Ukraine: the practice of protest
ORANGE REVOLUTION, ORIGINS AND OUTCOME
Le Monde diplomatique
January 2005
There was genuine, widespread rejection of the regime in Ukraine, but
the mass demonstrations were still not spontaneous. They were backed by
self-seeking organisations, both local and international.
By Régis Genté and Laurent Rouy
Three non-violent revolutions, Yugoslavia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and
now Ukraine in 2004-5, have overturned regimes that were tainted,
corrupt and decadent – anything but democratic. It was the same scenario
each time. An infuriated Russia denounced western intervention,
especially that of the United States, in its “near abroad”, Georgia and
Ukraine. Yet when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians took to the
streets, what course of action against their non-violent protests was
open to Vladimir Putin and the heads of state that he supports? What
could they do against such well-organised and innovative crowds? Nothing.
The demonstrations seemed spontaneous. That was the source of their
strength. In fact almost every detail was planned. The recipe for
non-violent revolution had been perfected in Belgrade. In 1999 Nato’s
bombardment of Serbia failed; the US and the European Union decided to
overthrow Slobodan Milosevic, which they did in the presidential
elections of September 2000. Milosevic, convicted of electoral fraud,
faced powerful, carefully organised demonstrations. A few skilfully
prepared ingredients and a year of preparations were more effective than
bombs.
Once success was certain in Belgrade, the sky was the limit for the
Georgian opposition and activist movement. They made contacts in Serbia,
went to look and borrowed the recipe. It worked, thanks in no small part
to several million dollars from US organisations (the cold war was not
yet over). Even so, these revolutions, inspired by Gandhian tactics or
by the uprisings of the 1990s in eastern Europe, were more than a matter
of manipulation. To believe that would imply ignorance of the social and
historical context of the countries.
Are elections traps for dictators and ageing regimes? They are certainly
traps for regimes that are not completely dictatorial, or too dependent
on the West to refuse some of its democratic demands. Elections were the
cornerstone of the Serbian, Georgian and Ukrainian “revolutions” since,
in each, the regime was forced to commit massive fraud to stay in power.
Then there was “monitoring”: a vast surveillance system applied to the
voting process as a whole to ensure its freedom and transparency.
International organisations such as the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe sent hundreds of observers, but NGOs participated
too, including the National Democratic Institute and the International
Republican Institute. These two partisan US foundations provide
financial and technical means to help local organisations and political
parties monitor the ballots and enable a popular movement to defend
victory at the polls.
The point is to force power to bend. Hence the real strategy of
regime-toppling, as witnessed by Gia Jorjoliani, of Tbilisi’s Social
Research Centre, who explained that he had finally “refused to go on
participating in the monitoring” when he “understood that the Georgian
organisations that had initiated it did not want free elections as much
as to shake the regime”.
The goal of unseating power usually remains implicit, with
revolutionaries repeating that their only aim is to bring about victory
for democracy at the ballot box. Tools, among them parallel counting,
are prepared to expose fraud. In this “revolutionary” strategy the media
play an important role. Based on the supposed neutrality of monitoring
by international organisations, the media present proof of fraud and
help mobilise the majority.
One or several student movements are responsible for part of
communications and opposition. In Belgrade Otpor (Resistance) was in
charge of such operations and used peaceful, original shock tactics.
Otpor adds its own experience to its sources of inspiration: manuals of
non-violent struggle that include the works of the US theoretician, Gene
Sharp, among them the famous From Dictatorship to Democracy: A
Conceptual Framework for Liberation (1). Sharp, a committed pacifist,
explained that non-violent struggle aims not to resolve conflicts but to
win them. Unlike physical weapons, political defiance does not seek to
“intimidate, injure, kill, and destroy”; unlike violence, it is
“uniquely suited” to severing dictatorships’ sources of power.
Otpor set the example. Georgian activists contacted the movement as the
parliamentary elections of November 2003 approached. Workshops were set
up in Georgia, as they were again a year later in Ukraine, with the
additional participation of Kmara (Enough), the Georgian student
movement, side by side with US coaches. Once fraud had been proved, the
opposition could move. In Kiev in 2004 another student movement, Pora
(It’s Time), prepared the ground and set up tent villages on the main
street. Kiev started to look like Woodstock. Pacifism, as always, was in
the air.
Backstage the opposition, with street support, was arm-wrestling a
regime from which it had in some cases emerged, but was now fighting in
the name of liberal,
democratic values. Opposition activists negotiated with the forces of
order, wanting them to drop the regime. Western leaders, depending on
their interests, offered overt support.
