“APRIL 6″ LEADER PLANS U.S. TRAVEL; DESCRIBES MOVEMENT IN DISARRAY

Ref ID: 09CAIRO695
Date: 2009-04-23 15:45
Origin: Embassy Cairo
Classification: CONFIDENTIAL

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SUBJECT: “APRIL 6″ LEADER PLANS U.S. TRAVEL; DESCRIBES
MOVEMENT IN DISARRAY

REF: A. CAIRO 591
B. CAIRO 580
C. CAIRO 468
D. 08 CAIRO 2572

Classified By: Economic-Political Counselor
Catherine Hill-Herndon for reason 1.4 (d).

1. (C) On April 22, “April 6 Movement” leader Ahmed Saleh told us that he plans to travel to Washington from May 2 to May 9 to testify in a May 7 Congressional hearing on a draft resolution on human rights in Egypt sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). Saleh said that Dina Guirgis of the Washington-based NGO “Voices for a Democratic Egypt (VDE)” is working to schedule meetings for him with Congress, and VDE will provide him with accommodation. Saleh believes that Egyptian activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim is “personally” funding Saleh’s plane travel to the U.S. Saleh requested assistance in setting up meetings with USG officials so he can “explain the importance of democracy in Egypt.”

2. (C) According to Saleh, the “April 6 Movement” is in increasing disarray. Saleh said that Islamist members, such as Labor Party activist Dia Isawi, are accusing him and secular “April 6″ leader Ahmed Maher of “treason” for their association with the U.S. NGO Freedom House, which Isawi views as a “Zionist organization.”

(Note: Saleh is secular and is allied with Ahmed Maher in advocating a secular orientation for “April 6.” End note.)

Saleh noted that the Islamist members held a mock trial of Ahmed Maher for ”treason” into the early morning hours of April 22 after obtaining Freedom House documents detailing planned funding of “April 6 activities.” Saleh said that as a result of this internal “April 6″ strife, programming with Freedom House is now “impossible.” Saleh speculated that Isawi might be working as an agent for State Security.

3. (C) Saleh noted that youth activists from the secular Ghad party are also accusing him and Ahmed Maher of “treason” because of their contacts with Freedom House. Saleh claimed that the prominent blogger Wael Abbas is working with Dia Isawi to undermine the secular “April 6″ leadership so that Abbas can claim the mantle of internet activism for himself. According to Saleh, Abbas has threatened to post information about Saleh and Maher’s links to Freedom House on his blog. Saleh told us he is still planning to establish an ”underground” secular wing of “April 6″ (ref C).

4. (C) In a separate meeting April 23, Wael Abbas criticized ”April 6″ leader Ahmed Maher as weak and the movement as disorganized, but did not voice any support for Isawi.

(Comment: We do not believe that Abbas wants to dominate other internet activists, as Saleh suggested. Abbas has worked closely with other activists in the past, and has expressed to us his hope that more internet activists will participate in political life. End comment.)

-SCOBEY

Source: WikiLeaks

“APRIL 6″ MOVEMENT CONSOLIDATES RANKS, LOOKS TOWARD COMING ELECTIONS

Ref ID: 09CAIRO1464
Date: 2009-07-30 13:45
Origin: Embassy Cairo
Classification: CONFIDENTIAL

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SUBJECT: “APRIL 6″ MOVEMENT CONSOLIDATES RANKS, LOOKS TOWARD COMING ELECTIONS

REF: A. CAIRO 695
B. CAIRO 591
C. CAIRO 580
D. CAIRO 468
E. 08 CAIRO 2572
F. 08 CAIRO 697

Classified By: Economic-Political Minister-Counselor Donald A. Blome for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1. KEY POINTS

– (C) “April 6″ movement leader Ahmed Saleh told us July 26 that the group has ejected Islamist and Nasserist members to try to preserve its secular, western orientation.

– (C) Saleh urged U.S. pressure on the GOE for international monitors for the 2010 and 2011 elections. He is planning to travel to the U.S. with Ayman Nour in October to press for international monitors.

– (C) According to Saleh, a U.S.-based Freedom House official recently received a letter from the Egyptian MFA criticizing the organization’s association with Saleh.

– (C) Meeting us for the first time July 28, “April 6″ coordinator Ahmed Maher said the group is open to working with secular opposition parties on voter education and other activities.

