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Recent ‘people’s revolts’ has made me revisit my diary and update its content with today’s events in the Ukraine and Venezuela. Military power has been replaced by soft power, the goal of unconstitutional regime change stays the same. The lives lost [Syria] and great upheaval [Libya] appears to be accepted collateral damage. The thetoric of misinformation and propaganda stays high. The MSM is still a welcome partner of western neo-colonialism in advancing democratic globalization principles. Quo vadis?
My diary: Engineering a Colour Revolution and Beyond on April 25, 2012
(@BooMan) – We have seen the colour revolution in the Ukraine and Georgia during the Bush administration. These people revolutions were engineered by the West with support through a number of NGOs. The initial success was deceiving and historically speaking a failure. Under the Obama administration, the people revolution have been embedded within the indigenous people, but added were open funding and military assets to make them a success. See Tunesia, Libya and Egypt. Each country had its mechanism of opposition movements, external support and funding. Tunesia was most successful, Libya is more or less a failure because of diverse militant groups and heavy arms. Egypt kicked out the foreign NGOs, but the Justice system of courts were bullied into releasing all foreigners, mostly US citizens. In Syria an initiative for revolt was undertaken, however the opposition came from external groups like Al Qaeda, Libya introducing arms, funds and fighters. At this moment it’s on a balance tipping towards an ugly civil war with grave consequences for the region. There are many offshoots possible in a volatile Middle-East, a keg of dynamite ready to explode.
Of course we all have our thoughts how these people revolutions came about. Perhaps there was more planning and engineering behind the scenes and the influence of media through various PR trics & propaganda. Sophie Shevardnadze is interviewer at RT, a combination of beauty and competence. I saw her interview with Mateusz Piskorski, a Polish specialist working behind the scenes of the US led Orange Revolution of the Ukraine in 2004-2005.
US `world leader’ in color revolution engineering
Facebook page Mateusz Piskorski and Europejskie Centrum Analiz Geopolitycznych
The Revolution Business by Optor – World plus transcript of video
The gentle coup an instrument for globalization. George Bush at the G8 in 2004 announced his “Free Market Enterprise.” Following the strategy of Gene Sharp in his book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” [pdf]. Translated in 34 languages. Followed by activists on Tahrir Square during Egypt’s nineteen day revolution. Similar to the Tunesian revolt. Activists where trained in Marocco in 2010 by Serbian instructors: Srdja Popovic. In the end, the provisional military leadership of Egypt shut down all NGOs and wanted the activists to stand trial.
Democratic change has been demanded across the Middle East. But was what seems like a spontaneous revolution actually a strategically planned event, fabricated by ‘revolution consultants’ long in advance?
Revolution consultants are the worst nightmare of every regime. Srdja Popovic was a founder of the organisation ‘Otpor‘, a revolution training school. It was instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and has now inspired a new generation of activists. “The people from Otpor gave us a book in which they described all their strategies”, says Ezzedine Zaatour of the Tunisian uprising. That book was written by an American, Gene Sharp, and is now considered the “revolution guide book”, being used by opposition movements worldwide. As Optor release their latest gadget, a resistance training computer game sponsored by American organisations, world leaders are voicing their concerns.
Revelation of U.S. involvement
Information started appearing about substantial outside assistance Otpor received leading up to the revolution. Otpor was a recipient of substantial funds from U.S. government-affiliated organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency for International Development (USAID). In a November 2000 article from the New York Times Magazine, Times journalist Roger Cohen talked to various officials from US based organizations about the extent of American assistance received by Otpor.
(Occupy.com) Exposed: Globally Renowned Activist Collaborated With Intelligence Firm Stratfor
Polish expert rules out repetition of Ukraine’s scenario in Armenia
(PanArmenian) – Recent developments in Ukraine are controlled by diplomatic representations of a number of states including the U.S. and EU, Polish political scientist Mateusz Piskorski told PanARMENIAN.Net
As he noted, “support of the so-called opposition” can well be construed as interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs; however, on the other hand, internal struggle between the clans of the Party of Regions creates grounds for interference.
