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Battle for the east (3)

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Internet-revolution, waged from abroad

We’ve seen that the revolutionary propaganda was largely waged through the social networks in the Internet. Since 2008 and throughout the first mass strike organized in Egypt, Facebook and blogs have been widely used to instigate the protest sentiments, inform about the meeting spots of demonstrators and broadcast the news from the site of action. Then an idea, how to overcome their compatriots’ fear to act, occurred to activists: it was necessary to collect a million of Egyptian signatures for the petition for democratic reforms. Signatures were collected at the web-site with excessive security measures and located in the USA, where the petitioners had to leave their personal data, including the passport number, telephone and e-mail. Generally speaking, this was an ideal way of creating a database. As Sherif Mansour from Freedom House put it later: «The idea was to show million citizens that they have risk-free way of interfering with the politics». On the 6th   of June, 2010 yet another event launched the enlivening of revolutionary activity in the Internet. Blogger Khaled Sayid used Internet from a café in Alexandria to post a video, exposing corruption. Police arrested and tortured him.
April 6 Movement used this detention to create the Facebook page «We are all Khaled Sayid». Due to security reasons the page had at least three administrators, who remained anonymous until the revolution started: one of them was a 25-year-old journalist from Cairo, another one —
a Washington-based activist and the third one — Google department marketing manager from Dubai Wael Ghonim, who later became famous. Curious alliance, coordinated from the the USA through the NGO Freedom House and Internet-corporations (Facebook and Google).

Case of a  phony blogger, who introduced himself as a Syrian Lesbian named Amina, allegedly arrested in Damascus, became an example of an attempt of the foreign intervention into the domestic affairs of the country. Fake kidnapping of a girl by the Syrian police has mobilized numerous bloggers, a group of support for the allegedly arrested girl was created on Facebook — within some days 15 thousand people have joined the group. Soon, however, some bloggers decided to double-check the information. They’ve searched the Yahoo forums, which Amina participated and the U.S. addresses, where she allegedly resided, also the IP-addresses and finally discovered an address in Georgia (USA), which belonged to Thomas McMaster and his wife Britta Froelicher.

At first, a couple denied everything but finally admitted the forgery, claiming that they did it out of humanitarian motives. In fact Tom is an American activist, interested in the Middle Eastern policy, while his wife Britta writes a thesis on…Syrian economy. However, when the bloggers, conducting the  Internet investigation contacted them, a couple was temporarily in Turkey (which neighbors Syria), where they’ve «spent the vacation».

On the 16 th of May this year, April 6 Movement organized the first sitting with the members of Serbian Otpor for Sudan, where the activity of youth movement starts, following the example of other countries, in the Egyptian capital — Cairo. Like Otpor once did, Egyptian April 6 Movement decided not to become a party, putting forth its candidates. Just like Serbs, today Egyptian activists are training future revolutionaries. They maintain connections with young Algerians, Syrians, Yemenites, Moroccans, Libyans, and Iranians  etc.

Vanguard of the Egyptian revolution passed the baton. Although the uprisings started from Tunisia, it was Egypt, where they’ve achieved the
result in the shortest time. It’s easy to recognize Serbian-Egyptian Orange influence in the symbols that the groups, acting in the other Arab countries, used:

 
Exemple in Morocco
 
 
Exemple in Tunisia
 
Saudi Arabia hasn’t escaped these movements either. As we may see below, the very same well-recognizable symbols are used to call for the
demonstrations.
 
 
Internet propaganda that involved the Saudi kingdom has also been spread by such social networks like Facebook, but the most part of messages
were sent from abroad — from the other Arab countries, as Anwar Eshki (Director of the Middle-Eastern Centre for Legal and Strategic Studies)
and human rights activist Fouad al-Farhan confirmed. Besides, Saudi living standards are already not that bad as in other Arab countries,
because it is a rich country and the unemployment rate there is less than 10%. This was exactly the reason that conditioned the failure
of the protest movement. It was harder to mobilize the youth and, besides, the authorities reacted quicker and paid professional bloggers
for organizing a mass counter-propaganda in the web. Therefore, for now Saudi Arabia along with Russia, Belarus, China, Iran and Moldavia makes a group of countries, which weren’t destabilized by the organized agitation.

Battle for the east (2)

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Is Egyptian April 6 Movement an Arabian Otpor?

Symbols of the Egyptian April 6 Movement leave no place for doubts regarding the influence of Serbian Otpor and other youth movements, which distinguished themselves during the Eurasian color revolutions.Even theself-presentation of this association is rather unequivocal. At the web-site of organization we discover a revolutionary symbol  of Otpor — the lifted fist.

 
 
Lifted fisted is a well-distinguishable logo, invented by Otpor and used by the Orange movements, siding with the Serbian alignment — be it Georgian Kmara or Russian Oborona.

 
Two reports that Wikileaks published in November of 2008 and January of 2010 mentioned the connections between the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and numerous Egyptian activist. It was pointed out that blogger Israa Abdel Fattah was a member of activist group, which participated in one of the educational programs, which Freedom House NGO organized in Washington.
 
The program named «New Generation» was financed by the USAID. Its objective was to train «political and social reformers». Report about that visit is available at the Freedom House web-site. Let’s compare this program to the activity of the French Embassy towards the French national minorities from the suburbs.
In January of 2010 the American diplomatic support of the  emerging Egyptian opposition for the sake  of organizing the «democratic»
coup d’état was publicly announced in the Project of Middle East Development — it wasn’t restrained only with the Egyptian territory, but rather included en entire Middle East. As the report, dated by the January of 2010, specifies, in response Egyptian authorities have carried out a series
of preventive detentions of a «group of people including bloggers, journalists and opposition activists, El-Ghad and Democratic Front party members, Kifaya and the April 6 Movement functionaries». There was even one Frenchman among the arrested…Some of detained people have
returned from Washington, where they participated in an aforementioned New Generation training program, while a certain man was to take part in POMED.
 
Meanwhile, in March of 2010 few leaders of the April 6 Movement were received by the American counterparts and trained to use the  technologies of public mobilization, strategic planning and the new media. Besides, they studied how to «make the civil society competent in the information matters» and «further politicians and common public to share the information about the real origin of Egyptian democratic freedoms in the Internet».
It’s worth mentioning that then (beginning of 2010) oppositional movements — April 6 Movement, Kifaya, Muslim Brotherhood and Socialist Party — have agreed to carry out a series of scandalous rallies on the eve of the forthcoming Egyptian presidential elections in 2011. Yet, as the Wikileaks cable points out, American Ambassador considered this plan  futile.


Egypt: Middle-Eastern project and the Orange-Green Alliance?

 
Egypt is a key Middle-Eastern country. The USA has two strong allies in the region — Israel and Saudi Arabia. Yet, the state of the primary  strategic importance is Egypt, of course — the country with the largest population, the center of the Arab world.
 
If Egypt is uneasy somehow, it influences the entire region. That’s why American diplomacy is playing double: it supports both official authorities (military junta that replaced Mubarak) and prepares possible successors of the presidential seat. U.S. ties with «radical» Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood is a special subject. This brotherhood, created in 1928 and prohibited in Egypt since 1954, has returned to the political arena after Mubarak’s resignation through the political movement Party of Freedom and Justice. They’ve established an Egypt  25 TV-channel — a hint to the January 25 Movement,  which deposed the ex-President Hosni Mubarak. Without doubt, they make the majority (in the sense of people’s strength) on the streets today and may become the largest parliament bloc after the elections.
 
So what’s the connection between progressive bloggers and radical Islamic brotherhood, professing jihad? Communities (the Belgrade-like revolutionary cells), where the…non-violent revolutionary actions were taught, have been spreading among the Muslim Brothers since the beginning of Egyptian revolution and holding the first flash-mobs, which seemed to be chaotic at first (according to Ivan Marovic, one of the Otpor members, revolutions always seems to be chaotic on the TV, but they are never such in fact). Mohammed Adel (who trained in Belgrade with the Otpor employees), has also visited several classes.
 
Neither had it come as a surprise that during the first large united demonstration, held on the 25th of January, a curious coalition emerged — it consisted of April  6 Movement, Muslim Brotherhood and the Kifaya movement, which is mediating link between the previous two. Kifaya means «enough», «stop» or even «sick of that», which reminds of the motto «gotov je» (off with it) of Serbian Otpor or Pora («the time has come») youth movements, which were the vanguard of color revolution.
 