2. (C) Background: “April 6″ is a small, youth-based movement which advocates replacing the current regime through a peaceful transition to democracy that would include a weak presidency and an empowered parliament and prime minister.
The movement organized a largely successful strike in Cairo on April 6, 2008 through Facebook to protest price increases and political and economic conditions (ref F). Following the strike, the GOE has arrested and tortured “April 6″ members, and has prevented the group from staging public demonstrations (ref E). End background.

——————————————–
Cleaning House: Islamists and Nasserists Out
——————————————–

3. (C) Saleh told us July 26 that the group ejected 13 Islamist and Nasserist members the previous day in an attempt to consolidate its secular, western orientation. Saleh had told us previously that these members had tried to hijack ”April 6,” and turn it into a Islamist movement opposing the west and rejecting Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel (refs A, D). Saleh said that following the ouster, “April 6″ published a new “manifesto” on its Facebook page, reaffirming the group’s interest in working with western countries and organizations. Saleh assessed that the movement would now be more internally “harmonious,” but that the ousted members would try to attack the group from the outside. He predicted that thousands of young Egyptians would join “April 6″ now that the movement has resolved its internal issues.

——————————————— —
“April 6″ Looking Toward 2010 and 2011 Elections
——————————————— —

4. (C) Saleh said “April 6″ is now focusing on the 2010 parliamentary and 2011 presidential elections. He asked for U.S. pressure on the GOE to allow international monitors as the only way of ensuring free and fair elections and open campaigns. He asserted that the political opposition would only be able to operate freely under such conditions, as the GOE would otherwise use the Emergency Law to prevent campaigning. Saleh noted that he had made this point to USG,Congressional and NGO interlocutors during his June-July trip to the U.S. Saleh said he is also coordinating his actions with Saad Eddin Ibrahim.

5. (C) Saleh asserted that free and fair elections as part of a gradual non-violent transition to democracy would be the only way to address Egypt’s acute economic and political problems. He said that “April 6″ plans an internet voter education campaign to decrease voter apathy, and wants to stage street demonstrations to support this goal. However, he predicted the GOE would prevent such demonstrations.
According to Saleh, “April 6″ members are currently not planning to run for seats in the 2010 parliamentary elections, but he noted that this calculus could change if the elections were “more open.” Saleh stressed that if movement members chose to run, they would do so as independents, not as opposition party candidates.

6. (C) “April 6″ Coordinator Ahmed Maher told us July 28 that the group is open to working with secular opposition parties such as Al-Ghad, the Democratic Front and Anwar Esmat Sadat’s nascent Reform and Development Party on voter education and other activities such as anti-corruption initiatives. Maher said he is working to establish an organizational structure for the group that would include a Cairo-based coordinating committee overseeing smaller chapters in each governorate.
(Note: This was our first meeting with Maher who was arrested and tortured following the April 6, 2008 strike, and tries to keep a low profile. End note.)

——————————–
New Coordination with Ayman Nour
——————————–

7. (C) Saleh said he is working with former opposition presidential candidate Ayman Nour on a planned October 1-7 visit the U.S. to urge the USG to press for international election monitors. Saleh said that he, Nour and another opposition politician would travel together. Saleh told us he is working with U.S.-based Egyptians such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Dina Guirgis of Voices for a Democratic Egypt and Sherif Mansour of Freedom House to coordinate an Ayman Nour trip focused on monitors. He said Guirgis is the lead U.S.-based coordinator for the trip. According to Saleh, Saad Eddin Ibrahim travelled to Europe in mid-July to urge European officials to press for international monitors.

8. (C) Saleh told us that “April 6″ would support Nour as a presidential candidate in 2011 if he were able to run. Saleh noted that he recently began discussions with Nour about future coordination with “April 6″ to achieve democratic change. He described Nour as slightly “unbalanced from his time in jail,” but voiced hope that Nour could be an agent of change in open 2011 presidential elections.

——————-
Saleh’s U.S. Travel
——————-

9. (C) Saleh said that during his June-July travel to the U.S., a Washington-based Freedom House official told him that the Egyptian MFA had sent Freedom House a letter criticizing the organization’s relationship with Saleh. According to Saleh, the Freedom House official said the letter criticized Saleh as “an illegitimate opportunist seeking asylum in the U.S.” Saleh told us GOE customs searched him for 2 hours on July 20 at Cairo International Airport upon his return. He believed customs gave his papers to MOI State Security Investigative Services (SSIS) officers.

