widely denounced by critics as a coup, and sparked a nationwide protest movement that has been violently repressed by armed forces.

One month later, the independent Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) has tallied the names of 42 protesters who have been killed between 21 October – one of the first protests against the army’s already clear ambitions to claim power – and Thursday 25 November.

coup State Violence Sudan Wars and Militarism

The Difficulty And Sometimes Violence Of Evacuations

Evacuations of American citizens from crisis countries is always difficult and dangerous, as the past fifteen days of evacuation of over 124,000 people from Afghanistan demonstrated.

I know how difficult evacuations are because twenty-five years ago, in late May 1997, I was involved in the evacuation of 2500 persons from a violent coup in the West African country of Sierra Leone.

I’m writing this detailed description of the evacuation in Sierra Leone, as it provides some context and comparisons of the challenges and dangers faced in the massive evacuation conducted in Afghanistan which we saw on August 26, 2021 at the Abby gate of the Kabul airport when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated a huge amount of explosives on his body that killed over 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. military.

coup Embassy Evacuation Sierra Leon

Peru: A Coup Brewing

The onslaught of the Peruvian right wing against the government of President Pedro Castillo Terrones began long before he was proclaimed president after many delays—it began when his passage to the second round of the elections was confirmed—and has been intensifying for days with virulence and a frankly coup-like character. It includes, among other maneuvers, demands for the president’s resignation in small but very widespread demonstrations of Fujimorism, and requests from deputies for the replacement of Prime Minister Guido Bellido and Foreign Minister Héctor Béjar. The latter, by the way, has laid the basis for an independent and sovereign foreign policy, a defender of non-intervention, a promoter of unity and regional integration through UNASUR and CELAC, which is a distinct departure from the moribund Lima Group: “we condemn blockades, embargoes and unilateral sanctions that only affect the peoples,” he has said.

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Coup Leaders, Aung San Suu Kyi Betrayed Democracy In Burma

What is taking place in Burma right now is a military coup. There can be no other description for such an unwarranted action as the dismissal of the government by military decree and the imposition of Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as an unelected ruler.

However, despite the endless talk about democratization, Burma was, in the years leading up to the coup, far from being a true democracy.

Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the country’s erstwhile ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has done very little to bring about meaningful change since she was designated State Counselor.

Since her return to Rangoon in 1989 and placement under house arrest for many years, Suu Kyi was transformed from an activist making the case for democracy in her country, into a ‘democracy icon’ and, eventually, into an untouchable cult personality.

Burma coup Democracy Western imperialism

Understanding The Complicated Politics And Geopolitics Of The Coup In Myanmar

On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military—known as the Tatmadaw—invoked Article 417 of the 2008 constitution, dismissed State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, and arrested her and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Condemnation of the coup was swift, although there would be reason for hesitancy in the reaction: Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been the face of the democracy movement until her release from house arrest in 2010, ruined her reputation when she came to the International Court of Justice in 2019 to defend her country’s genocide against the Rohingya people. No longer is Aung San Suu Kyi the unalloyed symbol of democracy and human rights.

China coup Democracy Myanmar

DOJ Now Says There Was No Plot To Kill Elected Officials

The U.S. Justice Department has reversed an earlier assertion in court by prosecutors that protestors who broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had plans to “capture and assassinate elected officials.”

Instead, the head of the DOJ investigation into the Capitol siege admitted that federal prosecutors filed a misleading statement before a federal judge in Arizona that was intended to prevent Jacob Chansley, aka Jake Angeli, from being released on bail.

The DOJ said that though there were calls to kill officials during the two-hour takeover of the Capitol, no evidence has been discovered yet to prove any serious effort to carry out such a plan.

Capitol coup Democrats Department of Justice

People’s Movement Is Faced With A Serious Threat

The deep political and social contradictions of the U.S. capitalist system, which were becoming increasingly visible to the people during the past few decades, and had come to the surface with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, found their most glaring manifestation in the open riot of Trump supporters and the takeover of the Congress Building on January 6 th .
The right-wing riot in Washington, DC on 6 January 2021 was a manifestation of the deepening economic and social crisis in the United States. High levels of social inequality and economic disarray engulfing the whole society, for which the U.S. ruling class has no solutions within the framework of the dominant capitalist order, has resulted in the loss of legitimacy of the state and its institutions.