Since the moment of its creation, Kifaya was supported by the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict. According to certain French intelligence specialists like Eric Denese (President  of the French Center for Intelligence Studies and a former intelligence officer himself), absence of anti-Israel slogans or statements during the rallies is a sign of a good training of the movement leader.
Finally, there’s a fourth movement — committee of support for Mohamed El Baradei, former IAEA Director. When he returned to the country in the beginning of 2011 in order to take part in the presidential campaign, young activists of the April 6 Movement came to meet him in the
airport. «5 thousand people gathered in one place, nothing like that has ever happened» — Basem Fathy says, one of the rally participants.
Do you remember him? One of the most influential members of the Qatar-based Academy of Change, which mediates Otpor and the April
6 Movement, he was mentioned in the first part of this particle. Now he heads a group with high political
aspirations.
 
We have to mention that Mohammed El-Baradei is a board member of ICG (International Crisis Group), international non-governmental organization, established in 1995 by a group of «prominent European and American activists, disappointed with the inability of global community to efficiently prevent and react to the tragic events that took place in Somali, Ruanda and Bosnia». One of the top aides of this «orange» international group is nobody else but Zbigniew Brzezinski — one the main theoreticians of the modern American geopolitics.

Battle for the east (1)

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In the beginning of this year national unrest took place in quite a number of Arab countries, which the world media presented as the chaotic protests of population, willing to break free from decrepit and corrupted leaders. These events were shown us as a kind of revolution, demonstrating people’s crave for democracy and their desire to fully join the modern and progressive trends.

There’s a direct connection of these manifestos to the Eurasian events of the last decade. In the due time the majority of media resources also presented those events as the democratic revolutions, while the population was willing to get done with the Soviet past in order to join the Western system, which synonyms are: freedom, democracy and progress. Nevertheless, today we know that those revolutions, dubbed the «Color» ones weren’t anything but chaotic and independent — they rather truly were democratic coups, funded from without and being a part of strictly appointed geopolitical objectives, aimed at allowing the dominating power (the USA) to keep its presence and control
in Eurasia.

Internet, non-violent ways of fight and the Western influence

Recent events that struck the Arab-Muslim world and known as the Arab Spring was largely initiated from abroad — just like not so distant Eurasian events (in Ukraine, Serbia, Georgia). Lack of organization and the state of their relative weakness allowed these revolutions to happen, but it wasn’t possible everywhere:
remember Belarus or Russia.

Arab Spring started in December of 2010 in Tunisia and then spread to other Muslim countries: Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Morocco, Sudan, Djibouti, Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Somali and Kuwait. Outside of the Arab world protest wave also touched Northern Cyprus (its Turkish part) and Iran. All in all, 22 countries have been touched by the unrest to the various degrees — its participants stood up against dictatorship, corruption, poverty, tough actions of authorities and also against the rise of the food prices. Some of those revolutions have made the state leaders step down (Tunisia, Egypt), others — to the civil wars (Libya, Yemen). In certain cases turmoil turned into inter-clannish clashed (Syria) or the religious conflict between Shiites and Sunni (Bahrain). Finally, the Egyptian situation remains uneasy until now.
Given the prospect of election in the end of the year, it seems that the country is about to once again face the logical stand of the secular and radically-Islamist political blocs.

Generally speaking, 6 months after the events started neither revolution led to an improvement of the state situation, albeit King of Morocco agreed to carry out certain constitutional reforms at once. New economic troubles shimmered beyond the mirage of democracy in most part of the countries touched by the Arab Spring, while civil wars have started in the others. Already certaincommon features have been revealed, allowing us to draw the parallels with the color revolutions in Eurasia. At first some of these movements were inspired by the non-violent resistance techniques, which or Ukrainian Pora). Moreover, since 2008 certain Arab revolutionary leader have straightforwardly applied to services of those movements — to the Serbian Otpor, precisely speaking, which proves that the people’s uprising was anything but chaotic. Finally, the geopolitical influence of America, which exerted extra pressure over the Muslim world after the events of 9/11, casts its shadow over the event through a web of the NGOs, which funded certain color revolutions.

American influence may be sensed even now, because America has started the new Great Game against Russia and China in this part of planet. In 2003 the U.S. government declassified the design of a new large project of total border re-division in this area — this project was named «The Greater Middle East».
Finally, the use of Internet makes up yet another common feature of these revolutions — or Revolutions 2.0 as they’re dubbed — because the social networks happened to be one the key means used.

Everything started in Tunisia but it was Egypt where the ties and similarities of the Arab Spring and the «color revolutions» became really obvious. In spring of 2008 the April 6 Movement was organized in Egypt — in was intended to support the workers from industrial cities (El-Mahalla El-Kubra), which scheduled the strike for the 6th of April, the same year. The strike succeeded and President Mubarak was forced to raise the laborers’ wages. After those events both masterminds of the movement — Ahmed Maher and Israa Abdel Fattah — were imprisoned. In December of 2008 Mohamed Adel, responsible for the media relations of the April 6 Movement, was sent to the USA, where he met the MPs and partisan functionaries, who advised him securing his organization in the Internet. The ready-made web-site of this organization will play the key role of the Egyptian events in 2011. April 6 Movement site reproduces the imaged of a lifted fist, which is a logo of the youth movements that became the vanguard
of «color revolutions». Take a look yourself:

In Serbia during the anti-Milošević
revolution:

Facebook page of the Egyptian April 6 movement also features that logo. What miracle brought it there?

Budapest — Belgrade — Doha — Cairo

Members of the April 6 Committee used to tell that soon they’ve contacted the web-site of Egyptians, extradited to Qatar, called the Academy of Change and engaged in the promotion of the state transformation ideas. Academy became a copycat of the Otpor techniques at once. What links Otpor, Milošević and the Arab world?

Let’s get a decade back and remember that the Serbian resistance movement
Otpor was remotely created, funded and guided by the USA through various NGOs like Freedom House, Albert Einstein Institute and the International Republican Institute. In order to make sure of that it only takes readingthis interview of one of the Otpor founders, who explains the tight connection of American government and this youth movement. Throughout the 2000s Serbian border police has been registering an extraordinary flow of young Serbs to the Serbian St. Andrew monastery in Hungary for several months. In fact, all these people were expected in the Budapest Hilton hotel, where the retired American Colonel Robert Helvy taught them the most advanced non-violent techniques, based at Gene Sharp’s doctrines.
Milja Jovanović, who got the MTV Free Your Mind award on behalf of Otpor, said that the European Union pretended to be deaf to their calls for help: «‘Send the appropriate application to Brussels and you will get the reply within6–8 months’ they said».
The USA, however sent the financial aid, required for opening 70 branch offices of the movement all over Serbia, within two weeks. Development of this underground revolutionary network and Otpor actions have led to the fall of regime of Milošević.
After the regime change in Serbia, Otpor transformed in CANVAS 1 — sort of a brain tank for the democracy-promoting activists. Today the Institute is mostly funded by Slobodan Dinovic — co-founder of Otpor and a Srdja Popovic’s friend, who headed the telecommunication enterprise after the fall of Serbian regime. CANVAS claims that it wages its activity (workshops, education, and training) in 37 countries and that it only cooperates with the movement that have never conducted violent actions.

So, CANVAS, for example, refused to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah, but rather actively supported oppositionists in Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Belarus, Myanmar and Tunisia and Egypt before that.

Srdja Popovic claims: «It took Gandhi thirty years to depose the regime. We only needed ten years. Tunisians did that in a month and a half, Egyptians — in 19 days. CANVAS also openly takes part in the workshops, funded by the OSCE, UN and the Freedom House. When, after the fall of Milošević, Otpor publicized the fact of their support by Americans, many embers of the movement decided that they were deceived and left it — today it consists of merely 5 employees, revolution waging consultants, who take money for their services and inform the American government. According to the CANVAS founder, «previously America assisted anyone opposing Milošević». Today’s list of official sponsors of the organizations leaves no place for doubts of its political orientation.

Let’s get back to the Academy of Change, though. As one of its members, Basem Fathy, admits, the academy works with a variety of progressive Arab movements, is financed right from the USA and deals with the human rights protection
founded in an Islamic country, yet is the U.S. ally, will hardly be more surprising than its field of operation. During the Serbian events, which led to the collapse of regime of Milošević, disproval of election results by one of the NGOs observing them (Center for Free Elections and Democracy) was one of the things that triggered the street revolution.

Similar mechanism, 100%-funded by the American National Endowment for Democracy NGO operated in the Arab world. We’re talking about the U-Shahid web-site. Members of the Qatar-founded academy, replied positively to the request of their compatriots, sent through the Facebook and established their contact with the Otpor (today’s CANVAS). Then two Otpor leaders Srdja Popovic and Ivan Marovic passed theoperational documents to them.