-Tueller

Source: WikiLeaks

via Guardian & Rueters

Published: January 3, 2012. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEVEN LEE MYERS

CAIRO — With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt’s new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.

The administration’s overtures — including high-level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants.

The shift is, on one level, an acknowledgment of the new political reality here, and indeed around the region, as Islamist groups come to power. Having won nearly half the seats contested in the first two rounds of the country’s legislative elections, the Brotherhood on Tuesday entered the third and final round with a chance to extend its lead to a clear majority as the vote moved into districts long considered strongholds.

The reversal also reflects the administration’s growing acceptance of the Brotherhood’s repeated assurances that its lawmakers want to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt’s treaty with Israel.

And at the same time it underscores Washington’s increasing frustration with Egypt’s military rulers, who have sought to carve out permanent political powers for themselves and used deadly force against protesters seeking an end to their rule.

The administration, however, has also sought to preserve its deep ties to the military rulers, who have held themselves up as potential guardians of their state’s secular character. The administration has never explicitly threatened to take away the $1.3 billion a year in American military aid to Egypt, though new Congressional restrictions could force cuts.

Nevertheless, as the Brotherhood moves toward an expected showdown with the military this month over who should control the interim government — the newly elected Parliament or the ruling military council — the administration’s public outreach to the Brotherhood could give the Islamic movement in Egypt important support. It could also confer greater international legitimacy on the Brotherhood.

It would be “totally impractical” not to engage with the Brotherhood “because of U.S. security and regional interests in Egypt,” a senior administration official involved in shaping the new policy said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic affairs.

“There doesn’t seem to me to be any other way to do it, except to engage with the party that won the election,” the official said, adding, “They’ve been very specific about conveying a moderate message — on regional security and domestic issues, and economic issues, as well.”

Some close to the administration have even called this emerging American relationship with the Brotherhood a first step toward a pattern that could take shape with the Islamist parties’ coming to power around the region in the aftermath of the uprisings of the Arab Spring. Islamists have taken important roles in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt in less than a year.

“You’re certainly going to have to figure out how to deal with democratic governments that don’t espouse every policy or value you have,” said Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and recently joined with the ambassador to Egypt, Anne W. Patterson, for a meeting with top leaders of the Brotherhood’s political party.

He compared the Obama administration’s outreach to President Ronald Reagan’s arms negotiations with the Soviet Union. “The United States needs to deal with the new reality,” Mr. Kerry said. “And it needs to step up its game.”

In the meeting with the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, he said, the Brotherhood’s leaders said they were eager to work with the United States and other Western countries, especially in economic areas.

“They certainly expressed a direction that shouldn’t be a challenge to us, provided they follow through,” he said, adding, “Obviously the proof will be in the pudding.”

Brotherhood leaders, for their part, often talk publicly here of their eagerness for Egypt to have cooperative relations “as equals” with the United States. The Brotherhood renounced violence as a political tool around the time the 1952 revolution overthrew the British-backed monarchy. Over the years, many of its leaders said they had become comfortable with multiparty electoral democracy while serving as members of a tolerated — if marginalized — parliamentary minority under Mr. Mubarak.

They also seem to revel in their new standing. After the meeting with Senator Kerry and Ambassador Patterson, the Brotherhood’s newspaper and Web site reported that Mr. Kerry said “he was not surprised at the progress and leading position of the Freedom and Justice Party on the electoral landscape in Egypt, emphasizing his respect for the public will in Egypt.”

“Egypt is a big country with a long honorable history and plays an important role in Arab, Islamic and international issues, and therefore respects the conventions and treaties that were signed,” the Brotherhood leaders said they told Mr. Kerry.

But, on the group’s English language Web page, the report also urged the United States “to hear the peoples, not to hear of them,” and advised “that America could play a role in the economic development and stability of various peoples of the world, if it wished.”

On Tuesday, the administration intensified its criticism of Egypt’s military rulers over raidsthat last week shut down 10 civil society groups, including at least 3 American-financed democracy-building groups, as part of an investigation of illicit foreign financing that has been laden with conspiratorial and anti-American rhetoric.

“It is, frankly, unacceptable to us that that situation has not been returned to normal,” a State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said, charging that Egypt’s military rulers had broken pledges last week to top American officials, including Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta.

She called the officials behind the campaign against the organizations “old Mubarak holdover types who clearly are not on the new page with the Egyptian people.”

