Истоки «цветных революций»: Белград, 5 октября 2000 года

22 июня 2017  01:49 Отправить по email
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Статья представляет собой сокращённую версию исследования о технике осуществления смены политической власти, известной сегодня как «цветные революции». Автор изучает новые детали и подробности так называемой Бульдозерной революции в Белграде 2000 г.

Автор показывает как созданные молодежные движения и особые политические технологии привели к быстрой смене власти. Особую роль в Белградских событиях сыграли действия зарубежных правительств и работа молодёжной организации «Отпор».

Алекса Филипович - магистрант Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета, (Сербия) специально для REX

REX публикует статью на английском языке

5th October 2000”: Origins of foreign-backed “coloured revolutions”

In October 2016, Serbia marked sixteen years since the revolution of 5th of October happened. Tired after almost 10 years of constant Balkan warfare, sanctions, increasingly-worsening standard of living, and government that was losing perspective of the needs of the people, while at the same time criminal activity grew in every sphere of society, people of Serbia took to the streets in what is today known as a “Bulldozer” or “Fifth of October revolution”. Protesting against vote fraud and rejection of the election results by the then-president of Yugoslavia[1], hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Belgrade.

While majority of the people truly believed that a period of recovery, stability and growth will happen as soon as the regime was changed, reality was sadly different. For the past 16 years, situation in the region is getting increasingly worse. Yugoslavia is no more. Instead, several economically and politically weak republics have taken its place. The region is still divided by ethnical and religious lines, while the newest point of contention comes from NATO and non-NATO membership, where Serbia is trying to keep its neutrality, though in theory, all ex-Yugoslavian republics are striving towards at least EU membership.

Opposition leaders that came to the power after toppling the old government didn’t improve the standard of living at all. Instead, privatization of state property and factories led hundreds of thousands to lose jobs while numerically small elite gathered huge financial and political influence. Never before has the gap between rich and poor been wider as is in today’s Serbian society, while lack of reforms, corruption and incompetence of leaders and government representatives managed to cripple fragile standard of living of citizens, even more than the government that was deemed “authoritarian” by the West did so 17 years ago.[2][3]

What triggered the massive demonstrations in Belgrade and across the whole Serbia were Yugoslavian general elections held on 24th of September, 2000. Although the initial results showed that the opposition leader, Dr. Vojislav Koštunica (Војислав Коштуница) won a narrow majority of votes, government of Yugoslavia claimed that he didn’t win the necessary 50.1 percent of votes that are needed to skip the second round of voting.[4] United States vowed to lift the sanctions against Yugoslavia if the opposition won, while at the same time, the Western media and politicians put strong pressure against the government, giving full support to the opposition and openly influencing the will of the voters. While the coalition of opposition parties (further “DOS” – Democratic Opposition of Serbia/Демократска Опозиција Србије) started to declare victory, government was calling for the second round of elections.[5]

Besides DOS, one more organization played critical role in the protests, so-called “Otpor”. Starting as a student movement in 1998, “Otpor” (Отпор - “Resistance”) soon caught attention of the West, and it was intensively bankrolled and trained by the USA, as divulged by Paul B. McCarthy, an official with the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, in an interview with New York Times in 2000, after the October revolution.[6] By his account, Otpor was a large recipient of financial aid coming from both the governmental and nongovernmental Western organizations, while Mr. McCarthy personally held a series of meetings with the movement’s leaders in Podgorica, Montenegro and in Szeged and Budapest Hungary.

William D. Montgomery, the former US ambassador in Bulgaria, Croatia and later, Serbia and Montenegro, stated that since the ousting of Milošević and his bringing in to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague was “personal” for Madeleine Albright (then-US Secretary of State),“…seldom has so much fire, energy, enthusiasm, money -- everything -- gone into anything as into Serbia in the months before Milosevic went"[7]

The role of the retired United States Army colonel, Robert Helvey, was also extremely important, since his seminar in Budapest in the early 2000, dedicated towards techniques of nonviolent resistance, was aimed towards more than 20 Otpor leaders with instructions on how to undermine what he called the “pillars of support“ of the regime, such as the police, the army, the news media and capacity of the president to give orders and to be obeyed.[8]

Although most of the Otpor leadership was dispersed, as a tactic to avoid group paralyzation in the case of arrests, one man stood up as “the-first-among-the-equals”, the now infamous Srđa Popović (Срђа Поповић), leader of The Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (“Canvas”) NGO, and later the instructor of many similar “pro-democracy” activists in more than 50 countries, including India, Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Ukraine, Georgia, Palestine, Belarus, Tunisia, Malaysia and Egypt.[9][10][11]

Grassroots opposition was built outside of Belgrade, resulting in a decentralized movement that was organizing resistance to the government in the countryside, recruiting and training new members in more than 100 towns nationwide by late spring of 2000. Otpor also created the so called “Rapid reaction teams” consisting of lawyers, activist and NGO members who would show up at police stations where protesters were held after arrest, in order to maximize publicity of the police “repression” and provide legal defense, while it exploited the image of demonstrators hurt in protests in order to promote sympathy and decrease legitimacy of government. [12]