In June of 2009 CANVAS created by Otpor organized a colloquium on Egypt. Mohamed Adel and blogger Esraa Abdel Fattah, responsible for the media PR of the Movement of the 6 th of April, have even been sent to a two-week-long study course to Belgrade. In Belgrade they’ve joined other young Arabs from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, who came to Serbia in order to attend the CANVAS classes.

Besides, leaders of the International Non-Violent Conflict Center organized the training of activists and bloggers directly at the place of action, in Egypt, teaching them the way of non-violent revolutions and distributing Gene Sharp’s textbook, describing 198 non-violent actions — one may find out the details at the web-site of the Albert Einstein Institute.

Gene Sharp’s textbook, translated to  Arab started to spread all over the Internet and during the anti-Mubarak rallies in Egypt it was downloaded more than 17 thousand times. One may get acquainted with various how-to guides for rallies and street demonstrations in Arab here and here. Al-Jazeera directed a quite educative documentary about this well-planned revolution that struck Egypt.

Bataille pour l’orient (1)

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Au début de l’année, des mouvements de contestation ont éclaté dans de nombreux pays arabes, mouvements présentés par le mainstream médiatique comme étant des soulèvements spontanés de populations qui souhaitaient s’émanciper de leaders vieillissants et corrompus. Ces évènements nous ont été décrits comme une variété de
révolutions traduisant l’aspiration des populations à la démocratie et leur désir d’entrer plain pied dans la modernité et le progrès.

Il y a un rapport tout à fait direct avec les évènements qui se sont produits en Eurasie lors de la décennie précédente. A l’époque le même mainstream médiatique avait également fait passer ces évènements pour des révolutions démocratiques de populations qui souhaitaient tourner le dos à leur passé soviétique pour adhérer à un système occidental synonyme de liberté, démocratie et de progrès.

Pour autant il est aujourd’hui établi que ces révolutions dites de couleur n’étaient pas  des évènements anodins ni spontanés, mais bel et bien de réels coups d’état  démocratiques, sponsorisés de l’extérieur et faisant partie d’objectifs géopolitiques très clairement établis, destinés à permettre à la puissance dominante actuelle (les Etats-Unis) d’asseoir sa maîtrise et son contrôle sur le continent eurasiatique.

Internet, non violence et influence occidentale  

Les récents évènements qui ont frappé le monde arabo-musulman, sous le nom de printemps arabe, sont en grande partie des évènements dont le déclenchement à été activé de l’extérieur, comme les évènements qui ont frappé certains des états d’Eurasie (Ukraine, Serbie, Géorgie) dans le passé récent. Le manque d’organisation et l’état de relative faiblesse de certains états ont permis que ces révolutions aboutissent, mais  cela n’a pas été possible partout, que l’on pense par exemple à la Biélorussie ou la Russie.  Les mouvements du printemps arabe ont commencé en décembre 2010 en Tunisie avant de s’étendre à d’autres pays musulmans : Algérie, Jordanie, Mauritanie, Oman, Yémen, Arabie saoudite, Liban, Egypte, Syrie, Palestine, Maroc, Soudan, Djibouti, Bahreïn, Irak, Libye, Somalie et Koweït. Hors du monde Arabe, Chypre nord (partie turque) et l’Iran seront aussi concernés. Au total 22 pays seront touchés à des degrés divers par ces manifestations, qui dénoncent à la fois la dictature, la corruption, la pauvreté et les mesures d’austérité des gouvernements, ou encore la hausse des prix des produits alimentaires. Certaines de ces révolutions aboutiront à la destitution des leaders des états concernés (Tunisie, Egypte), d’autres à des guerres totales dans le pays concerné (Libye ou Yemen). Dans certains pays, les révolutions tourneront à l’affrontement entre clans (Syrie) ou encore à l’affrontement inter – confessionnel Chiites/Sunnites, comme c’est le cas par exemple à Bahreïn.

Enfin la situation de l’Egypte reste inquiétante puisque le pays semble rentrer dans une logique d’opposition entre un bloc laïque et un bloc islamique radical, en vue des
élections de cette fin d’année.   En clair, 6 mois après le début de ces évènements, aucune révolution n’a concrètement débouché sur une amélioration de la situation si ce n’est au Maroc ou le roi a habilement consenti à quelques réformes constitutionnelles. Derrière le mirage de la démocratie, la plupart des pays concernés ont vu apparaitre des problèmes économiques nouveaux, et pour certains, le début de guerres civiles. Certaines grandes lignes se dégagent déjà et permettent de tirer quelques parallèles avec les révolutions de couleur qui ont eu lien en Eurasie.

Tout d’abord certains de ces mouvements se sont inspirés des méthodes et techniques de révolution non violentes utilisées par les groupes de jeunesse qui ont mené les révolutions de couleurs, que l’on  pense par exemple à Otpor en Serbie ou Pora en Ukraine. Plus que cela, certains des leaders des révolutions arabes ont directement bénéficié des services de ces mouvements en étant formés  par ces derniers, notamment en Serbie et cela depuis 2008, preuve que le  mouvement est tout sauf spontané. Enfin, l’ombre de l’influence américaine, via la kyrielle d’ONGs qui avaient contribué à cofinancer les révolutionnaires (de couleur) est présente tout comme surtout l’influence géopolitique américaine, qui exerce une pression renforcée sur tout le monde musulman depuis le 11 septembre.

L’influence américaine se fait sentir également parce que l’Amérique est lancée dans une nouvelle forme de « grand jeu » contre la Russie et la Chine dans cette partie du monde.  L’administration Américaine avait dès 2003 dévoilé un immense projet de total remodelage des frontières dans la région, projet qui porte le nom de “grand moyen orient”. Enfin, l’utilisation d’internet est un autre point commun de ces révolutions, on a parlé de révolution 2.0 tant l’utilisation notamment des réseaux sociaux a été l’un des fondements structurels du fonctionnement de ces mouvements.    C’est en Tunisie que tout a commencé, mais c’est en Egypte que les liens  et similitudes entre le printemps arabe et les révolutions de couleur d’Eurasie sont les plus évidentes.

Durant le printemps 2008, un mouvement appelé “mouvement du  6 avril” est créé en soutien aux ouvriers d’une ville industrielle, (El-Mahalla El-Kubra), qui planifiaient une grève le 06 avril de cette même année. La grève sera un succès et le président Moubarak devra se résigner à des hausses de salaires.Suite à ces évènements, les deux organisateurs du mouvement, Ahmed Maher et Israa Fattah seront emprisonnés. Mohamed Adel, le chargé de presse du mouvement du 06 avril sera lui envoyé en décembre 2008 aux États-Unis où il rencontre des parlementaires et des informaticiens qui le conseillent pour se protéger sur Internet. Cette structure déjà prête jouera un rôle fondamental dans les évènements de 2011 en Egypte. Un site du 06 avril va être créé, qui reprend avec beaucoup de similitudes la signalétique du poing levé qui est est le symbole des mouvements de jeunesse qui ont animé les révolutions de couleur, que l’on en juge ci dessous.

    Et en Serbie lors de la révolution anti Milosevic :  

    La page Facebook du groupe egyptien « du 6 avril » comprend également ce poing levé. Par quel miracle?  

Budapest – Belgrade – Doha – Le Caire  

Les membres du comité du 06 avril ont raconté comment ils se sont rapidement trouvés en lien avec un site d’Egyptiens expatriés au Qatar appelé “l’académie du changement” et qui faisait notamment la promotion de la transformation des sociétés. Cette académie à rapidement fait la  copie des méthodes et activités d’Otpor. Quel est le lien entre Otpor, Milosevic et le monde arabe? Un retour en arrière d’une décennie s’impose.  Il faut rappeler que le mouvement de résistance Serbe Otpor a été créé, financé et dirigé à distance, depuis les Etats Unis,  par diverses ONG comme Freedom House,  l’Albert Einstein Institute ou encore l’Iri. Pour s’en convaincre il suffit de lire cette interview d’un des fondateurs de Otpor qui explique les liens très poussés entre l’administration américaine et leur jeune mouvement.

Pendant la décennie 2000, la police des frontières serbe a enregistré en quelques mois un flux inhabituel de jeunes serbes en visite dans le monastère serbe de Saint André, situé en Hongrie.