The administration’s willingness to engage with the Brotherhood could open President Obama to new attacks by Republicans who are already accusing him letting Islamists take over a pivotal ally. Some analysts, though, said the overtures amounted to a tacit admission that the United States should have begun such outreach to the region’s Islamist opposition long ago.

Discreet American contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood go back to the early 1990s, although they were previously limited to unpublicized meetings with members of Parliament who also belonged to the Brotherhood but were elected as independents. And even those timid encounters evoked vitriol from Mr. Mubarak.

“Your government is in contact with these terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood,” he reportedly told the American journalist Mary Anne Weaver in 1994. “Very secretly, without our knowledge at first,” he said, adding, “I can assure you these groups will never take over this country.”

Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, argued that the United States missed chances to build ties to moderate Islamists earlier. When Mr. Mubarak jailed thousands of prominent Brotherhood members in 2005 and 2006, for example, the organization reached out to Washington.

“Now the Brotherhood knows it is in a stronger position and it is almost as if the U.S. is chasing them and they are sitting pretty,” Mr. Hamid said. “But what can the U.S. do, intervene and change the election results?” he asked. “The only alternative is to be against democracy in the region.”

Egypt’s elections are expected to continue to Wednesday, with runoffs next week, and Parliament’s first session is expected to open Jan. 23, two days before the anniversary of the protests that forced out Mr. Mubarak.

Source: The New York Times

In the report, Reuters stated that the Academy of Change was founded in London in 2005 by  Hisham Morsy, Wael Adel, and Adel’s cousin Ahmed Adel, and that the Academy moved to Qatar later on. Reuters claims that the AOC was involved in training Egyptian dissidents (Kefaya and April 6 Youth among others) ever since 2005. Reuters also claims that the Academy is one of those involved in the planning of the events that took place Tahrir, and the training of the revolutionaries, through a vague character with the name “Saad Bahaar“.

Reuters report wrote: 

“Inspired by the way Serbian group Otpor had brought down Slobodan Milosevic through non-violent protests in 2000, the trio studied previous struggles. One of their favorite thinkers was Gene Sharp, a Boston-based academic who was heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi. The group had set up a webpage in 2004 to propagate civil disobedience ideas in Arabic.

At first, the three young Egyptians’ activities were purely theoretical. But in November 2005, Wael Adel came to Cairo to give a three-day training session on civil disobedience. In the audience were about 30 members of Kefaya, an anti-Mubarak protest group whose name means “enough” in Arabic. Kefaya had gained prominence during the September 2005 presidential elections which Mubarak won by a landslide. During these protests, they had been attacked by thugs and some women members had been stripped naked. Bahaar joined Adel on the course and his career as an underground trainer in non-violent activism was born.

Adel taught activists how to function within a decentralized network. Doing so would make it harder for the security services to snuff them out by arresting leaders. They were also instructed on how to maintain a disciplined non-violent approach in the face of police brutality, and how to win over bystanders…

… The Academy became a window for Egypt’s activists into civil disobedience movements outside the Arab world. To disseminate the new methods of resistance, it wrote books about nonviolent activism with a focus on the Arab world: “Civil Disobedience,” “Nonviolent War the 3rd Choice” and “AOC MindQuake” that were published in 2007.

A year later the Academy published “Shields to Protect Against Fear”, a manual on techniques to protect one’s body against attacks by security services during a protest. “The idea of non-violent protest is not martyrdom,” Adel said. “We knew to get ordinary Egyptians, and Arabs, to face their governments and security, they have to have tools to protect themselves. This boosts the morale and enthusiasm to go to the street.”

Then the report goes on to make the link between the Egyptian Revolution and the Academy of Change:

“February 2010. Mohamed ElBaradei was back in Cairo. The former head of the International Atomic Energy Association and Nobel peace prize winner had inspired some of Egypt’s younger generation that change was possible. Several of them had created a Facebook page backing ElBaradei as the country’s next president. But how were they to achieve their goal given Mubarak’s repressive regime? They turned to the Academy for help.

Watch The Great Deception Addendum

The Academy directed them to its online training manuals, which the Facebook activists tried for a while. But despite their internet savvy, many felt that relying entirely on online training was too theoretical. Couldn’t the Academy give them practical training? Enter Bahaar.

Those who had signed up to the Facebook page were divided into groups of 100. Bahaar trained eight of the groups in different parts of the country using, among other tools, PowerPoint presentations that explained how you maximize the power of a protest movement. Every protester had a family, and around the family was a wider community, Bahaar explained. If a protester was arrested or beaten by the police, his or her family might be radicalized. Similarly, if a policeman engaged in brutality, his family and social network might not be supportive. By maintaining disciplined non-violent activity, the regime’s power could be progressively weakened.”

