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Location: Home > Serbian Case > About Otpor > Otpor Strategy
NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE IN SERBIA
AND
OTPOR STRATEGY
Contents:
Is nonviolent action a form of warfare? By col Robert Helvey
It's a form of warfare. And you've got to think of it in terms of a war. So the principles of war that apply to a military struggle have a tremendous overlap into strategic nonviolent struggle. I mentioned objective. The objective has to be clear. You can't plan a strategy, or you can't even have a strategy, until you have a clear objective. What is it that I want to accomplish? And then how do I want to accomplish it?
So you identify a strategy, broadly. One option, of course, is an armed struggle. Another option is, you know, a nonviolent struggle. And in some cases the ballot box is the way to bring about change. So first, if you decide that you're going to take action against oppression - and that's the first decision, you know. Do I want change bad enough that I'm willing to take some risk? Or are the risks too high and I'll just go ahead and submit and tolerate it?
But once you say yes I want to change, then you've got to make that decision which is a strategic decision. And if you decide to accept nonviolent struggle, then the same principles of war - we mention objective, you mention mass, you know, to be able to get your forces together at the decisive point. And the initiative, you know, you're never going to win by being on the defensive. You've got to take the offense, whether it's in a military struggle or in an armed struggle.
So the overlap - the principles of war are the same. They aren't necessarily things that you have to do, but these principles are, sort of, reference points. Have I thought about this? How do I provide security for this nonviolent struggle, particularly at its earlier stages? And very often in a very repressive society initially it's underground, you know, the organization. But eventually it goes above ground. So there are a lot of similarities between the two.
Can violence be used alongside a nonviolent movement? By col Robert Helvey
Call it contaminants to a nonviolent struggle. And, of course, you know, violence is the greatest contaminant. And, I use the example of-of gasoline. You know, if you get a little bit of moisture in your gas tank, the engine will still run, not real smooth, but, it'll still run. But when the moisture level reaches a certain point, the engine doesn't run at all. So violence is a contaminant. Now, any time you have a mass movement, there's going to be some isolated acts of violence. And there's not a whole lot you can do about that. But once violence becomes a policy or accepted, then it becomes a major contaminant. So major that you're going to lose the moral high ground. And a lot of people that have joined in your movement because it was nonviolent are going to start backing away.
The international community, from which you've received not only moral and political support, but sometimes financial support, will start to get very nervous about providing that support to an organization that condones violent action. And the other thing is, you are meeting your opponent where he is the strongest. And that's dumb. Why would you invite the enemy to fight you on his terms? So, that is a self-destructive approach for strategic nonviolent struggle.
On the effectiveness of nonviolence: by Srdjan Milivojevic
On June 15, (1999), I wrote a big graffiti with green spray paint on the SPS headquarters (Milosevic's Socialist Party) saying, "Infidels, you betrayed Kosovo. - I drew a big fist and wrote "Otpor, Krusevac". The following morning, a police squad and security service people came there and photographed the fist. They stayed for a long time. I noticed they were afraid of it.
The following day, I climbed on the roof of the socialist party building and destroyed all their satellite antennas with a hammer. However, I understood that such an action was on the edge of violence. Nobody wrote about it, nobody knew of what I did and therefore the citizens of Krusevac could not free themselves of fear in any way. In contrast to that, everybody noticed the sign on the SPS building - "Infidels, you betrayed Kosovo" - and I realized that through these small deeds I could do much more than by any violent actions.
On Otpor's strategy: by Srdja Popovic
"There are 6 general sources of power in each society and the story of Otpor and the story of Milosevic's fall is the story of those 6 sources of power. In one way you will see how sources of power were rising in the nonviolent movement. In another you will see how... how the strength of each source decreased in the ruling leadership.