En fait, ces jeunes étaient tous attendus à l’hôtel Hilton de Budapest, où un colonel américain à la retraite, Robert Helvy, les a formés aux techniques les plus avancées d’actions non violentes, en se basant sur les doctrines de Gene Sharp.   Milja Jovanovic, qui au nom d’OTPOR a reçu le prix Free your Mind de MTV, rappelle que l’Union européenne a fait la sourde oreille à leur demande d’aide : « envoyez un formulaire à Bruxelles, et vous recevrez une réponse dans 6 à 8 mois ». En revanche, en l’espace de deux semaines, les fonds nécessaires à l’ouverture de 70 bureaux du mouvement dans toute la Serbie étaient arrivés des Etats-Unis (sources). Conséquence du développement de cette toile révolutionnaire souterraine, les actions d’Otpor aboutiront à la chute du régime de Milosevic.


   Après le changement de régime en Serbie, Otpor mutera pour devenir Canvas, une sorte de Think-tank d’activistes qui promeut la démocratie. L’institut s’affirme aujourd’hui financé en majorité par Slobodan Djinovic, co-fondateur d’Otpor et ami de Srdja Popovic qui a monté après la chute du régime une entreprise de télécommunication en Serbie. Canvas affirme avoir déjà fait des interventions (séminaires, formations, trainings) dans 37 pays à travers le monde et affirme aussi ne travailler qu’avec des groupes dont l’histoire est non-violente.

Canvas a par exemple refusé de coopérer avec le Hamas et le Hezbollah, et soutiendrait assez activement des opposants d’Iran, du Zimbabwe, du Venezuela, du Belarus, de Birmanie et, plus récemment, de Tunisie et d’Egypte. Comme l’affirme Srdja Popovic : « Gandhi a mis trente ans pour faire tomber le régime. Nous avons eu besoin de dix ans. Les Tunisiens l’ont fait en un mois et demi, et les Égyptiens en 19
jours. C’est un blitzkrieg démocratique».  

Canvas participe encore publiquement à des ateliers financés tant par l’OSCE, que les nations unies ou encore l’association Freedom House. Lorsque Otpor à rendu publique cette aide Américaine après la chute de Milosevic, beaucoup de membres se sont estimés trompés et ont quitté le mouvement, qui n’a plus aujourd’hui que 5 employés, consultants en révolutions et qui facturent leurs interventions, en informant l’administration américaine. Comme le précise le fondateur de Canvas : « à l’époque, toute l’opposition à Milosevic était aidée par l’Amérique ». Aujourd’hui la liste publique des sponsors de l’organisation ne laisse pas de doutes quand à son orientation   Mais revenons à l’académie du changement qui est basée au Qatar.

Comme le reconnaîtra un de ses membres du nom de Basem Fathy, l’académie travaille avec différents mouvements arabes progressistes, reçoit des financements direct des Etats-Unis, et se concentre sur la protection des droits de l’homme et la surveillances des élections dans divers pays . Le fait que cette académie soit installée dans un pays Islamique, mais allié des Etats Unis n’est pas une  surprise, pas plus que son domaine d’activité. Lors des évènements en Serbie ayant abouti à l’effondrement du régime de Milosevic, l’un des déclencheurs de la révolution de rue avait été le fait que les résultats de l’élection avait été parasités par des annonces émises par un institut de contrôle des élections, le Cesid.

Un dispositif similaire existe pour le monde Arabe, totalement financé par l’ONG américaine NED, il s’agit de la plateforme U-Shahid. Contactés via Facebook, les membres de l’académie basée au Qatar ont donc répondu positivement à la demande de leurs concitoyens et les ont mis en relation avec Otpor/Canvas. Deux responsables d’Otpor, Srdja Popovic et Ivan Marovic leur ont ensuite fourni des documents de travail.En juin 2009, Canvas, le centre de formation à la révolution non violente créé par Otpor, a organisé un colloque sur l’Egypte. Le chargé de presse du mouvement du 06 avril, Mohamed Adel, a même été envoyé en stage pour deux semaines à Belgrade  accompagné de la blogueuse Esraa Abdel Fattah. Ils n’étaient pas seuls, ils ont rejoint àBelgrade d’autres jeunes arabes, Égyptiens, Tunisiens, Algériens ou Marocains, notamment, venus en Serbie pour assister aux formations organisées par l’institut Canvas.   Par ailleurs, des responsables du centre international pour les conflits non violents ont dispensé des formations sur le terrain en Egypte à des militants et blogueurs, en les formant aux méthodes de révolutions non violentes et en distribuant le manuel de Gene Sharp avec ses 198 actions non violentes, que vous pouvez consulter sur le site de l’Albert Einstein Institute.


C’est à cette époque que le manuel de Gene Sharp à été traduit en Arabe et a commencé à circuler sur la toile (source), il aurait été téléchargé plus de 17.000 fois en Egypte durant les évènements anti Moubarak. Voir également ici et la les manuels d’action et de manifestations de rues traduits en Arabe. Al-Jazzera a réalisé un documentaire extrêmement instructif sur cette révolution organisée qui a frappé l’Egypte.

Towards a greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok

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Last Wednesday, June 22 2011, was the anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. On 22 June 1941 at 4:00 am, the radio announced the start of the German act of aggression against the Soviet Union. From June 22, 1941 until May 9, 1945, that is to say a little less than four years, this European civil war cost Russia 27 million deads. 27 millions, here is the number that for the Russians symbolizes this tragic period in the History of Europe. June 22 is a traumatic Russian collective memory, a
black day (the beginning of the war) but also the reminder that the USSR was definitely not ready militarily against such an aggression. The first months of the war were disastrous for the USSRand the German troops invaded relatively easily Western Russia. The French people clearly understand the meaning of this tragic period, since the pattern of blitzkrieg and disaster was the same in France, at least at the beginning of the war. The battle for France began May 10 1940, and lasted only 42 days as on June 22 1940, the Petain government signed the armistice, acknowledging the military defeat of France and accepting the occupation of the country. 

From spring 1942, although on the brink of the abyss, the Russians were able to react. German troops were pushed out of Moscow and the battles moved south and to the Caucasus. The terrible battles of Kursk and Stalingrad contributed to destroythe German military potential and tofrustrate Hitler’s purpose for Europe. We know how the History went on: the Red Army continued the war until it reached Berlin, where the capitulation was signed May 8 1945, shortly before midnight.
At that point and during almost a half century of Cold War, Europe got cut into two, the East and the West being separated by the Iron Curtain. In 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the USSR and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, one could think of a real thaw in Europe. But the fast expansion of the EU and of NATO eastward created new concerns. From 1989 the physical border that the Berlin Wall represented was replaced by another invisible border, just as pernicious, that hadsimply moved further east. These ”clichés inherited from the past and hovering over Europe” as the Russian Prime Ministerrecently said[1], allowed this psychological boundary to flourish. But those stereotypes and this mistrust datee from abygone period (the Cold War) during which Russians and Westerners faced each other risking a fourth world war which nobody wants to imagine what it could have been like.
But a new frontier could be reborn in Europe, embodied today by the willingness of Americans to install a missile shield on the continent, which would separate Western Europe from the Russia-Ukraine-Belarus zone, and constitute a new kind of sword of Damocles over the Europe. Yet, as I wrote in my previous column[2], it is possible to erase this boundary. For example, on Friday, June 17, 2011, for the first time in the History ofNATO, a country member (France) delivered substantial military equipment to Russia (the Mistral contract), thus breaking this morbid distrust of some Western decision makerswho perpetuate a Cold War mentality. Of course, some U.S. congressmen voiced their discontent, and the Latvian government has said they felt concerned, but this is unimportant: the Mistral contract fits into a much broader picture.

The inauguration last week of a common monument to the memory of the Russian expeditionary force that the Tsar had provided to France in 1916, as well as the story of the heroic Normandy-Niemen squadron that nobody can forget, both underline that a rapprochement from Paris to Moscow is not only a historical reality, but is also already running. A reel entente is not only possible  and feasible on the continent, but in the 21st century it has become especially vital. Some of the Central and Eastern countries who thought that to get out of the Soviet umbrella had justified the entry under the umbrella of the European Union and of NATO in order protect themselves from Russia, have probably made a fundamental mistake. Indeed, the Europeans interests in 2011 do not any longer necessarily coincide with those of the 1990s. 
With the awareness that the post-Soviet or Russian threat no longer exists, one can even wonder what is the interest of Europe to be under the military supervision of NATO, an organization that served during the Cold War, as his Secretary General Lionel Hastings Ismay underlined when he said NATO was used to «keep the Russians out, the Americans inside and the Germans under guardianship”. Furthermore the 51 countries of the European space do not coincide either with the space of the European Union (27 countries). In terms of security and economy, a much larger architectureis surely necessary. Therefore, the future of Europe in gestation, as it now prefigures itself, is likely to head towards a further integration between the East and the West ofthecontinent. The sstrengthening links of the two Western European
powers, France and Germany, with Russia (incarnating the Eastern power of the continent) is the sign that slowly but surely, the continental Europe is uniting and thatthe Paris-Berlin–Moscow axis is taking place.This continental alliance desired by the General de Gaulle is also the project supportedanddefended by theRussian leaders today, whetherweconsider the statements of Vladimir Putin on creating a community ofeconomies from Lisbon to Vladivostok [3]orof Dmitry Medvedev proposing to create a pan-European security architecture [4]. Thisarchitecture ismostly needed in a world in turmoil ifEuropewants to establish the necessary means to preserve peace but also to go throughthe 21st century as a sovereign and independent entity.
 