To verify the report we searched for the Academy of Change, and we found it’s website, under the name “AOC: Mind Quake”, with an English Mirror website. The AOC website lists the following data:

The academy was officially founded in London, UK March, 2006 as a scientific institute that is specialized in studying and researching the sciences social, cultural, and political transformations especially in Arabic and Islamic region.

Although established in London, its focus has been the geopolitics of the heart of the world, which happens to be the Middle East and its adjacent countries.

This gave the AOC its unique edge of being one of the earliest scientific research establishments in the West with deep roots at the East that tackles the concepts of “social transformation” and “political change” through a set of independent or overlapping research programs. AOC has been a success in its activities so that it is expanding and recently established its first branch in the Middle East in Qatar in 2009. Then it estaplished its branch Vienna, Austria, 2010.

The AOC website verifies that the founders of the Academy are:

Hisham Morsi - physician
Ahmed Adel Abdelhakeem - chemist
Wael Adel - civil engineer
In the Publications section, the English website contains these downloadable books by the Academy:
The Anti-Coup, by Gene Sharp and Bruce Jenkins
On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals, by Robert Helvey
Path Of Resistance, by Per Herngren
Nonviolent Action Handbook, by Sanderson Beck
Civil Disobedience, By Henry David Thoreau
Civil Disobedience Training Act Up

But more importantly, the Arabic website contains these books:
From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp (in Arabic and English)
Nonviolent War the 3rd Choice, سلسلة حرب اللاعنف by the Academy, 2007
The Weapons of Nonviolent War, أسلحة حرب اللاعنف by the Academy, 2007
AOC MindQuake, سلسلة ثورة العقول by the Academy, 2007
Shields to Protect Against Fear, الدروع الواقية من الخوف by the Academy
Demonstrations, التظاهرات by the Academy
A Road Map to operations and Tactics, خارطة العمليات و التكتيكات by the Academy

There is also a list of “Recommended” movies which includes (but are not limited to):
The Matrix
V for Vendetta
Battle in Seattle
and Hitler: the rise of evil

The Academy website links to:

The Facebook page of “The Academy of change”: listing it’s Headquarters in Doah, Qatar, notable to mention is that the Facebook page had little over 6,000 followers.
The AOC twitter account with little over 400 followers
And a disabled YouTube channel. 

However the most disturbing thing about the Academy of Change, is that both AOC websites (Arabic and English) do NOT list a team or staff, or the Academy’s funding sources. We tried to search online for any indication where the AOC funding comes from, with no avail.
Sources:

Reuters Special Report: Inside the Egyptian revolution
AOC Mind Quake website

The video below, is from the Academy’s YouTube channel, and it shows a group of men wearing the traditional Arab Bedouin garments and are being trained on High skilled military operations in the Negev desert in an Israeli military base.

The graduates of the Academy are highly trained militants who are ready to work for the highest bidder, the call them selves Private Security Personnel, but the most common name for their line of work is Mercenaries or Guns for Hire, and are able to operate in Arab States.

When asked if he was in fact training mercenaries, Mirza David, the founder and owner of the Israeli International Security Academy, answered: “The term mercenary is a nonsense, it is finished”.

The Academy’s training course lasts for seven weeks, and aims to train participants on high risk combat in the Arab and Islamic world, especially in light of turmoil in the region. As well as training on combat arts, firearms and sniper rifles, the trainees also train on the arts of camouflage, and training to dress and talk like native Arabs for reasons of undercover operations.

According to the academy, a large number of Arab youth participated in the training sessions, including Iraqis, Egyptians, Lebanese, as well as other Arab and African nationalities.

The video interview shows one of those Arabs, a Lebanese trainee, only identifying himself as Julian, and who refused to reveal his real name or face, from behind an Arab Headdress, Julian says of his training at the ISA: “Only the best can train here with the best“.

Sources:
BBC
Salem News
People Daily
AllVioces.com

This Article is also Available in Arabic on AnarchitexT Arabic

Question: what do the so-called “colour” revolutions – Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004), and

Foreign Policy, the most highest American magazine about geopolitics and foreign policy, published its yearly Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2011.

