05-08-2009, 02:39 PM
I have recently heard that Ivan Marovich is in Honduras giving workshops in 'How to Remove a Dictator' or some such thing. Before he was in Honduras he was in Iran during the post election debacle running similar workshops. He originally got started in Otpor a group in Serbia and a NED front, of which he was a co-ordinator, which was instrumental in the overthrow of Milosevic. Now, Ivan, if it is indeed the same one, may just be a man who is generous with his time and skillls in helping other overthrow their governments and has a family who can pay for all this travel and accommodation and expenses. Let's hope so. When I asked who was funding him and who he worked for over at Narco News site my post was removed from the comments section. Perhaps my post did not conform with their rules. I don't know. I just know that when I worked in community work it was next to impossible to get the money one would need to that sort of workshop all over the world. I would love to access his network, assuming it come string free. God knows the world sure does need more real democracy and freedom and justice.
I sure would hate the current Honduran popular resistance to be led right up the garden path away from its chance at true sovreignty and democracy by the National Endowment for Democracy, an organisation which is so far from trasparent and democratic in practice and outcome. None of its colour revolutions have ever delivered the real democracy and freedom for the people of any country in which they have been imposed and manipulated. However, the NED has always some how managed to deliver for the State Department a pliant local right wing clique who are willing to do Washington's bidding. I am wondering if the NED's interest in Honduras may be to guide the Honduran resistence to help impose the lesser of two evils by removing the current golpistas and having ready a nicer kinder more photogenic post-modern neo-liberal friendly clique to insert into government instead and all the while still being able to shaft the majority of Honduran people and keep them in the underclasses and away from real power over their country.
Some info about Otpor:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Otpor
Otpor
From SourceWatch
[/url]
Otpor was a Serbian political youth group formed ahead of the 2000 elections. The group has a wesbite (http://www.otpor.com), but it is a single page with the group's symbol and nothing else.
From Wikipedia
Otpor! ([url=http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cyrillic&action=edit]Cyrillic: ОТПОР!) was a pro-democracy youth movement in Serbia which is widely credited for leading the eventually successful struggle to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. It was formed in October 1998 as a response to repressive University and Media laws that were introduced that year. In the beginning Otpor had activities at Belgrade University. In the aftermath of NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, Otpor started a political campaign against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. This resulted in nation wide police repression against Otpor activists during which almost 2000 of them were arrested and some beaten. During the presidential campaign in September 2000 Otpor launch "Gotov je" (He's finished) campaign that galvanized Serbian discontent with Milosevic and resulted in his defeat. Some students who led Otpor (whose name means "Resistance" in the Serbian language) used Serb translations of Gene Sharp's writings on nonviolent action as a theoretical basis for their campaign.
…
Otpor was instrumental in inspiring and training several other civic youth organizations in Eastern Europe, including Kmara in the republic of Georgia (itself partly responsible for the downfall of Eduard Shevardnadze), Pora in Ukraine (currently involved in protests following the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004), Zubr in Belarus (opposing president Alexander Lukashenko), and MJAFT! in Albania.
From Diana Johnstone, Fool's Crusade
The U.S. NED provided millions of dollars and training in "methods of nonviolent action" to a network of young activists calling itself Otpor (resistance) with no political program other than the desire to "be normal" on Western terms. Otpor youth plastered walls with posters of clenched fists and tried to get arrested in order to denounce the "regime" as repressive.
In the first round held on 24 September 2000, Milosevic failed to gain re-election. Official results gave Kostunica over 48 per cent of the vote in a five-man race. This fell slightly short of the 50 per cent required to win, but indicated an almost certain landslide in the runoff against Milosevic, who trailed by some ten percentage points. (Yugoslav electoral law calls for a second round if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round.) Not satisfied with this prospect of a certain victory at the ballot box, DOS (democratic opposition of Serbia) claimed a first round victory and announced it would boycott the second round. This heightened tension and provided an opportunity for the Otpor agitators to take matters into their own hands. The DOS thereby moved the contest from the ballot box onto the streets. The result was the spectacle of the 5 October 'democratic revolution', when a large crowd stormed the Skupstina, the parliament building in the center of Belgrade. Presented to the world public in the as a spontaneous act of self-liberation, the event was staged for television cameras, which filmed and relayed the same scenes over and over again: youths breaking through windows, flags waving, flames rising, smoke enveloping the parliament building, described as "the symbol of the Milosevic regime". —Fool's Crusade, p. 257.