[1]
http://fr.rian.ru/russia/20101203/188026291.html
[2]
http://fr.rian.ru/tribune/20110622/189918659.html
[3]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,731109,00.html
[4]
http://en.rian.ru/trend/security_treaty/

Battle for Eurasia (III)

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Logistics of political rallies, which were held in conditions of freezing Ukrainian winter (sometimes for few weeks), have left nothing up to chance. All these facts — silent and rapid seizure of parliament in such unstable and unstrained country as Georgia, or part that nearly oppositional non-governmental organization CеSID played — it challenged election results in Serbia even before they were publicized — or the beginning of well-coordinated demonstrations cannot be accidental. In fact, these events are the results of activity of particular people, who were taught the propagandistic methods and united within various movements. These people are revolutionary-professionals to the bone; they organize coups and move from one country to another, from one revolution to another at the expense of non-governmental organizations, i.e. at the expense of American interests in Europe. Common trait of all these revolutions is the emergence of youth movements in each country — absolutely similar both in form and in content — and similar technique of carrying the revolution out…..

The first color revolution that took place in Serbia in 2000, was mostly organized by youth movement called ’’Otpor!’’ — the real moving force of students protests. Alexander Marich, one of its leaders has later confirmed «his direct connections with State Department and White House employees, and also he acknowledged that the U.S. Agency for International Development, international organization „Freedom house“ and Soros Foundation „Open society“ financed the most part of campaign». Marich confirmed that «training seminars took place in Budapest, Bucharest and in Bosnia during the spring, prior to these events». «Otpor» movement activists met there with the functionaries of Albert Einstein Institution and also with leaders of Polish movement «Solidarnosc» (Solidarnosc). As Marich asserted, the technologies they used were straightly casted by non-violent methods of Sharp and Ackerman’s actions and the aim of it was «to discredit the governments, to incline people for civil disobedience and peaceful demonstrations. Everything was under the authority of association with no definite executor. Besides, the movement was to position itself as something distant from politics and mainly to draw undecided youth1 attention to its side.» Also the group was obliged «to use short messages and slogans, and activists were to be picked out due to their appearance in order to represent the movement properly, giving it touch of romance and freedom-loving, and to inspire the followers with the ideas of «special purpose2». And finally the movement could counted on broad support of leading world mass-media, which filtered and sorted information out to present the demonstrations as spontaneous meetings of youngsters, striving for freedom and democracy and longing for integration into international society.

After the Serbian success, two of «Otpor» members, Alexander Marich and Stanko Lazendich were employed by «Freedom house» and sent to widespread their skills and knowledge to other countries and to support preparations for other revolutions: in Georgia in 2003, and in Ukraine in 2004. The support mostly consisted of training: both methods of non-violent resistance, techniques of negotiations with authorities and also of logistics, which was essentially important for arranging the weeks-long demonstrations. It proved particularly useful to Ukraine, where demonstrators were given thousands tents and bedspreads to defend them from hard frost in the camp set up in the Square of Independence. During the entire stay at Maydan free-meals were served.

Symbols that these fraternal groups use (clenched fist) leave no doubts whatsoever about their correlation, whether we look at Ukrainian movement «PORA!», Kirghiz «KelKell» or Georgian «Kmara». It’s necessary to notice that such groups also exist in the countries that are (so far?) not going to carry out revolution. These are Byelorussian «Zubr» or Albanian «Mjaft», for instance. By the way, in Albania significant demonstrations are going on right now. Uzbek movements «Bolga» and «Youkol» and Azerbaijani movement «Jok» are also worth mentioning. Mind that it were activists of Georgian «Kmara», who carried out the trainings for their Russian fellows from «Oborona» — adding fuel to the flame of intense relationships between two countries. Speaking of «Otpor», in 2003 this movement was transformed into Serbian political party that deplorably failed Parliament election of the same year and then dissolved into Democratic Party (DS) of Boris Tadić, current President of Serbia. The most part of members of this movement re-trained into experts of local political analysis, being employed by such institutions like Center of applied non-violent actions and strategies (CANVAS) and National commission of justice and conciliation (CNVR).

One of the former «Otpor» members, Ivan Morovich has collaborated with the above-mentioned International center of nonviolent fight, «York Zimmermann Inc» company and with videogame developers «BreakAway Ltd» since 2003. He helped the latter with making a videogame «A Force More Powerful. The Game of Nonviolent Strategy», which came out in 2005. The game is based on different strategies and tacticsof acting without using force — these tactics were used in many countries to overthrow «dictatorships», «enemies of democracy and human rights», with Milošević being one of them. Thereby, the circle closes and practice unites with theory of developing videogames of Eckerman based on present or future scripts of color revolutions we spoke about. We have to mention another peculiarity of color revolutions. They are characterized by uniting nationalism and anti-imperialism (in this context it doesn’t matter whether it’s Russian or post-Soviet), while nationalists and radical right groups play an important role in the riots. This is exactly the case of Serbia and Ukraine. This is why we talked about orange-brown front of anti-Russian powers and heterogeneous coalition that united pro-Western democrats with radical right neo-nationalists. All these movements are openly anti-Russian. Today such alliances, where weak and heterogeneous liberal opposition comes out side by side with skinhead-nationalists, supporting leftist national-Bolsheviks or basically ultra right movements are commonplace.

Results of color revolutions and their prospects

We’ve been able to see that Goal of color revolutions is to reinforce the American presence (and, consequently, presence of NATO) in the center of Eurasia, around Russia — in order to carry out geostrategic and geopolitical tasks, formulated in theories of such geopolitical strategists like Mackinder and Spykman. It’s worth mentioning the rightness of their predictions that Eurasia is going to be the most important worldwide region in terms of energy resources, population and ties between civilizations. Color revolutions have a lot of in common, indeed. Particularly, it’s the orientation on countries that are admittedly important due to geographic or political (neighboring Russia) reasons or due to their location the energy corridors. But another common trait of color revolutions is orientation on countries with rather weak or unstable political regimes. Russia and Byelorussia, for instance, aren’t concerned about threat of such coup because necessary countermeasures as prohibition of non-governmental organizations activity and banishing revolutionist-mercenaries from the country have been undertaken at once. However, Russia somehow novelized taking upon a development of a large-scale youth movement «Nashi» that served for prevention of any attempts to get out on the streets or to resist the regime. Besides that, the activity of Soros Network and its subsidiaries was simply banned in Russia and Byelorussia alike.

According to Karine Ter-Saakyan, governments that came to power after color revolutions had no future by the time of 2008. She claimed: «The failure of color revolutions in the post-Soviet world is absolutely natural, it’s simply unavoidable. Democratic society and free market George Bush was enthusiastically promoting, seemed to be the targets of these revolutions — and they turned out to be untimely.» In practice these color revolutions, named after flowers mostly — like revolution of tulips, pinks, roses — faded away. What happened to Ukraine and Serbia is quite symbolic in fact — these countries showed that leaders who came to power due to results of color revolutions are unable to maintain even the minimum economic stability, while opening the economic system to American investments didn’t work out. This tendency broke down minimally by its long-lasting political projects. Prooflessness of this strategy became quite clear. Countermeasures can be successfully carried out — Russia and Byelorussia make good examples of that. Moreover it’s obvious that financial crisis hit the budget of color revolutions. And, finally, swift diplomatic and military response of Russia in August of 2008 clearly showed that it is ready to resist this democratic violence and to protect its citizens even abroad.

Now all that intellectual energy that spearheads of color revolutions waste on different attempts to destabilize Russia could be as well aimed at measuring and estimating effect of Arab spring. The losses are still beyond count, but they can affect Europe, Russia and America in the long run.