For the second year in a row, Dr. Mohamed El Baradei is featured on the list (as if suddenly they discovered how brilliant el Baradei is) but this year he shares the 1st position with a list of 14 persons, whom FP calls “The Arab Revolutionaries”, the list includes:

Alaa Al Aswany
Mohamed ElBaradei
Wael Ghonim
Rached Ghannouchi
Tawakkol Karman

but more interestingly, The Arab Revolutionaries list includes Otpor‘s Srdja Popovic and AIE’s Gene Sharp!!!

Other dignitaries among the other”Top” 100 thinkers on the FP list include:
Barack Obama (11)
Dick Cheney (12)
Condoleezza Rice (12)
Mark Zuckerberg (17)
Hillary Clinton (20)
Nicolas Sarkozy (21)
Bernard-Henri Lévy (22)
Samantha Power (53)
Jared Cohen (83)

Quite a list! Seems like the list of Top American Imperialism Advancers, not Top Thinkers!

Notable to mention is that until the end of 2008, FP was owned by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in September 29, 2008, The Washington Post Company bought it.

الجزء الرابع من سلسلة “الخداع الأكبر”: حصان طروادة، هو تجميع لبعض معلومات الأجزاء السابقة و إستكمال لبعض الجوانب

و لكن الأسئلة المطروحة في الجزء الرابع تتعلق بدور الدكتور البرادعي في مصر و تحالفاته، هذه الأسئلة بإختصار هي:

ماذا دار في اللقاء بين البرادعي و كوندليزا رايز في 2005؟

ما هي المنظمة الدولية للإزمات؟

من هو جورج سوروس؟

ما علاقته بالبرادعي و شباب 6 أبريل؟

هل له يد في ثورة مصر؟

ما علاقته بالبرادعي و شباب 6 أبريل؟

هل له يد في ثورة مصر؟

و أسئلة أخري كثيرة يجب أن يجيب  د. البرادعي عنها…

The Links:

د. محمد البردعي
ElBaradei files
ElBaradei & Soros

حديث د. البرادعي في الأهرام

حديث د. البرادعي في مصرواي

جورج سوروس

Soros Files
NS Profile: George Soros
Meet George Soros

حركة 6 أبريل

April 6 Youth Files
WikiLeaks: APRIL 6 Activist met with US officials in 2008 & discussed Regime Change “Plan” in EGYPT by 2011
US Department of State: Press Release on Alliance of Youth Movements Summit
NY Times: U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings
Reuters Special Report: Inside the Egyptian revolution

تنوية 

هذا الفيديو ليس هجوماً على شخص بعينه، و هو بالطبع ليس هجوماً على ثوار مصر الأحرار، الذين نفخر بأننا كنا ضمن صفوفهم من اليوم الأول..

و لكن هذا الفيديو هو دعوة للبحث و المعرفة، و عدم الأنسياق وراء شخص أو جهه بذاتها

The Centre for Applied Non Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS) is a non-profit, non-governmental, educational institution focused on the use of nonviolent conflict to promote human rights and democracy. It was founded in 2004 by Srdja Popovic and Slobodan Djinovic, former members of the Serbian youth resistance movement, Otpor!, which played a key role in the successful overthrow of Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000. Drawing upon the Serbian experience, CANVAS seeks to educate pro-democracy activists around the world in what it regards as the universal principles for success in nonviolent struggle.

Established in Belgrade, CANVAS has worked with pro-democracy activists from over 50 countries, including Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Venezuela, Belarus, Palestine, Western Sahara, West Papua, Eritrea, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Tonga and, recently, Tunisia and Egypt. It works only with groups with no history of violence and only in response to requests for assistance.

CANVAS’ training and methodology has reportedly been successfully applied by groups in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Lebanon (2005), The Maldives (2008) and Egypt (2011).

Mission

The core of CANVAS’s work is rather to spread the word of “people power” to the world than to achieve victories against one dictator or another. Our next big mission should obviously be to explain to the world what a powerful tool nonviolent struggle is when it comes to achieving freedom, democracy and human rights.

Origins

CANVAS was established in Belgrade in 2004. Its founding members, Djinovic and Popovic, were leaders of the Serbian youth resistance movement Otpor! (Serbian for Resistance!), which played an instrumental role in deposing Milosevic in 2000. CANVAS says it sees itself as the successor to a host of non-violent campaigners from India’s Mohandas Gandhi to Martin Luther King. CANVAS has become known for its work with nonviolent democratic movements worldwide through the transfer of knowledge on strategies and tactics of nonviolent struggle.