Otpor’s activities in Ukraine were financed by Freedom House, the US NGO
headed by James Woolsey, a former CIA chief who made his presence felt
in Serbia as early as 2000. The organisation wouldn’t reveal much about
its relations with Otpor but one official, visiting Ukraine for the
first round of elections, said: “Freedom House is not here to change
political regimes. That is up to citizens. We provide the resources for
voters to understand that their vote counts and that they can overcome
their fear of the existing regime.” The same policy guides the Open
Society Institute, the nucleus of the Soros Foundation’s network. The
institute was
founded by George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire, and designed as
a support organisation for civil society and emerging democracies. It
had been established to assist civil society and encourage the
transition to democracy in former Soviet republics. But in 2003 it went
beyond that stated aim in Georgia, since Kakha Lomaia, then head of
Georgia’s Open Society, was involved in organising Otpor workshops there.
This is a long-term policy: Freedom House, Otpor and veteran activists,
such as Mukhuseli Jack, a leader of the anti-apartheid struggle in South
Africa, organised trainers’ training seminars to exchange experiences.
There was one in Washington on 9 March 2004; among those present were
theoreticians of non-violent struggle, including Gene Sharp and Jack
DuVall, producer of the documentary Bringing Down a Dictator. It has
been shown in Georgia and also, with no results so far, in Cuba and Iran.
Although the network can take credit for the Serbian and Georgian
successes, events show that NGOs, no matter how well organised, are not
enough to overthrow a non-democratic regime. Cedomir Jovanovic, a former
opponent of Milosevic who later became co-prime minister in Serbia,
observed that the takeover of parliament in Belgrade on 5 October 2000
was in some ways an attack on the state: it was a political decision,
taken by the coalition of opposition to Milosevic. Politicians seized power.
But NGOs do make it possible to create a climate favourable to action:
hence the importance of local political leaders. In Ukraine Viktor
Yushchenko played his role to perfection. He appears to have received
advice from Georgia’s current president, Mikhail Saakashvili, in
February. Saakashvili, holding a rose, had known when best to storm the
Georgian parliament; in spring 2002 he had been in contact with the
Serbian anti-Milosevic opposition. The Serbs, and especially Zoran
Djindjic, the former prime minister of the transition government
(assassinated on 12 March 2003), were the first to benefit from the new
wave of revolution. They had freely
adapted the role of the Chilean popular movement and political parties
in the period directly before General Augusto Pinochet’s departure.
There are many ingredients in a revolution, needing careful preparation
– about a year in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Some observers, and also
the former Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Ukraine’s Leonid
Kuchma, perceived the direct intervention of foreign powers in these
revolutions. Financing from Freedom House was evident; Poland and the EU
were involved in Ukraine.
From the perspective of democracy, the results are not always
commensurate with the proclaimed aims. A year after the rose revolution,
a Georgian human rights activist, Tinatin Khidasheli, drew up a
qualified report on the new regime, which had arrested journalists and
political officials (2). Viktor Yushchenko was a minister before he
became Kuchma’s rival; the opposition’s pasionaria, Yuliya Timoshenko,
belongs to the nomenklatura that made its money from privatising
public-sector firms. Nothing indicates they have changed and adopted
ethical, democratic principles.
What kind of future do these “revolutions” face? The US has defined
three fields of action. The first covers the Castro regime, the bugbear
of US foreign policy, against which every method, overt or covert,
diplomatic or military, has been used. There are even indications that
non-violent action was first used in Cuba (3).
In another favourite domain, the former Soviet bloc, many countries are
taking measures against the Georgian model. Cooperation between the
Russian secret service, the Belarussian KGB and the Ukrainian FBU made
it possible to draw up a black list of activists. At least three former
members of Otpor were refused entry to those countries between July and
October.
A third seemingly auspicious terrain appeared with the idea of a
“Greater Middle East”, promoted by President George Bush. Yet this
project, which aims to “bring democracy” to the region, has few chances
of finding local allies given the level of animosity toward the US and
its policies in Palestine and Iraq.
It remains to be seen who will benefit from the logistical support of
the current donors. Little altruism can be expected from governments;
everything will depend on the donors’ foreign policy.
Away from outright opposition, organisation depends on the flaws, and
sometimes the crimes, of the existing system, and addresses the desire
for change among populations at the end of its tether; no one can
contest their sincerity. (No one doubted the intensity of popular
opposition to Shevardnadze and Milosevic.) In such conditions it is
possible to see US foreign policy, or a new version of cold war
antagonism between East and West, reflected in non-violent revolutions.
It would be wrong to claim that mass protests can be imported from
abroad, especially after deliberate electoral fraud. The decision to
follow the politicians, or not, must be taken by the people.
NOTES:
(1) Bangkok, 1993; Albert Einstein Institution, Boston, 2003.
(2) Tinatin Khidasheli, “The Rose Revolution Has Wilted,” International
Herald Tribune, Paris, 8 December 2004.
(3) These methods, based on an intense media campaign, the mobilisation
of civil society and support from such organisations as the National
Endowment for Democracy, were also used in Venezuela, but there they
served to justify the coup of 11 April 2002 and the attempt at economic
destabilisation in December 2002-January 2003. In a country with
democratic institutions and a president benefiting from a majority of
popular support, the manoeuvre failed.
Translated by Pascale Ghazaleh