Biden’s America just Joined Seven Other “Sh*thole” Nations by Arresting an Opposition Leader. By Darren Beattie.
Why do people make the “banana republic” comparison? Because historically in the U.S., presidents and party leaders don’t get arrested.
By contrast, the use of a “novel legal theory” to arrest a declared presidential candidate is substantially more routine in the more, er, “flawed” democracies of the Global South. It’s the sort of behavior that the U.S. has a long history of lecturing other countries about — and don’t worry, they’re definitely happy to remind us of that. …
Cambodia:
At the beginning of March, Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha was sentenced to 27 years in prison for “treason,” six years after being arrested for an alleged plot to overthrow the country’s prime minister Hun Sen, who has governed the country since 1998. The allegations against Sokha are specifically that he “colluded” with a foreign country (America) against the interests of his own.
The U.S. State Department released this statement at the time: “The United States is deeply troubled by the conviction and 27-year sentence of respected Cambodian political leader Kem Sokha. .. Kem Sokha’s conviction is part of a larger pattern of threats, harassment, and other unacceptable actions by Cambodian authorities to target political opposition leaders, media, and civil society. These actions impede any chance for a free, transparent, and fair electoral process.”
Tunisia:
The country’s second democratically elected president, Kais Saied, dismissed parliament, revoked parliamentary immunity, and ruled by decree before implementing his reworked constitution. Most recently, he’s been arresting various opposition political figures, something the U.S. chastised him for earlier this month. …
Nicaragua:
Just a few months ahead of a national election in 2021, Nicaraguan police arrested seven opposition leaders within a single week, all of them for the superlatively vague crime of acting “against the independence, sovereignty and auto-determination” of the country.
In response, the Biden Administration slapped sanctions on the Nicaraguan regime for this anti-democracy maneuver. …
Georgia:
No, not the U.S. state with Third-World elections, but the former Soviet republic. In early 2021, Georgian police dragged opposition leader Nika Melia out of his party’s headquarters in a violent raid. The case against Melia was rooted in allegations that he incited violence during street protests by his supporters against the government (gee, sound familiar?). …
Bolivia:
At the end of 2022, the left-wing government of Bolivia arrested Luis Fernando Camacho, the right-wing governor of the country’s largest state, on charges of “terrorism” stemming from his support for 2019 protests that toppled the country’s then-leader Evo Morales. If convicted, Camacho faces up to twenty years in prison.
Interestingly, in this case the State Department was not so upset about the arrest of a right-wing opposition leader. …
Uganda:
In 2016, Ugandan presidential candidate Kizza Besigye was arrested on election day, and subsequently charged with treason for encouraging “illegal protests” and challenging the legitimacy of Uganda’s election results. At the time, the U.S. didn’t like it at all. …
Ukraine:
From 2018 until 2021, Viktor Medvedchuk was the chairman of the 2nd-largest political party in Ukraine, the pro-Russia Opposition Platform — For Life party. Then, that spring, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky froze Medvedchuk’s assets and placed him under house arrest on charges of funding terrorism, three months after Zelensky banned three TV Medvedchuk-linked TV channels for their support of opposition parties and generally pro-Russian outlook. …
Once again, the U.S. State Department sharply critic-oh wait, actually, they didn’t condemn Medevedchuk’s arrest and imprisonment, and the U.S. actually praised Zelensky for banning opposition TV stations, on the grounds that it helped combat “disinformation.”
In the last case, Ukraine was at war with Russia at the time. Maybe it’s more like US internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII.
