My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: Fidel Castro controlled Cuba for nearly half a century. His rule was defined by defiance and dictatorship, brutal repression against dissidents and the management of an immoral American embargo. Free speech has always been the Achilles’ heel of the regime. During my visit to the island last…
Showing all posts tagged democracy
Human rights first
Last week the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, spoke in Sydney. He gave a passionate, wide-ranging talk, outlined the “rules of the game” for tyrannies around the world and a West that loves to collaborate with them: The Bush administration, for example, seems to prefer promoting a narrow conception of democracy as…
But daddy, the natives want to be liberated
Britain, please put the military adventures back in your pants; it’s far less likely to kill innocent civilians: The foreign secretary, David Miliband, will today set out the clearest exposition yet of Labour’s recast foreign policy when he will argue that mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan must not cloud the moral imperative to intervene…
The importance of democracy
Human Rights Watch has launched its 2008 World Report. HRW head Kenneth Roth explains: Rarely has democracy been so acclaimed yet so breached, so promoted yet so disrespected, so important yet so disappointing. Today, democracy has become the sine qua non of legitimacy. Few governments want to be seen as undemocratic. Yet the credentials of…