“Clearly, a number of major Ukrainian oligarchs promote tensions in Kyiv. In fact, the Ukrainian authorities are not interested in stopping the wave of protests. Protesters at Liberty Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) could be dispersed within 3 hours. Yet the government is wary of the response, unable to make a final selection between the Russia-led Customs Union and the EU,” the expert said.
The old and new European friends of Ukraine’s far-right Svoboda party by Anton Shekhovtso
(Academia.eu) – It has long been an unchallenged assumption that the Ukrainian radical right-wing Svoboda party, which formed the first far-right parliamentary faction in Ukraine after the 2012 elections, is a member of the Alliance of European National Movements (AENM). After all, Svoboda’s leaders always said that their party was a member of the AENM, while the British National Party (BNP), which is one of the oldest members of the Alliance, explicitly mentioned Svoboda, in 2010, as an AENM member, along with the French National Front, Hungarian Jobbik, Italian Tricolour Flame, the BNP itself, the Spanish Republican Social Movement, Belgian National Front, Portuguese National Renovator Party and Swedish National Democrats.
Developments earlier this year revealed a different picture. The first doubts about Svoboda’s membership were raised after Polish politician Mateusz Piskorski claimed, early in 2013, that Svoboda had been excluded from the AENM because of its overtly racist stances – as the Russian sarcastic saying goes, they were “expelled from the Gestapo for brutality”. The AENM is, in fact, much more extreme than yet another pan-European right-wing group, the European Alliance for Freedom, which unites representatives from the Austrian Freedom party, French National Front, Belgian Flemish Interest, Sweden Democrats and some others.
Author: Anton Shekhovtsov is a member of the Editorial Board of the Open Access e-journal Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies.
No violations at Russia’s parliamentary elections – observers
(RiaNovisti) -International observers monitoring Russia’s parliamentary elections seen as a crucial test for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his ruling party registered no violations during vote [Duma elections 2011] while the Interior Ministry reported hundreds of electoral breaches.
“The group of observers linked to the network of non-governmental organizations, including deputies of European parliament, national parliaments, experts and political scientists, has visited 48 polling stations in several Russian regions and so far our colleagues have no critical remarks, and everyone says that the process is very transparent,” said Mateusz Piskorski, an observer from Poland.
Piskorski, who is also head of the European Center of Geopolitical Analysis, said that no one obstructed the work of observers.
(The Voice of Russia) – Poland predictably retorted that it was dismayed by the ECHR ruling which the Polish Foreign Ministry said undermines Poland’s further cooperation with the European Court. President of the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis Marcin Domagala shares his view:
“Actually, Warsaw’s nervous reaction is easy to understand and a question may indeed arise on whether further cooperation should be curtailed. Allowing the issue to go public is not in Poland’s interests. Unfortunately, from the point of view of geopolitics, Poland has paid a high price for cooperation with the United States. After gaining virtually nothing from this cooperation, it is now reaping the consequences. This should be a warning to other countries: watch who you are dealing with or you will find yourself in an embarrassing situation.”
But strictly speaking it’s the United States which should be brought to account for provoking newly-admitted EU countries with blatant cynicism to engage in all sorts of dubious things, says lawyer and head of the Moscow Human Rights Center Mikhail Salkin.
Looking at the situation now, your judgements of Egypt and Libya are reversed. Morsi’s Islamic nationalism seems not much different in some respects from Ukrainian Catholic nationalism (which permeates a number of the “more moderate” parties in government). And has brought about a stronger Orthodox reaction than Morsi’s government brought about Coptic nationalism (is that even a political reality in Egypt?).
Libya is now looking more stable for the long term as a post-revolutionary country than counter-revolutionary Egypt, returned to miltary dictatorship. The upcoming election in Egypt however could be very interesting.