« To be partly controlled by the CIA ?
That doesn’t bother me much. »
Interview with two activists of the Otpor student movement
Meeting with two members of Otpor, the student movement of which the Western press
speaks so much, describing it as
« independent. » It was last Aug. 2, in a cafe in Kragujevac...
GERARD MUGEMANGANGO
& MICHEL COLLON
First of all, what is Otpor ? « It’s an organization of youths in high schools and
colleges, » Ivana told us. « No one is older than 27, all
our members are also members of the Democratic Party (opposition). But our activities are
different : actions, shows, distributions of
propaganda.... »
Above all the difficult life in Serbia seems to affect them most at present : « My
father, » Nenad explained, « has owned the same
automobile for 13 years . He can’t afford to buy another. As for me, a musician, to
earn a living I have to play with certain groups that I
don’t like. And I also have to work in my father’s small business. »
Ivana and Nenad seem to expect a lot from the West : « Yugoslavia is a good place to
invest : in the center of Europe, with very
rich mines, the Danube with its electric potential, well-educated people, good workers.
Here the people can work for very little, you
could say for a penny, » Nenad explained.
Wasn’t he afraid that the multinations that would take control of Yugoslavia would
wind up paying wages as low as possible in
order to raise their profits ? « It would none-the-less be a good deal for them. And we
would keep control. »
Obviously these youths have grand illusions. ... With the ultra-liberal [free market]
economic program of G17, this « control » will be
rather limited ...
Now we come to our crucial question. You expect that the United States will aid your
country. But it played a big role in breaking it up.
Is it true that Otpor, or in any case its leaders, are paid by the CIA through the front
organization called the National Endowment for
Democracy ?
Apparently our question upset them. « I know, » he ended up saying, « that the CIA is
involved in this whole story. They have their
work to do and they are stronger than our own secret services. »
“Listen to me. I am also against the USA, but we can’t resist them, and they
have to do their job, while for me, well it doesn’t bother me
that much to be partly controlled by the CIA.”
Why did the CIA train Otpor activists for 10 days ?
But why did the CIA devote so much money to take control of Otpor and the other opposition
movements? Because in reality, in
the rank-and-file of these movements, you can find a good number of honest people. They
have many complaints with regard to
Milosevic and the parties in power, but they remain partisans of the independence of
Yugoslavia and don’t want their country to become
a colony.
To lead these people where they don’t want to go demands a sophisticated strategy of
manipulation. In the summer of 1999, the
head of the CIA, George Tennent, set up shop in Sofia, Bulgaria to “educate” the
Serb opposition. Last Aug. 28, the BBC confirmed
that a special 10-day class had been given to the Otpor militants, also in Sofia.
The CIA program is a program in successive phases. Early on, they flatter the Serb’s
patriotism and spirit of independence, acting
as if they respect these qualities. But after having sown confusion and broken the unity
of the country, the CIA and NATO would go
much further.
The CIA has already employed these tactics against numerous peoples. To overturn a
government through disruption, it has
experience. In Brazil (1964), in Chile (1973), in Bulgaria (1990), you can find the same
type of pseudo-popular movements, orchestrated
with the force of the U.S. dollar. The CIA is the enemy of tall the people. It serves the
interests of only a handful of multinational
corporations and murderous generals. It’s high time they opened their eyes.
Anti-Imperialist League -- www.ptb.be/international/indexfr.html
posted 6 October 2000
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