28 May 2005
Bolivia admiral denies coup plan

Bolivian Naval EnsignThis little piece caught my eye the other day, not because of a supposed coup plot, but because of the military rank designation of the alleged plotter. Why does landlocked Bolivia have an admiral, and therefore, a navy?

Not only does Bolivia have a Navy, it has a Naval Ensign (shown above), which flies on it's patrol craft plying Lake Titicaca and nearly 10,000 miles of rivers! But there's an even more interesting tale behind the scenes, so to speak:

This is a good example of a flag being used to maintain a geopolitical claim. Bolivia had access to the Pacific until 1884 and getting it back has been one of the dominant trends of Bolivian domestic and international politics ever since. To cut a long and complicated story short, in 1879 Chile declared war on Peru and Bolivia which had, in alliance, seized various territories, including valuable nitrate mines, along the Pacific coast. The Bolivians and Peruvians lost. In 1904 the Chilean control over the coastal access lost by Bolivia was confirmed by treaty, the deal being that Bolivia should have access to the port of Arica via a railway to be built at Chilean expense. This was completed in 1913, but the Bolivians renewed their territorial claim in 1918. In 1932, Bolivia tried to gain access to the Atlantic by going to war with Paraguay. (Quite how this was supposed to work, given that Paraguay is itself landlocked, is something I've not seen satisfactorily explained.) Anyway, Bolivia lost disastrously, and Paraguay annexed about a third of Bolivia’s territory. In 1962 the whole business flared up again and Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Chile. In 1975, Chile suggested a land swap as part of a package which would give Bolivia sea access, and a year later Peru came up with further suggestions. The stalemate continues, although discussions were held between Chile and Bolivia in 1991. The meeting, held between 18-22 March, coincided with Bolivia’s 'Day of the Sea' the timing and symbolism of which were fairly obvious.

from Flags of the World

The head of Bolivia's armed forces denies rumours of a coup plot, as protests over the new energy law continue.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

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Muslims denounce 'US Koran abuse'

Christopher Hitchens has a wonderful take on this brouhaha over at Slate. Here's an excerpt:

For whatever it's worth, I know and admire both John Barry and Michael Isikoff, and I can quite imagine that—based on what they had already learned about the gruesome and illegal goings-on at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib—they found it more than plausible that the toilet incident, or something like it, had actually occurred. A second allegation, that a whole pile of Qurans had been stepped upon at Guantanamo, is equally credible. But mere objectivity requires us to note that this is partly because every prisoner is given a Quran, and that thus there are a lot of them lying around, and that none of this "scandal" would ever have occurred if the prison authorities were not at least attempting to respect Islamic codes. Do Christian and Jewish prisoners in Muslim states receive Bibles and Talmuds? Do secular detainees in Pakistan petition with success to be given Thomas Paine's Age of Reason? Isikoff told me recently that he'd been out to see the trial of a madrasah student in Virginia who was accused of terrorist recruitment and propaganda, and he had been somewhat shocked at the virulence of the anti-Jewish teachings on offer at that school. The school is almost certainly paid for by Saudi money. A Wahhabist version of the Quran, containing distortions of the original and calling for war against "unbelievers" of all sorts, is now handed out by imams in our very own prison system! Do we demand in return that Saudi Arabia allow churches and synagogues and free-thought centers on soil where the smallest heresy is punishable by death? No, we do not. Instead, we saturate ourselves in masochism and invent the silly, shallow term "Quran abuse."

Go read the whole thing.

People across the Muslim world protest against the alleged abuse of the Koran by US military personnel.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

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Brand Name Bullies

Spotted a short post on Brand Name Bullies, by David Bollier over at Overlawyered, and it's now on my must buy short list. Here's the cover blurb:

An impassioned, darkly amusing look at how corporations misuse copyright law to stifle creativity and free speech

If you want to make fun of Mickey or Barbie on your Web site, you may be hearing from some corporate lawyers. You should also think twice about calling something "fair and balanced" or publicly using Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. It may be illegal. Or it may be entirely legal, but the distinction doesn't matter if you can't afford a lawyer. More and more, corporations are grabbing and asserting rights over every idea and creation in our world, regardless of the law's intent or the public interest. But beyond the humorous absurdity of all this, there lies a darker problem, as David Bollier shows in this important new book. Lawsuits and legal bullying clearly prevent the creation of legitimate new software, new art and music, new literature, new businesses, and worst of all, new scientific and medical research.

David Bollier (Amherst, MA) is cofounder of Public Knowledge and Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center, USC Annenberg School for Communication. His books include Silent Theft.

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