Capitalism Capitol coup Trump

A New Peru, Struggling To Be Born?

While November saw two Peruvian presidents removed in a week and the emergence of a grassroots movement to defend democracy, there are no clear answers yet as to who will benefit in the long term.

It is not the first time that Plaza San Martín, one of the major squares in Lima’s historic centre, has been surrounded by police and filled with protestors demonstrating against the country’s political elite, but this time something felt different.

The week beginning 9 November saw a series of major demonstrations pop up around Lima, and across Peru, in condemnation of the removal of President Martín Vizcarra from power by the Peruvian Congress.

coup Lawfare Neoliberalism Peru

Is Peru Witnessing A Parliamentary Coup?

Peruvians have been taking to the streets to reject the impeachment and removal of Martín Vizcarra from the office of president on Monday, November 9. After a four-hour debate in the Peruvian Congress on Monday evening, Vizcarra was impeached with 105 members of Congress voting to remove him on account of “moral incapacity” due to his alleged involvement in acts of corruption. The impeachment is the tipping point in a conflict between the legislative and executive branches of government of Peru which had intensified in the last two years.

Corruption coup Government Peru

Massive Protests In Peru Against ‘Legislative Coup’

Thousands of Peruvians have taken to the streets this week to protest the interim government of newly appointed President Manuel Merino, a member of Peru’s center-right Popular Action Party who as head of Congress played a key role in ousting his predecessor, Martín Vizcarra, in what critics are calling a “legislative coup.”

As The Washington Post reported earlier this week, the removal of Vizcarra on Monday was “based on still-unproven bribery allegations,” which critics called “a congressional coup staged by Machiavellian legislators desperate to halt his anti-corruption and political reform campaigns.”

coup Neoliberalism Peru Police violence

The Bush/Cheney Administration Was Far Worse Than Trump

That the liberal belief in and fear of a Trump-led fascist dictatorship and violent coup is actually a fantasy — a longing, a desire, a craving — has long been obvious.

The Democrats’ own actions proved that they never believed their own melodramatic and self-glorifying rhetoric about Trump as The New Hitler — from their leaders joining with the GOP to increase The Fascist Dictator’s domestic spying powers and military spending to their (correct) belief that the way to oust The Neo-Nazi Tyrant was through a peaceful and lawfully conducted democratic election in which vote totals and, if necessary, duly constituted courts would determine the next president.

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Bolivia Elections Live Blog

Bolivians go to the polls today, Sunday, October 18, in the first general elections since the last democratically elected president, Evo Morales, was forced out in a military coup last November, two months before his term had ended and despite election results showing he had won another term in a first-round election victory. Today’s elections had been postponed twice: first from May to September, and then from September to October. While Jeanine Áñez, whose party had received just 4 percent of the vote last year, had taken office vowing to be a caretaker president until…

2020 Elections Bolivia coup Socialism

Bolivia: Amid New Crisis, Coup Government Seeks To Divide Spoils

Just weeks out from the October 18 elections, Bolivia’s coup government is again in crisis following the departure of three key ministers over an unconstitutional attempt to privatise an electricity company.

It comes as polls show Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) presidential candidate Luis Arce potentially winning in the first round, less than a year after his party was thrown out of office by a right-wing coup.

Relatively unknown senator Jeanine Áñez was sworn in as “interim president” last November following the coup against then-MAS president Evo Morales.

2020 Elections Bolivia coup US Regime Change

Mexico: Leaked Documents Reveal Right-Wing Plan To Overthrow AMLO

Some of the most powerful forces in Mexico are uniting in a campaign to try to topple the country’s first left-wing president in decades, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. And they apparently have support in Washington and on Wall Street.

Known popularly as AMLO, the Mexican leader is a progressive nationalist who campaigned on the promise to “end the dark night of neoliberalism.” He has since implemented a revolutionary vision he calls the “Fourth Transformation,” vowing to fight poverty, corruption, and drug violence — and has increasingly butted heads with his nation’s wealthy elites.

López Obrador has also posed a challenge to the US foreign-policy consensus. His government provided refuge to Bolivia’s elected socialist President Evo Morales and to members of Evo’s political party who were exiled after a Trump administration-backed military coup.

AMLO coup Mexico oligarchy Right-Wing

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