1«At Moscow yards» by Patrice Vilal pages 149 and 150
2 «At Moscow yards» by Patrice Vilal, page 151

Battle for Eurasia (II)

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So, after the Second World War Europe was divided into two with an Iron Curtain, the USSR was consider the major bidder for Eurasian dominion and at the same time «Promethean» movement, desperately wishing to split the Union into separate pieces, was actively supported by the CIA. American strategists were going to try out the geopolitical skills of their ideologists for real, attempting to girdle Russia with a network of buffer countries, allowing the USA to promote their own Eurasian policy. They’ve used an utmost innovative approach: they’ve organized the delusively spontaneous wave of people’s riots against existing regimes in the neighboring countries, but without usage of violent fights and via the well-arranged network of underground organizations. In order to do so, they’ve created a variety of associations and NGOs. They’ve dubbed themselves champions of democratic principles but mostly they’ve been only protecting American political interests in the countries that it recognized as unreliable and non-democratic. I.e. these are the countries that do not enter Western alliances and belong to the union of non-allied states. That strategic concept is not new; it is dated by the 80s, the height of the Cold War. Strategy developed into tremendous number of NGOs, funded by Reagan government in order to weaken Soviet influence and oppose it.




They included USAID, USIP and NED, which is an international democratic staff training institution itself and administers various liberal associations that promote democratic values. We’d also mention the Institute for study of the USSR and American Committee for Liberation of Bolshevism, which leader of Promethean movement joined after the WWII. This list also features Aspen Institute, Jamestown foundation and The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus that organized, funded and maintained the jihad against Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan. This committee prototyped the Freedom House — heart of the system, found in 1941 to resist fascist influence and afterwards, influence of the Soviet Union. The list wouldn’t be complete if not for Heritage Foundation, found in 1973 as a tool of President Reagan’s anti-Soviet doctrine and being one of the most prominent conservative «think tanks» of America. There’s also the «Open Society» network of the Soros Foundation, intended to promote liberal principles and democracy at the post-Soviet space via their subsidiary associations. Finally, we have to mention AEI that is considered to be the right wing of the liberal Brookings Institution «think tank» along with American Enterprise Institute.


Albert Einstein University, found by Gene Sharp is of peculiar interest to us. Its founder is an American public activist and an author of the book «From dictatorship to democracy» — truly a textbook for the non-violent means of fight against dictators’ regimes. Most part of youth movements, funded by above-mentioned NGOs that expect them to overthrow the undesirable governments. Gene Sharp politicized the means of non-violent fight for the case of possible resumption of the Cold War in order to prepare European resistance for probable invasion of the Red Army. This little-known philosopher has been publishing his works on the non-violent fight since 1985 till 2005. Since 1987 he was carrying out internal NATO trainings. It is worth mentioning that since the 90s, participation of Colonel Robert Helvey, former employee of American CIA, allowed the institute to be lavished with financial injections of Republican IRI center — GOP-associated «think tank» that is also one of four NED branches. Simultaneously with these theories, we have to reviews the activity of ICNC, headed by Peter Ackerman. Ackerman proclaims the tactical advantage of non-violent fight within the framework of global informational society. His plans stipulate the development of videogames, based on real or probable (future) theaters of war and civilian coups. Thus, theories of Sharp and Ackerman are the cornerstones of global misinformation system and ideological war that are necessary to inspire the bloodless revolutions. This ideologically-cultural impact, carried out via Internet communications, civil journalism and social networks will allow spreading the unnoticed messages, fiddling with the subconscious incentives. Along with application of innovative means за ideologically-cultural influence, we’re to see the non-violent state coups as large as life: mass «color» protests, usage of social networks to destabilize a country or wage an information war, i.e. non-violent internet-war. We might state that few observers grasp the importance of funding and the scope of activity of all these association, «think tanks» and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Also, few observers have understood their common origin within the framework of a single tool of geopolitical impact.

Color revolutions at the Russian threshold

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Iron Curtain moved to the East. Weakening of the Soviet (and therefore, Russian) influence indirectly suited NATO geopolitical interests. In addition to that, NATO and the EU expansion was re-dividing Europe. According to Italian expert of geopolitics Tibério Graziani, Eastern European countries, joining the NATO, have created an American jumping ground for attack at Eurasia. In September of 1997 one of the most influential American political scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski published an article regarding Eurasian geopolitics and American dominion, which was to be preserved (according to him) via splitting Russia into three separate parts, united with a name «Russian Confederation». Brzezinski offered to split Russia in order to liberate the Western and Eastern Siberia from the burden of Moscow bureaucracy, having stated in his magnum opus that it will «reduce Russia temptation to get back to its imperial agenda» and, therefore, won’t stand in the way of improving American control over Eurasia. Besides, there are certain traditional Russia allies within the Russian sphere of influence and among its neighbors — they don’t urge to enter NATO, resisting its expansion to the East. These countries are strategically important in political and geographic senses, thus, making perfect targets for democratic coups that are often dubbed the color revolutions.


2000, Serbia: Soros-affiliated organizations — Open Society, Freedom House and NED have organized the mass people’s rallies between two rounds of presidential elections in 2000. Revolution, supported by nationalists (as it is also to happen in Ukraine) was dubbed the Bulldozer Revolution, because thousands of miners have used them to assault the capital and the parliament, having even failed to wait until the election results to be published — that testifies to an apparent democratic nature of revolution, of course. New government appointed Prime Minister who was soon killed for extraditing Slobodan Milošević to the International Criminal Tribunal, where the latter died in the preventive detention cell before the sentence was made. American troops have built the Camp Bondsteel military base in Kosovo and completed the sovereignization of this Serbian province. 10 years from that, in 2010 majority of the UN country-members still wouldn’t recognize the independent formation. At the same time Serbian is doing its best, trying to negotiate its way to the EU, while state of national economy is simply disastrous. Weakened government doesn’t stand a single chance to win the forthcoming elections.


2003, Georgia: here was the classic scheme — opposition proclaims the elections results to be forged and hit the streets. Demonstrators made Eduard Shevarnadze leave the presidential post and seized the power. That is the Rose Revolution. Having become a President, its triumphed leader Mikhail Saakashvili opened the country for American and Western economic interests and reflected upon joining the NATO and the EU. Quite naturally, he has broken all the ties with the neighboring Russia. Five years after that, in August of 2008, Saakashvili bombed the population of South Ossetia, killing lots of Ossetians, most of whom had double Russo-Georgian citizenship, along with the UN-authorized Russian peacemakers. Moscow struck back and ousted the Georgian military attack, which was supported by American and Ukrainian officers-instructors. As a result, the country was brought to ruin. Elections of 2008, when President Saakashvili was re-elected were strongly condemned by the global community that perceived them as non-democratic.


2004, Ukraine: Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko opposed President Viktor Yanukovych during the elections — the former two politicians featured the Western support and sympathies of the global community. Different results were published after the vote and thousands of Ukrainian held a rally at the central square of Kiev, where Viktor Yushchenko called for non-violent resistance to dictatorship. OSCE and Freedom House have condemned the election results, while Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko have recognized Yanukovych’s victory — he was the one, whom the Ukrainian election committee dubbed the winner as well. After two weeks of skillfully arranged rallies that united liberal and radical right movements and given the strong mediating pressure (OSCE, NATO, Council of Europe and the Euro-Parliament…) election results were abrogated and the third round was held, which the Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko won. This was the Orange Revolution. After the presidential term, country was devastated and in 2009 Yushchenko wasn’t re-elected, having gained less than 5% of the votes. Nobody was surprised that it was Viktor Yanukovych who became the new President, while Yulia Tymoshenko — ultra-nationalist and a symbol of Orange revolution and westernizers — was accused of corruption.


2005, Kirghizstan: Kirghiz opposition challenged the results of parliamentary elections and brought demonstrators to Bishkek from the south of the country — they overthrow President Askar Akayev. This was the Tulip Revolution. National Council chose pro-American candidate Kurmanbek Bakiyev who was the President and Prime Minister at the same time. When the situation stabilized Bakiyev sold several natural resources deposits to Americans and built an American military base in Manas. Being accused of corruption and deterioration of the national economy, he lost the power in 2010 after yet another people’s uprising.