Training and the players
The training and organizing of the Otpor agents was a lengthy and costly operation. This article summarizes how it was done and who was involved:
While NDI worked closely with Serbian opposition parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served as the revolution's ideological and organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, a few hundreds yards along the Danube from the NDI-favored Marriott.
During the seminar, the Serbian students received training in such matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols, how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime. The principal lecturer was retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Helvey, who has made a study of nonviolent resistance methods around the world, including those used in modern-day Burma and the civil rights struggle in the American South.
Helvey, who served two tours in Vietnam, introduced the Otpor activists to the ideas of American theoretician Gene Sharp, whom he describes as "the Clausewitz of the nonviolence movement," referring to the renowned Prussian military strategist.[1]
Otpor Activities
Otpor type of activities entail organizing a militant section of society to instill cynicism in the government, drown out the government's message, and convey the impression that there is broad based support for the opposition. Its activities amount to disrupting the government's message and tarnish its image. NB: the same formula has been re-used in Ukraine, Georgia, Albania and Belarus. Otpor's principal activities were:
Funding Sources and Training (alpha order)
SourceWatch Resources
References about Otpor
My small dog always chases after the bus and barks madly at it. When the bus drives away up the street he returns home and is very pleased with himself that he has managed to chase that really big thing away from his territory. If a bunch of students want to think that they were responsible for the overthrow of a dictator out of favor with the US who am I to shatter their illusions.
I sure would hate the current Honduran popular resistance to be led right up the garden path away from its chance at true sovreignty and democracy by the National Endowment for Democracy, an organisation which is so far from trasparent and democratic in practice and outcome. None of its colour revolutions have ever delivered the real democracy and freedom for the people of any country in which they have been imposed and manipulated. However, the NED has always some how managed to deliver for the State Department a pliant local right wing clique who are willing to do Washington's bidding. I am wondering if the NED's interest in Honduras may be to guide the Honduran resistence to help impose the lesser of two evils by removing the current golpistas and having ready a nicer kinder more photogenic post-modern neo-liberal friendly clique to insert into government instead and all the while still being able to shaft the majority of Honduran people and keep them in the underclasses and away from real power over their country.
Some info about Otpor:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Otpor
Otpor
From SourceWatch
[/url]
Otpor was a Serbian political youth group formed ahead of the 2000 elections. The group has a wesbite (http://www.otpor.com), but it is a single page with the group's symbol and nothing else.
From Wikipedia
Otpor! ([url=http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cyrillic&action=edit]Cyrillic: ОТПОР!) was a pro-democracy youth movement in Serbia which is widely credited for leading the eventually successful struggle to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. It was formed in October 1998 as a response to repressive University and Media laws that were introduced that year. In the beginning Otpor had activities at Belgrade University. In the aftermath of NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, Otpor started a political campaign against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. This resulted in nation wide police repression against Otpor activists during which almost 2000 of them were arrested and some beaten. During the presidential campaign in September 2000 Otpor launch "Gotov je" (He's finished) campaign that galvanized Serbian discontent with Milosevic and resulted in his defeat. Some students who led Otpor (whose name means "Resistance" in the Serbian language) used Serb translations of Gene Sharp's writings on nonviolent action as a theoretical basis for their campaign.
…
Otpor was instrumental in inspiring and training several other civic youth organizations in Eastern Europe, including Kmara in the republic of Georgia (itself partly responsible for the downfall of Eduard Shevardnadze), Pora in Ukraine (currently involved in protests following the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004), Zubr in Belarus (opposing president Alexander Lukashenko), and MJAFT! in Albania.
From Diana Johnstone, Fool's Crusade
The U.S. NED provided millions of dollars and training in "methods of nonviolent action" to a network of young activists calling itself Otpor (resistance) with no political program other than the desire to "be normal" on Western terms. Otpor youth plastered walls with posters of clenched fists and tried to get arrested in order to denounce the "regime" as repressive.