Its founder`s dream seems to be: a world where political change comes through nonviolent struggle. It says it brings a more rigorous, strategic model and skill-set to the process, as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge of recent global protest history.

Otpor!

Established in Belgrade in October 1998, Otpor! emerged as a response to the introduction that year of repressive laws relating to the universities and mass media. Following the war inKosovo and NATO air-strikes in 1999, Otpor! began its political campaign against Milosevic throughout the country. Espousing the principle of nonviolence, it used an array of tactics, from slogans and chants to rock concerts and Monty Python street humour, to galvanise the Serbian population against Milosevic. Otpor! adopted as its symbol of resistance a clenched fist, black on white or white on black – a subversion of the communist imagery of a red fist which was favoured by Milosevic. Duda Petrovic, who designed the symbol explained “I never knew it would be so important […] I drew it not out of ideals, but because I was in love with the Otpor girl who asked me to do it.

Authors credited Otpor’s methods for stripping away the fear, fatalism and passivity that keep a dictator’s subjects under oppression as well as turning passivity into action by making it easy — even cool — to become a revolutionary. The movement branded itself with hip slogans and graphics and rock music. It was influenced by nonviolent struggle leaders like Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, but also a pop-culture and humor like famous UK comedy “Monthy Python`s Flying Circus”. Otpor’s unified message and diverse membership proved much more attractive to young activists than the deeply divided opposition parties of the time. Instead of long speeches, Otpor relied on humor and street theater that mocked the regime.

Over a period of two years, Otpor! grew from a dozen or so students to a grassroots movement of over 70,000 people.Otpor! became one of the defining symbols of the anti-Milošević struggle and his subsequent overthrow. By aiming their activities at the pool of youth abstainers and other disillusioned voters, Otpor contributed to one of the biggest turnouts ever for the September 24, 2000 federal presidential elections with voters turnout of more than 4,77 million or 72% of total electorate.Its campaign called “He Is Finished!” against Milosevic was seen by many as a key factor in his electoral defeat in September 2000 and subsequent overthrow.

Post-Milosevic

Following Otpor!’s success in Serbia, civic activists in other countries contacted Otpor! leaders with a view to emulating their success. One of Otpor!’s leaders, Djinovic, traveled to Belarus on a number of occasions to meet with a student movement. However, the student movement was reportedly infiltrated soon after and it collapsed.

Otpor!’s counterparts in Georgia, Ukraine and Lebanon were more successful. In Georgia, Otpor! leaders had begun working with a student movement called Kmara (“Enough!”) in 2002. Kmara went on to play a prominent role in securing the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze in November 2003 during the Rose Revolution. In Ukraine, Otpor! worked with the Pora (“It’s time”) youth movement – a key player in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, which took place between November 2004 and January 2005.The decision to set up a training centre was taken in 2003, while Djinovic and Popovic were in South Africa working with Zimbabwean activists. Popovic was a member of parliament at the time, a position he gave up in 2004 to concentrate on revolutionary activism. Djinovic had set up Serbia’s first wireless internet provider in 2000. He currently funds approximately half of CANVAS’ work.

Organisational structure

Headquartered in Belgrade, CANVAS is run by Djinovic and Popovic. It has four and a half members of staff who are paid as contractors and operates a network of international trainers with experience of successful democratic movements.

Teachings

CANVAS emphasises the importance of “unity, discipline and planning” as the keys to success in nonviolent resistance.

CANVAS teachings can be summarised in a few simple principles: Power in the society is not fiexed, it can shift very swiftly from one social group to another. It can become fragile and can be redistributed, especially in non-democratic regimes. Ultimately, power in society comes from the obedience of the people. And those people – each of whom is individually a small source of power – can change their minds, and refuse to follow commands. In addition to that essential principles for the success of the movement are unity, planning and non-violent discipline. There must be a shared vision of tomorrow and a grand strategy for how to attain it. No movement can succeed if it bites off more than it can chew; instead, successful movements win small victories and build on them.

Preparation is seen by CANVAS as paramount. Former CANVAS trainer Ivan Marovic was quoted as saying in a February 2011 Foreign Policy article, “Revolutions are often seen as spontaneous… It looks as if people just went into the street. But it’s the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you reach a certain point, where you can organise mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks.”