Battle for Eurasia (I)

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 This article was published on the website : www.win.ru
“An uneasy situation has emerged in Arab world, shattered by revolutions; its further destabilization can break several countries into small pieces. This is the scenario they’ve prepared for us and now they will try even harder to bring it life. But it will never happen anyway.“
Dmitry Medvedev, Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, 22th of February 2011


During the last 10 years there was a tidal wave of revolutions at the post-Soviet spaces (in Central European and Central Asian countries). These revolutions — at least those of them that ended — caused the change of power and political re-orientation of the above-mentioned states. All those changes had one similar violence-excluding scenario. All of them were portrayed by mass media as democratic revolutions, led by younger people, who needed freedom and wanted to break free from pro-Soviet, semi-democratic corrupted political systems. Those «color revolutions» or «Orange revolutions» (named after revolution in Ukraine) were presented to us as a logical and complementary continuation of «velvet revolutions». This was the way Eastern European countries started to unyoke themselves from the Soviet Union. We’ll see however that these political changes were neither coincidental, nor caused by political will of opposition. Those were carefully planned geostrategic operations,which were organized and controlled from without the countries of action. 


In the 20th century American global supremacy replaced the British one. One dominating maritime power changed another, but approach to the global affairs — especially the continental ones — didn’t. This persistent necessity to maintain its presence in the center of Eurasia was the main priority of any major state policy (Britain in the 19th century and America in the 20th century). And by all means it led to reduction of Russian authority in this area, which was full of Russia’s neighboring states, by the way. You should take into account the theory of continental presence, if you want to understand the rules of Russo-American and Russo-English relationships within the framework of the Great Game that took place at Central Asia in the previous century. In fact, both England and America obeyed the same geopolitical laws and geographical limits. Their itch for the world supremacy should have got over two obligatory obstacles, caused by island situation. Firstly it was mastering the ocean spaces (which led to their naval power) and then the obligatory integration (not to remain isolated) with geographical world center with its lots of people and the majority of energy resources, where the history of the world was being written. This aim was clear from Anglo-Saxon political doctrine, which defined relations between countries as the rivalry between so-called maritime powers (England and America) and continental powers (Germany, Russia, China). Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) — one of the fathers-architect of modern geopolitics — has forged the term «Heartland», which was situated in the center of Eurasia. It is an area of modern Siberia and Caucasus. Mackinder was afraid (it was a period before the Second World War) that this zone will become completely sovereign. America then would be kept away from world dominion because of its overseas position. According to his words, the biggest danger was the possible union of two great continental states — Germany and Russia. That’s why he claimed to establish common front for concerned countries to prevent Russian-German coalition. In 1945 he considered the USSR to be the supreme power, which is able to unite this «Heartland» due to its sheer size and influence. So, by default the USSR was the main rival of America.


According to the second theory by Nicholas Spykman (1893-1943), the main zone meant not just the «Heart of the World», but rather and interim area between «Heartland» and coastal seas. This theory, complementing the first one, showed how important was an idea to deprive the main continental power of outlet to the sea (former USSR and Russia since 1991). For this sake common front was to be established, thus creating a buffer area between the USSR and neighboring seas (the North Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea). According to historian Nataliya Narotchnitskaya, Russia is still prevented from getting a sea outlet. The matter here is the attempt «to keep the north of Russia off the area of world energy ellipse, which consists of Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Iran, Persian Gulf, the Northern Caucasus (Russian part) and Afghanistan. The point is to seal access to the gulfs, seas and oceans, important energy recourses for Russia. And in the end, the point is to press Russia back to the north and east, as far from the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas as possible. It is allegedly the first penetration line — it stretches from the Balkans to Ukraine (to control the Aegean and the Black Seas) and the second line, which stretches from Egypt to Afghanistan (thus, allowing to control the Red, Caspian Seas and the Gulf). There’s nothing new to this strategy, only some oil interests». Also the subject is to separate Russia from Western Europe in order to prevent the continental unions between two dominating states. In the beginning of 21st century they are Germany — the first European power —and strengthening Russia.

Back to the origins of color revolutions: division project for Russia

Intention to weaken and split Russia into many pieces is as old as the hills. In the 19th century, during the period of great geopolitical game at the territory of Central Asia and Caucasus, Russian and British Empires were rivals. England then has clearly understood an importance of lands Russia has recently conquered — the Ottoman Empire — and its threatening factor. These territories open the way to Mediterranean and Black Seas for Russia. Since 1835 England has tried to destabilize Russia via supplying weapons to the Caucasus (mind the case of English schooner «Vixen») and creating Chechen and Circassian committees at the Parisian Congress in 1856, where Crimean war was concluded.


Caucasus front will likely be a Russian underbelly in the 20th and 21st centuries alike. England and America will try to use it in order to destabilize Russia. In the beginning of the 21st century leaders of Russian Muslim republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia tried to unleash wars for independence. There were two contestants in the opposition: both were supporters of territorial nationalism and common Turkish union (Turkish intelligence played an important role here by preaching Turkish reunion). Aim of separatists was to gain the disposition of Western democratic countries. They called to help Caucasian republics to get the sovereignty at the Versailles Congress. Bolsheviks has given no chance for such separatist sentiments though. People, who have stood for independence since 1992, had to live in voluntary exile. The first wave has immigrated to Istanbul and it has damaged the reputation of the movement, mixing it with Turkish expansionism. The second wave went mostly to Europe, France and Germany. At that time Bashkir Zeki Velidi considered France as a «center of Turkish-Muslim war against Russia». Polish Prime-minister Józef Piłsudski called this movement «Prometheism». Soon its adherents started publishing a magazine of theirs in France, Germany, England, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Turkey and Romania. These people took English and Polish sides, when the Second World War was started and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was signed. This movement had considerable financial support in Poland. And French «France-East» committee — being under the auspices of Senate leader Paul Dume — rendered them political support as well. Their main aim was to create Caucasian Federation of the Swiss kind.


After defeat of Poland, Nazi strategists carried on with this movement. They’ve planned to split the USSR into many little territorial entities, which would be easier to control and conquer. That’s why Germans had established SS legions in Russian Turkestan and similar divisions in the Muslim Caucasus. After the Soviet victory its borders were recognized by the League of Nations, so «Prometheism» movement turned to America, who seconded «Prometheus League of Atlantic Charter» establishment. The movement had the backing of Turkish Muslims, then Catholics, anti-communists and national socialists as well. Suddenly the movement was supported by the CIA. During the Cold War the CIA had used it against the USSR. It caused great ideological confusion, which is why «Prometheism» movement developed furthermore, constantly remaining considerably anti-Russian. In general, we can call it a sort of united orange-green front, absolutely heterogeneous coalitions of Western and Caucasian Muslim separatist agenda aimed against Russia.

Critics despite bombs

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And yet the abominable happened. At 14:30 on Monday January 24th, a suicide bomberdetonated his bomb in the arrival lounge of Domodedovo International Airport. The attack occurredafter Russian’s president visit to the Middle East and on the eve of the World Summit in Davos. It clearly intended to undermine theRussian government and to make the international community worry,  by targetingforeigners. The toll was heavy: 35 dead and 180 injured. Besides, Russia could have ended the year in a worse way as the airport
suicide bomber was apparently linked to a terrorist cell, a cell that had been however identified and dismantled. This cell had planned an attack on the Red Square, in the evening of December 31.

 

Even in such a difficult time, Russia has only been facing much criticism and little support, with a special mention to the French press which, one more time, stands out. For Helene Blanc on France-Info[1], for example, one must be be particularly careful she says, mentioning the series of attacks that killed 293 in Russia in 1999: “TheChechens were not to blame for the attacks, although they were held responsible for it, as it was the work of the FSB” Anne Nivat says[2] that: “Putin, just like Medvedev, exploit the obsession about security in order to get votes and both were elected because of their rhetoric on Chechnya”. The correspondent ofLe Figaro in Russia, Pierre Avril, tells us[3] that “the country is close
from a civil war”. In the end, Vincent Jauvert thinks that the attack proves “the failure of the Putin system [4]”.
This assertion has already been hammered this summer, when the fires that hit Russia had supposedly demonstrated the failure of   hypothetical “Putin system”[5]. In addition,Mr Jauvert added: “The corrupt and incompetent security services have not identified the suicide bomber”.

