April 6 movement got training from leader of U.S. funded Otpor!

[griffjam]

Watch Chapter 2 of PBS's Frontline. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid) Start at 5:12.

The organizers of the April 6 Youth Movement traveled to Serbia to get training from Srdja Popovic, the leader of Otpor! the student organization that helped topple Milošević.

More on Otpor! and the "revolution" in Serbia. (http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2010/10/14/serbia-fake-revolutions-real-struggles/)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

You mean the student org that helped topple a mass murderer who killed muslims and croats and albanians? are you saying it is a good or bad thing? Or are you just stating a "neutral fact"?

[Sasha]

And serbian mercenarys flew the Libyan planes that bombed the protesters. War and revolution are messy.

[Delirium]

In fact, organizers at the center of Otpor were directed by organizations affiliated with the US government, from whom they received millions of dollars. By ostensibly limiting itself to attacking the established order, Otpor drew participants of all ideological persuasions, while preparing the way for the implementation of capitalist democracy. The entire event was carefully choreographed to smooth Serbia’s transition into the neoliberal market. Afterwards, the same model was exported almost anywhere a regime was not cooperating with the US agenda; Otpor was followed by Kmara in Georgia, Pora in Ukraine, Zubr in Belarus, MJAFT! in Albania, Oborona in Russia, KelKel in Kyrgyzstan, Bolga in Uzbekistan, and Nabad-al-Horriye in Lebanon. In each of these cases genuine local unrest was channeled into a proxy war (http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2010/10/14/serbia-fake-revolutions-real-struggles/#b) serving the interests of powerful outsiders. Yet most of the participants must have felt that they were genuinely fighting for liberation.
All this suggests that anarchists in the US need to develop a more nuanced understanding of social upheaval. Fixating on burning cars and fighting police can obscure the important dynamics at the root of events. The insurrectionist (http://crimethinc.com/texts/recentfeatures/insurrection.php) conviction that confrontations are intrinsically desirable offers little insight into what counts as a confrontation. Over and over throughout history, anarchists and other rebels who mistook violent clashes for real transformation have served as an expendable front line in essentially conservative revolutions. We need to refine our analyses so that when we fight, our efforts cannot serve our enemies..

[danyboy27]

i dont think its an issue. Someone somewhere had the knowledge those guy wanted , they got the knowledge and used it for their own goals.

Its really irrelevant that the movement OPTOR was backed by the us or not.


It wouldnt be the first time the CIA would do something that would give them trouble afterwhile.

[Omsk]

You mean the student org that helped topple a mass murderer who killed muslims and croats and albanians? are you saying it is a good or bad thing? Or are you just stating a "neutral fact"?
Student?I dont think so,they were funded by the west and were lead by people of questionable loyalities,Milosevic was a horrible president,and his policies and decisions caused many deaths and alot of people were killed because of his actions,but,after the end of his regime (and on the last states that did not fall to imperialism and NATO)
his place took criminals,liberals,who sold the country and made deals with everyone which resulted in a horrible post war economy and the fact that no political change happend,the theft did not stop,it only escaleted to a greater level.
So i can say that i do not support OTPOR,but,keep in mind that i do not support Milosevic either,for he is responsible for so many murders and death's.

[Kiev Communard]

Student?I dont think so,they were funded by the west and were lead by people of questionable loyalities,Milosevic was a horrible president,and his policies and decisions caused many deaths and alot of people were killed because of his actions,but,after the end of his regime (and on the last states that did not fall to imperialism and NATO)
his place took criminals,liberals,who sold the country and made deals with everyone which resulted in a horrible post war economy and the fact that no political change happend,the theft did not stop,it only escaleted to a greater level.
So i can say that i do not support OTPOR,but,keep in mind that i do not support Milosevic either,for he is responsible for so many murders and death's.

Same point for Ukrainian "Pora" movement, many members whereof later became leading far right "youth organizers". The so-called "orange revolution" of Ukraine was actually the power-struggle of different bourgeois cliques using the grievances of petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia (who were main participants of the protests) to fulfill their own political goals, while the working class and the peasantry were mainly apathetic. I think we should not mistakenly confuse these astro-turfing movements from Serbia and Ukraine with those of Middle East, as the latter are obviously grassroots-based, unlike the former. The "Pora", for instance, were fiercely anti-leftist, believing in "communists' conspiracy to hinder European standards' adaptation in Ukraine" (as if the EU were some kind of the Holy Land!), the April 6th Movement, on the other hand, as can be seen from the participation of the Revolutionary Socialists in it, is rather open to left-wing ideas.

[punisa]

A comrade from Serbia already mentioned this and noticed that some flags demonstrators were caring in Egypt are the exact same ones used by OTPOR in Serbia.