As part of the planning process, CANVAS teaches activists to identify “pillars of support” – institutions or organisations such as the police, the army, organised religion and the educational establishment – to be won over. “It is crucial for nonviolent movements to pull people out of the pillars of support like the police or military, rather than push people inside these pillars and appear threatening or aggressive to them” Popovic was quoted as saying in an article published in Sojourners Magazine in May 2011.To disarm the police in Serbia, Otpor! deployed such tactics as delivering cookies and flowers to police stations.

CANVAS also views the creation of a strong brand with the potential to attract widespread support as key to a movement’s success. Slogans, songs and identity symbols – such as Otpor!’s clenched fist – all play an important role in this regard. Together with clear articulation of a movement’s aims, CANVAS teachings are covering topics of nonviolent movements` group identity, clear communication strategy with its target audiences and developing solidarity among its activists in case they are arrested, detained or fired from their work. Important part of curiculum is focused on how movements facing the oppression can overcome fear and its adverse effects on people`s moral and build enthusiasm.

For CANVAS, special attention should be given to developng movements` nonviolent discipline as “a single act of violence can destroy the credibility of a nonviolent movement”. Accordingly, it teaches its students in techniques to avoid violence and how to face violence, particularly from the police and security forces.

Methods for knowledge transfer

CANVAS disseminates its knowledge through a variety of media, including workshops, books, DVDs and specialised courses. Its workshops have reportedly been attended by over 1,000 people from 37 countries.

In 2007, CANVAS published its book for students, “Canvas Core Curriculum: A Guide To Effective Nonviolent Struggle.” It has also published a handbook manual for activists entitled “Non-violent struggle – 50 crucial points”, which has been translated into Arabic and Farsi. The publication has been downloaded some 20,000 times in the Middle East, mostly by Iranians. CANVAS has also released an education film, “Bringing down a dictator.”

In January 2008, CANVAS started a joint graduate program at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Political Science named Strategies and Methods of Nonviolent Social Change. The certified course is based on CANVAS’ core curriculum.Canvas members regularly teach and present an academic version of their Core Curriculum and hold workshops on strategy and organization of nonviolent struggle at variety of educational institutions worldwide, including: Harvard (Kennedy School Of Law), Fletcher school of law and diplomacy (TUFTS, Boston, MA), John Hopkins (SAIS), Columbia University, Rutgers (NJ), Colorado College (CO)…

Successes

CANVAS has attracted publicity for its work with dissident groups in various country. The clenched fist symbol was flying high on white flags in 2003 in Georgia, when nonviolent protesters stormed the country’s parliament after the election fraud in an action that led to the toppling of former autocratic President Eduard Shevardnadze. Recently, more substantioal media attention was given to their successful work with groups from the Maldives and, more recently and most notably, in Egypt.

In the Maldives, CANVAS gave training to the local opposition group and helped them end Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30-year presidential rule in 2008.

In Egypt, it emerged that Mohammed Adel, one of the leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement, which became one of the most important organisers of the uprising in Egypt that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, had received training from CANVAS. Adel traveled to Belgrade to attend a 5-day CANVAS course in the strategies of nonviolent revolution in the summer of 2009. As he informed Al Jazeera English in an interview on 9th February 2011, he “got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to face violence from the security forces, and then how to train others in how to demonstrate peacefully and how to organise and get people on the streets.”

Funding

CANVAS is a non-profit institution which relies solely on private funding; there is no charge for workshops and revolutionary know-how can be downloaded for free on the Internet. CANVAS’ biggest individual funder is its founding member and media mogul, Slobodan Djinovic. Djinovic privately funds about half of CANVAS’ operating costs. CANVAS does not accept funding from individual governments.

Awards

In November 2010, CANVAS was awarded the Paul Lauitzen Award for Human Rights.

In November 2011. Foreign Policy Magazine credited Srdja Popovic, Executive director of CANVAS as one of their “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for his role in spreading the idea and educating activists about nonviolent social change.

Controversy

Various organisations and individuals, including the governments of Belarus and Iran, as well as Hugo Chavez, have accused CANVAS of being a “revolution-exporter”. CANVAS denies this, emphasising its role as educator and empowerer of peaceful methods. CANVAS leaders often stress that “in order to be sucesfull, nonviolent movements must avoid taking any advice from foreigners, must be home-grown” and that “nonviolent revolutions cannot be exported-or imported”.

Read: CANVAS[ing] For The Nonviolent Propaganda Offensive: Propaganda In The Service Of Imperial Projects

Source:
Canvas website
Wikipedia