 

Yet, far from the posh suburbs editorial offices of Paris or Moscow, in the field, the results of Russia’s anti-terrorism fight speak for  themselves. In 2010 alone, in Northern Caucasus,  301 terrorists were killed and 468 were arrested. 4,500 raids were conducted, as well as
50 major anti-terrorist operations. 66 attacks have been foiled, although 500 terrorist acts (including 92 explosions and attacks) have killed over 600 people. In 2012 in Russia, over 360 Russian policemen were killed while on duty. Of course, the Muslim Caucasus and Chechnya particularly, have systematically been presented by Western media as a region of the world, occupied by tyrannical Russia aspiring to its independence and freedom. From that point of view, terrorism in Caucasus would only be a desperate reaction of local people against  oppression.  A large part of the French population, still having in mind the nostalgia of the Gaul village besieged by the mighty Rome, and being misinformed about the reality in the country itself, is easily persuaded. Yet this is not reality. The goal of terrorists is not to liberate oppressed people but to enslave them. Caucasian terrorists are more and more linked to the Wahhabi movement, an Arabian fundamentalist movement under strong foreign influence. This Wahhabi movement is connected to a destructive and revolutionary ideology which seeks to establish an Islamic Emirate across the whole region.  Its core probably finds its roots in the first Chechnya war, when numerous foreign auxiliaries (Arabs, Afghans…) have joined the Chechens, thinking to transform the war of independence war into a religious conflictand bring the holy
war in the region.

 

We know what happened next: Chechen nationalists though they lost the war on the ground against the federal army, ultimately obtained a very important political and religious independence for Chechnya, but within the federation.

 

Since then, tensions   between Caucasians and foreigners haveexploded. Caucasians acknowledge with difficulty the foreigners methods and their uncompromising radicalism which is far from the Caucasian Sufism and not really adapted to the local traditions. Kadyrov also recently and symbolically proclaimed the defeat of Wahhabism in Chechnya. The separation of Caucasus and Russia as wished by the Wahhabis, by the Islamists and by some intellectual foreigners, would not be a solution in any way.

 

It seems clear that the primary consequence of such a  decision would be an abandon of the area and a start of internal conflicts and probable development of internal terrorism. Let’s also remember that these regions of southern Russia are mostly Russianand since much longer time for instance than the city of Nice has been French. Moreover, many Muslims feel Russian and full citizens of the Russian Federation. They indeed represent one of the facets of the Russian multicultural identity.

 

It would be really nice if foreign commentators could focus their attacks and their energy on criminals and not on the Russian state.

 

As far as I know, from Madrid to London or Moscow,victims are victims of a one and only terrorism. I do not recall having read from Russian commentators, when similar events struck other European democracies such as Spain or England, in 2004 and in 2005, that the attacks meant a failure of the countries’s governments or that their security services had not done their job properly. The reason is that it is virtually impossible to prevent all terrorist attacks. The Spanish, the Israelis, the Turks or the Indians, whose countries are often targeted by terrorism, have since  long understood the need for drastic security measures in order to prevent most of these attacks, with varying degrees of success. So even if those measures restrict some individual liberties, they are probably essential in order to let life to follow a peaceful course despite the threat.

 

Minds are prepared if further attacks occur in Russiaand perhaps again in the capital, a fact which unfortunately seems inevitable. The goal of terrorists is always to frightenthe population and to destabilize the society. But we, Russian and foreign citizens, must not be destabilized. Rather, it is the coordination of a determined State and of a united and attentive population that will be the best shield against  terrorism.

 

Russia has the ability to overcome these challenges. As Alexei Pimanov, broadcaster of the program Chelovek i Zakon[6] (Rights and law) perfectly summarized in a recent broadcasting dedicated to these events: “Those who spontaneously and voluntarily offered their help after the attack, those who transported passengers for free from the airport to the subway, those who gave their blood and those who helped the rescue in the first difficultmoments, those people represent the real Russia”.

[1] http://www.franceinfo.fr/monde-europe-2011-01-25-attentat-suicide-a-l-aeroport-de-moscou-domodedovo-la-piste-511239-14-15.html

[2] http://issuu.com/bollore/docs/direct_matin_816

[3] http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2011/01/26/04016-20110126ARTFIG00689–davos-medvedev-veut-rassurer-les-investisseurs.php

[4] http://globe.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2011/01/27/la-faillite-du-systeme-poutine.html

[5] http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Europe/Actualite/La-faillite-du-systeme-Poutine-212361/

[6] http://chelovekizakon.ru/chiz/archive/20110127/programma-chelovek-i-zakon-efir-27-yanvarya-2011-g-8450

 

Moscow as a would be capital of Europe

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Almost every French man is a staunch Europhile, which is quite paradoxical in fact — most part of foreigners, visiting France are often stricken by their relatively narrow views, lack of foreign languages knowledge and their (at times excessive) chauvinism. Nevertheless, it were the Frenchmen who backed up the first attempt of European integration. By the end of his rule in the 9th century Carl the Great, Emperor of the West reigned over the continental empire that included contemporary France, parts of Spain and Italy, German territories and the Balkans. For many intellectuals and historians Carl the Great is the founding father of today’s Europe. Fortunately for Europe or not, but after his death the empire was disbanded. Second French attempt to create united Europe belonged to Napoleon — he hoped to control vast territory, stretching from Corsica to Moscow. It is well-known (in Russia especially) that this armed attempt to unite the continent by the power of arms failed in 1812, having met fierce resistance of Russians and the terribly cold winter.

 

After the Second World War, Europe fetched itself divided into two blocs — American trans-Atlantic bloc and the Soviet continental one. Western Europe was restored for American Marshall Plan funds in exchange for NATO integration, which was a U. S.-controlled military alliance found in 1949 and intended to prevent any imperial aspirations of the Soviet Union. In 1955 countries of the Eastern Europe, being under the Soviet auspice, entered the Warsaw Treaty, yet another military alliance, created as the NATO counterpoise. French Europhilia made itself visible once again in 1967, when General De Gaulle withdrew his country from the NATO and gave it an access to the nuclear energy.Turning his back to the Anglo-Saxon world, De Gaulle maintained his farseeing project of continental Europe, temporarily tore down the iron curtain and stood up for the historical proximity with Germany and Russia within the framework of continental Europe stretching from Atlantics to the Ural Mountains. In 1960 Paris established itself as a political capital and France undertaken yet another attempt to re-create Europe.

 

This Gaullist idea of Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis and the concept of Russia (Soviet Union at that time) being a part of Europe tended to turn fairer as the time went by.There have always been discussions whether Russia really belongs to Europe in France. Many people, poorly knowing Russia or not knowing it at all, were asking me about this Gaullist border, which the Ural Mountains might have been. They asked if the Ural — border line between Europe and Asia — really was a border right in the heart of Russia or Europe. And are the people living over the Ural Mountains really different from those, living in its western part? These questions may undoubtedly cause a smile on the faces of those who know the country but they are not make-believe. In my opinion, semantic mistake of General De Gaulle and the relative lack of knowledge about Russia among the common Europeans make this quite understandable.Since I live in Russia, I can only confirm that before my arrival I considered it to be a completely European country — so to say, European in its essence, be it the mentality of its citizens (Orthodox Slavs) or the dominating cultural legacy of Rome and Athens. This European tint is present all along its territory — from Moscow to the heart of Siberia, in Vladivostok, at the Pacific coast, in the Caucasus and Northern Karelia. Even Kazan with its eastern culture is not less European than, say, Sarajevo.But I have to admit that Russia is not like the rest of European countries. Sheer size, variety of nations inhabiting it, territories stretching to Asia and Pacific Ocean — Russia is an empire, colossus, which spine is European but certain vertebrae may be Asian, Tatar, Muslim or even Buddhist. I often tell French friends of mine that we have a lot to learn from Russia in the field of “multi-cultural model” that Europe is trying to establish with such great efforts.

 

Today, while Russia and NATO discuss the creation of security architecture in the Northern hemisphere, stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok, the discords remain. Via NATO, which extended itself up to the Eastern- and Western-European borders, the United States infiltrated the Eurasian continent — theater of war that is considered to be vitally important for orchestrating the world politics. Russia, being a member of Shanghai Treaty Organization, often called the Asian NATO is willing to attract Europe into new additional continental security system. In that sense, Russian initiatives on creation of continental security structure and a common integral economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok are every bit as Gaullist as they are farsighted.The only difference is that this time political impulse comes from Moscow, rather than from Paris like 40 years ago. There’s a certain reason for that: gauging from Moscow, Europe stretches 4.000 km to the Atlantic and 6.500 km to the East, through Siberia to the Pacific Coast. European political centre of gravity just shifted to the East. Paris-Berlin-Moscow alliance would have allowed Europeans — who failed to gain real political and military autonomy after the 1945 — not to get stuck in the unilateral NATO ties and to obtain an exit to the utmost important regions of tomorrow: Caucasus, Central Asia and Asian-Pacific region.

In the past Paris was the capital of Europe, today it is Brussels — what if Moscow to become one in future?