So there is authority, which is very important. Human resources - whom we had a lot, and trained well; and human resources of the regime were those policemen we were speaking about and propagandists and people inside the bureaucracy and others. So we had to convert them, or accommodate or coerce them, however. The third very important sources are skills and knowledge. What we did all the time were improving skills and knowledge of our people and trying to pick up as many people with skills and knowledge from the regime. The fourth are material resources and the fifth, very important, are sanctions. And the sixth source of power is the intangible factor.
We recognized the fear that regime was creating inside Serbia with by ways - repressive laws, using repressive pillars of the regime... judiciary, police, threatening with the army, always being surrounded with the generals and so on and so on. So they tried to increase the rate of fear. But fear, fear of sanctions, which is the very strong source of power for every organization - and it was a strong source of power for the regime. And we recognized their weakness, because the chain is broken always on the weakest link. What we did, we were breaking that down with a story of personal bravery and personal example, getting arrested; and joking all the time.
Everything we did must have a dosage of humor. So we had only a few really serious actions. But generally each of our actions was full of humor. So what humor produces in the people is superiority of nonviolent movement. Because I'm joking, you're becoming angry. I'm full of humor and irony and you are beating me, arresting me, and in that story you are the dummy. So that's a story, that's a game you always lose because you are showing only one face and I'm always again with another joke, with another action, with another positive message to the wider audience.
And that's how we collected the third party in the whole story which is very important - the publicity. The people on the ground with sympathy for our activists who are brave and were victims of the violence. On one hand, and with that energy from the youth and the hope for future flowing from actions full of humor and positivism. So we used humor in at different levels. Simple humor we were using all the time, was a shape of our actions. You could see - always young people laughing, feeling good making Milosevic ridiculous.
The more important part was when we came to the last phase where... when the police broke into this office we are sitting now and after that we had to shoot the last bullet of humor - before the big finale, before the, you know, the final game at September the 24th and the days after. They came in and they took out a whole truck load of our [printed] materials. It was all confiscated from us, it was all taken. So we announced, because we know that the office is under surveillance, we recognize the faces of the cops sitting around in the cafes every day. We had 2 cameras recording everything around this place. So each of my espressos was on police TV tomorrow. And I'm drinking a lot of espressos.
So what we did is to announce that we will have a "load-in" of [new] materials two days after. Because we knew what will happen. The problem with them was that according to our analytic team and our marketing team, we were always one step forward. So their problem with us was that they were the predictable party in this conflict. So what we did, we said, "We will bring some materials in just because they took it out. We don't care. We will show them."
We knew that there...there will be the dozens of policemen everywhere waiting to see the first box and to take it and to arrest whoever. Because their problem was that - in the last days of the campaign they became very nervous. Because the key medium of the campaign was the sticker. We counted on ten, up to twenty thousand people. Posters and the people who are putting posters up are too vulnerable because they are slow. They could be arrested and a quantity of posters could be taken from them. And you can't expect from ordinary people to get dirty putting up the posters with glue and risking arrest. But you can count on everyone when it comes to a [putting up a] sticker."
They were so pissed off, because we printed 62 tons of material, out of which stickers were the biggest part - 1.8 million was the total amount of "He's Finished" stickers. That...that... they decided to find and to take everything. So we knew that they will be there and we filled 9 empty boxes with air. And we say this is the load-in and people were carrying boxes like it is something hard, like it has really stickers or material inside.... in front of hundreds of people and journalists. Because we announced it in the papers and people came to see what will happen. And of course the police looked ridiculous - stopping those people and taking boxes from them and recognizing the fact that they were empty.
And that happened in front of eyes of 23 journalists and all the cover pages tomorrow in this country, even in, I don't know, Associated Press, the policemen with stupid faces carrying empty boxes. So what they actually did - they helped us to send a last message. They helped us to... to scientifically prove that Milosevic counts his last days. Because if the police are so oppressive as well as it's stupid in listening to the stupid commands coming from the ex-leader of this country, everyone knows that he's finished."
(Excerpted from an interview with Steve York: Belgrade , November 30, 2000.)
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