Peace Watch

Nonviolent Struggles against Repressive Regimes

February 2002

Otpor's poster advises Serbs of the need for new laws meeting international standards to gain entry into the European Union for a "better tomorrow."

Former Polish Solidarity leader Czeslaw Bielecki calls the nonviolent struggle against communism in his country "a conspiracy for freedom and democracy." While the struggle in Poland succeeded, similar efforts to unseat dictators and tyrants can falter, as in Burma (Myanmar). Bielecki proposes that one of the deciding factors is the degree of support from the international community. But how can the international community gauge when a situation is "ripe" enough that its support can help a nonviolent movement succeed? And how can nonviolent movements engage the international community in their cause?

Bielecki and three other former nonviolent political activists discussed such questions at a U.S. Institute of Peace meeting on January 14 entitled "Nonviolent Struggles against Repressive Regimes: The Role of the International Community." Speakers included Mkhuseli Jack, anti-apartheid organizer and South African businessman; Sradja Popovic, Otpor leader and member of the Serbian parliament; Edita Tahiri, leader of the nonviolent resistance movement in Kosovo and member of the Kosovo parliament; and Peter Ackerman, chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). Institute executive vice president Harriet Hentges moderated the discussion.

The meeting followed a three-day conference of some 20 nonviolent activists from around the world who had successfully opposed repression or were currently engaged in such a struggle in countries such as Belarus, Burma, Chile, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Yugoslavia (Kosovo and Serbia), and Zimbabwe. Other experts on nonviolent struggle also attended. The Institute of Peace and ICNC co-sponsored that meeting, which was off-the-record, and the Institute is preparing a report of the proceedings.

The Role of the International Community

Top to bottom: Peter Ackerman, Edita Tahiri, Sradja Popovic, Mkhuseli Jack, Harriet Hentges, and Czeslaw Bielecki.

A number of participants at both meetings agreed that armed options to overthrow a dictator should be entertained on a case-by-case basis and as the situation on the ground develops. However, Ackerman pointed out, most cases of violent opposition to tyranny wreak estruction and havoc on civilian populations, as in Chechnya. Violent insurrections also are rarely successful in a reasonable timeframe, as shown by the Basque conflict, or lead to undemocratic results even if successful, as in Cuba, he said. "In a violent insurrection the average person, instead of having his citizenship validated and respected, finds his life threatened, freedoms denied, and property confiscated through intimidation or corruption."

And when there is no viable military option to overthrow or undermine a tyrant, strategic nonviolent conflict may be the right tool for achieving freedom. In such circumstances, Ackerman said, it is important for the United States to understand the dynamics that allow a nonviolent struggle to succeed. The basic condition that enabled nonviolent opposition movements to succeed in the Philippines, Poland, Serbia, and South Africa was the dictators' loss of support from the military and police, which had kept the regimes in power, he said.

"So Americans have to understand and assess as things unfold to see if a tyrant is as powerful as he seems to be. We need to measure if he has the breadth and depth of support he needs to sustain his position," particularly from the military and police, he said. If the answer is no, then a situation is likely to be ripe for a successful strategic nonviolent insurrection by the civilian population. Nonviolent struggle can include adoption of symbols such as Otpor's use of the clenched fist in Serbia and the anti-Milosevic slogan, "Gotov je" or "He's finished," as well as boycotts, vigils, protest meetings, strikes, and civil disobedience. Supporting nonviolent change "doesn't require weapons or a lot of money," and thus can be difficult for Americans—used to conceiving of resistance based on such tools—to accept, Ackerman said.

Mkhuseli Jack of South Africa stressed that for a nonviolent movement to gain international support, its methods must "stand up to public scrutiny at all times." Also, the issues it raises have to have universal appeal such as human rights, the right to vote, freedom of the press, and an equitable economic system. "Your objective must be easily identifiable and must be fundamentally a rallying issue in the country, wanted by everybody in the country, then people in the United States will put aside their good time for that good cause because it affects millions of people. The more internal support you have, the easier it is to get international support." It is also important to identify all human rights abuses in the country and to educate the public about them. For example, Jack said, in South Africa, many black citizens were used to physical abuse and didn't realize that when the police or opponents beat them that such violence represented a violation of their rights.

Sradja Popovic of Serbia said that Otpor had a well-thought- out and reasonable strategy. First, Otpor's clenched fist symbol, plastered on walls throughout Serbia, attracted international attention. Second, the symbol and the name "Otpor" (Struggle) stood for a clear and straightforward goal: removal of a tyrant through legal elections, and failing that, through peaceful demonstrations, and establishment of the rule of law in Serbia. Further, Otpor activists made a point of explaining the group's strategy to international and nongovernmental organizations and made it very clear that Otpor needed international help in building opinion and pressure against the regime. The nonviolent opposition also needs to stage smaller actions that accumulate successes because international support comes with success, Popovic said. Finally, it's important to gain international media attention, which, unfortunately, is easier to obtain if there is violence. However, the necessity of putting nonviolent protestors in a situation where the police will likely beat them can be difficult to explain to supporters, he said.

Edita Tahiri noted that in Kosovo, the civilian population followed two tracks. The first involved more than 10 years of nonviolent opposition to Serb oppression and the building of parallel institutions for Albanians, who had been largely excluded from Serb-dominated public life. The second and later track involved formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which took up arms against Serbia. In the beginning, the nonviolent struggle spared Kosovo from wars such as those that enveloped Croatia and Bosnia, she said. It also enabled the Kosovar Albanians to bring attention to their oppression by Serbs from an international community that had little or no knowledge of conditions in Kosovo and opposed the breakup of Yugoslavia. But the Kosovar Albanians turned to an armed solution when the international community ignored their plight and failed to deal with it at Dayton. The change from nonviolent resistance to violent resistance in Kosovo ended favorably for the province, which is an international protectorate with final status yet to be determined. However, the violence created splits in society that remain problematical today, she said. Still, the KLA insurrection led to the NATO campaign to stop Milosevic's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which was critical to his later defeat by Serbia's nonviolent opposition, she argued.

Once a dictatorship has been removed or independence gained, democracy building is "another hard time," Bielecki noted. Popovic added that the opposition movement needs to develop a strategy for the post-conflict period to prevent society from backsliding. Also, the international community needs to be patient while the new social and political orders work to build democracy in countries struggling with problems inherited from former regimes.

The Serbs and others who have overthrown tyranny have earned the respect of the international community, participants agreed. Kosovo, Poland, Serbia, and similar entities demonstrate that a nonviolent strategy works and can serve as models of nonviolent resistance for others to follow.