By the words of Srđa Popović himself in an interview given in 2011, humor and satire, which were seen as trademarks of Otpor, were efficient in pushing a positive message, attracting the widest possible audience, and making the opponent - “…those grey and square-headed bureaucrats to look stupid and ridiculous”. The clenched fist was used as a leftist symbol “…deriving from the old communist times of our grandfathers”, while sound patriotic slogans and bright young faces were used as front-liners during demonstration in order to create sympathy among the general population, as a tactic to counter government claims that they were “NATO mercenaries” and “domestic traitors”. And in order to win over police and army, they acted in “very fraternizing manner”, carrying flowers and cakes to them. In the interview, Popović claimed that this model worked efficiently throughout the world, especially in places like Georgia and Ukraine. [13]

Otpor was a crucial tool of the West to unite fragmented opposition and its leaders and to push forward a joint candidate for the elections, therefore gathering protesting population under one banner, giving them a powerful symbol and rallying battle-cries, such as “He is finished!” (Готов је! – meaning Milosević’s presidency), “It’s time!” (Време је! – for changes), and “It is spreading” (Шири се – “the Resistance”), while at the same time acting as a proxy for foreign services to establish contact with officials in the army, police, church, media and local and municipal governments, so that the whole system would get paralyzed during the final stages of protests, as it indeed happened during the 5th of October in Belgrade. Therefore, the role of Otpor was not in the front-line battle with the police during the final showdown, but more that of a client puppeteer for their foreign patrons, which pulls the stings of both the opposition leaders and those inside the government who are ready to turn their coats.

The casualties of the 5th October protests were surprisingly light, with two civilian deaths, one caused by traffic accident and other by cardiac arrest.[14] It was thanks to the restraint of the security services of Yugoslavia that bloodshed and potential civil war was averted, as police officers, even when facing endangerment to their own lives by mob of protesters, decided not to use lethal force. As history proved, 5th of October didn’t bring changes for the better, or at least not those changes that people expected. Easily manipulated by Otpor and opposition about prospects of better life, citizens of Serbia experienced a period of rapid privatization of government property, job loss, rise of organized crime and a series of weak governments, which last even to this day.

[1] “Third Yugoslavia”, or Federal Republic of Yugoslavia/Савезна Република Југославија (1992-2003), consisted of today’s Serbia and Montenegro.

[2] ‘’Srbija prva u Evropi po riziku od siromaštva’’, N1, 17.10.2016, Internet,
http://rs.n1info.com/a201832/Vesti/Vesti/Siromastvo-u-Srbiji.html Accessed: 16.06.2017.

[3] “Analiza: Mapa siromaštva u Srbiji”, Mondo, 26.10.2016, Internet, http://mondo.rs/a951088/Info/Drustvo/Siromastvo-u-Srbiji-Najbogatiji-u-Novom-Beogradu-najsiromasniji-u-Tutinu.html Accessed: 16.06.2017.

[4] Accurate results were that Vojislav Kostunica won around 50.24% of the votes, while President Slobodan Milosevic won 37.15% of votes. Internet: http://www.electionguide.org/results.php?ID=949, Accessed: 16.06.2017.

[5]“Deset godina od istorijskih izbora”, RTS, 24.09.2010, Internet, http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/9/politika/769824/deset-godina-od-istorijskih-izbora.html Accessed: 16.06.2017

[6]Cohen Roger, “Who Really Brought Down Milosevic?”, The New York Times Magazine, 26.11.2000, Internet, http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001126mag-serbia.html Accessed: 16.06.2017

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

]9] Henley, Jon, “Meet Srdja Popovic, the secret architect of global revolution”, The Guardian, 08.03.2015, Internet, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/srdja-popovic-revolution-serbian-activist-protest Accessed: 16.06.2017

[10]“Re: Fw: Fwd: Hundreds of Protesters Held in Malaysia”, WikiLeaks, released on 29.08.2013, Internet,

https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=1216255 Accessed: 16.06.2017

[11] Gibson Carl, Horn Steven, “Exposed: Globally Renowned Activist Collaborated With Intelligence Firm Stratfor”, Occupy.com, 02.12.2013, Internet, http://www.occupy.com/article/exposed-globally-renowned-activist-collaborated-intelligence-firm-stratfor#sthash.Euv8fv6Z.dpbs Accessed: 16.06.2017

[12]2 Kurtz Lester, “Otpor and the Struggle for Democracy in Serbia (1998-2000)”, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, 02.2010, Internet,

https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/otpor-and-the-struggle-for-democracy-in-serbia-1998-2000/ Accessed: 16.06.2017

[13]Farrell Bryan, Stoner Eric, “Bringing down Serbia’s dictator, 10 years later: A conversation with Srdja Popovic”, Waging Nonviolence, 06.16.2010, Internet,

http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/bringing-down-serbias-dictator-10-years-later-a-conversation-with-nonviolent-movement-leader-srdja-popovic/ Accessed: 16.06.2017

[14] Godišnjica Petog oktobra”, РТС, 05.11.2016, Internet,

http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/125/drustvo/2476960/godisnjica-petog-oktobra.html Accessed: 16.06.2017

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