In the first round held on 24 September 2000, Milosevic failed to gain re-election. Official results gave Kostunica over 48 per cent of the vote in a five-man race. This fell slightly short of the 50 per cent required to win, but indicated an almost certain landslide in the runoff against Milosevic, who trailed by some ten percentage points. (Yugoslav electoral law calls for a second round if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round.) Not satisfied with this prospect of a certain victory at the ballot box, DOS (democratic opposition of Serbia) claimed a first round victory and announced it would boycott the second round. This heightened tension and provided an opportunity for the Otpor agitators to take matters into their own hands. The DOS thereby moved the contest from the ballot box onto the streets. The result was the spectacle of the 5 October 'democratic revolution', when a large crowd stormed the Skupstina, the parliament building in the center of Belgrade. Presented to the world public in the as a spontaneous act of self-liberation, the event was staged for television cameras, which filmed and relayed the same scenes over and over again: youths breaking through windows, flags waving, flames rising, smoke enveloping the parliament building, described as "the symbol of the Milosevic regime". —Fool's Crusade, p. 257.
Training and the players
The training and organizing of the Otpor agents was a lengthy and costly operation. This article summarizes how it was done and who was involved:
While NDI worked closely with Serbian opposition parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served as the revolution's ideological and organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, a few hundreds yards along the Danube from the NDI-favored Marriott.
During the seminar, the Serbian students received training in such matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols, how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime. The principal lecturer was retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Helvey, who has made a study of nonviolent resistance methods around the world, including those used in modern-day Burma and the civil rights struggle in the American South.
Helvey, who served two tours in Vietnam, introduced the Otpor activists to the ideas of American theoretician Gene Sharp, whom he describes as "the Clausewitz of the nonviolence movement," referring to the renowned Prussian military strategist.[1]
Otpor Activities
Otpor type of activities entail organizing a militant section of society to instill cynicism in the government, drown out the government's message, and convey the impression that there is broad based support for the opposition. Its activities amount to disrupting the government's message and tarnish its image. NB: the same formula has been re-used in Ukraine, Georgia, Albania and Belarus. Otpor's principal activities were:
- graffiti encouraging cynism against those in power. Or as Michael Dobbs put it: "U.S. taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milosevic graffiti on walls across Serbia, and 2.5 million stickers with the slogan 'He's Finished,' which became the revolution's catchphrase."[Dobbs op. cit.]
- leafleting
- massed concentrations with flags for the benefit of foreign (CNN) camera crews
- Organizing student groups
- Shouting down government speakers at public events
- Hostile questioning of government officials and demanding resignation; booing…
Funding Sources and Training (alpha order)
- Freedom House (Mowat, op. cit.)
- International Republican Institute (IRI) (Mowat, op. cit.)
- National Endowment for Democracy
- Open Society Institute
- USAID – Financed T-shirts, stickers, spray-paint (Ackerman, quoted in Mowat, op. cit.)
- United States Institute of Peace (Dobbs, op. cit.)
SourceWatch Resources
References about Otpor
- PBS series, Bringing Down a Dictator, PBS, 2002. NB: this documentary portrays Optor in a positive light — no references to its origin or possible CIA relationship. Note that the director of the film is Jack DuVall, the producer is Peter Ackerman, and the film was produced for ICNC. Read the history of this film under DuVall's biography.
- Roger Cohen, "Who Really Brought Down Milosevic?", New York Times Sunday Magazine, Nov. 26, 2000.
- Michael Dobbs, ""U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition: Political Consultants Helped Yugoslav Opposition Topple Authoritarian Leader", Washington Post, December 11, 2000.
- Interview with Srdja Popovic of Otpor, National Public Radio, March 20, 2002.
- Diana Johnstone, Fool's Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, Pluto Press, 2002, p. 257.
- Stephen Mulvey, Behind the scenes at Kiev's rally, BBC Online, Nov. 28, 2004. States: "Natalia is the deputy leader for the Kiev region of a student protest group called Pora, modelled on the Serbian group Otpor, which played a key role in the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic. In spring she attended lectures in Kiev by Otpor leader Alexander Maric".
- Brian Pozun, Planning for an Uncertain Future, CE Review, Feb. 26, 2001. References to Otpor post-Milosevic. (CE Review has been renamed TOL).
- Daan van der Schriek, Georgia: How good the revolution has been!, World Press Review, Dec. 7, 2003
- Jonathan Mowat, "The new Gladio in action?: Ukrainian postmodern coup completes testing of new template", Online Journal, March 19, 2005. Contains descriptions of the operators behind the manipulation of Otpor, and who financed this.
My small dog always chases after the bus and barks madly at it. When the bus drives away up the street he returns home and is very pleased with himself that he has managed to chase that really big thing away from his territory. If a bunch of students want to think that they were responsible for the overthrow of a dictator out of favor with the US who am I to shatter their illusions.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.