Aris Katsaris

Belarus moves.

But I'm much more pessimistic about this one than I was concerning Ukraine. NOT in the sense that I was pessimistic (and turned out right) about Kyrgyzstan -- the one in Kyrgyzstan was a mere power-play between parliamentarians/regional forces versus the central presidency of Akayev, rather than any drive towards democracy. That was first shown by the fact that the very first action taken after Akayev's de factor exile was the transfer of power to the parliament whose fraudulent election the protesters were supposedly protesting! It was later proven even more clearly by the support given by Kyrgyzstan to their fellow tyrants in Uzbekistan. (Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.)

In Belarus the situation is different: I don't doubt the democratic beliefs of the protesters. It's just that the balance of power is against them much more strongly than it ever was in Ukraine. Even if the votes *had* been counted correctly, likely Lukashenko would still be the victor. And he controls the state apparatus even more strongly than Kuchma did back in Ukraine.

It's good that the opposition is atleast making a show of force. Or of weakness perhaps, but even a show of weakness is better than a show of indifference. The few can be made many, in good time, the weak strong. It's just that I'm pessimistic that it's gonna happen *now*.

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And my other source of consternation: the possible reversal and near-nullification of the Orange Revolution of Ukraine this coming Sunday. Petty ambitions and infighting have divided the formerly united Yushchenko-Tymoshenko front, leaving *Yanukovych* likely to take the lead. Almost certainly not with enough of a majority to rule alone. But who knows what vile accomodations may take place...

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Playing around with maps recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Continental_Orgs_Map.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Regional_Organizations_Map.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Alliances_expansive_Map.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ECO_CDC_Map.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BSEC_Central_Asia_+_Japan_Map.png

The creations of boredom... oy.

Another fine article about Ukraine: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1359099,00.html: "Actually, it's in places like Kiev, rather than in Brussels, that you see what a great story Europe has to tell, if only we knew how to tell it. It's the story of a rolling enlargement of freedom, from a position 60 years ago when there was just a handful of perilously free countries in Europe, and virtually the whole continent was at war, to a position today where there are only two or three seriously unfree countries in Europe, and almost the whole continent is at peace. Today, the front line of that forward march is in Ukraine."

There may be hints that the tide keeps on turning in favour of Yushchenko. Ukrainian state TV came out in favour of the demonstrations.

Also the eastern province of Luhansk has declared itself independent and requests to be annexed by Russia. Over at Postmodern clog our Ukrainian blogger reports that the nearby region of Donetsk (Yanukovich stronghold) is likewise contemplating secession.

So it seems we're reached the "sepatist" phase, which I described about a month ago as the one of only two possibilities for the countries of the CIS: "If you don't have a Russia-supporting dictatorship, a separatist movement will come along, Russian army will intervene to create "peace" between it and the central government, and the regions it controls will be Russia-supporting dictatorships."

Still these declarations and talk of separatism seem to be a *good* indication (relatively), as they would probably only come to be if the greater game of controlling the whole of Ukraine seemed lost.

Ukrainian elections, Round 2

The good guy seems to have won, with a comfortable margin even -- the bad guy seems to be trying to steal his victory. And if you've read a previous post of mine, you know which I believe to be which. :-)

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Comic plug: In Sluggy Freelance, two of our heroes are already down, and an epic battle between Torg and a Demon Lord is about to begin upon a mountain of bones.

And as a sidenote if you check out the immediately previous weeks of this comic as well, please do try and avoid the Saturdays -- on Saturdays there's an irrelevant and IMO horrible sideline filler-story that's not even written or drawn by the same author.

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More tomorrow...