COLOURED REVOLUTION

It was successfully applied by the U.S. neo-conservatives to set the stage for "regime change" in a number of former Soviet republics. However, the technique backfired when it was tried in a different cultural environment (Venezuela, Lebanon, Iran).

Georgia
November 2003
Edward Shevardnadze was overthrown
elections had been rigged.
Ukraine
November 2004
"Orange Revolution"
same allegations
elections had been rigged
Georgia
November 2003
dward Shevardnadze was overthrown
allegations
elections had been rigged.
Ukraine
November 2004
"Orange Revolution"
same allegations
elections had been rigged
Kievan Rus is the first Russian state
Ukraine has now been turned
historic achievement
Lebanon
ollowing the assassination of Rafik Hariri
"the Cedar Revolution."
enormous counter-demonstration by Hezbollah
ignored while
TV replayed
anti-Syrian crowd
Orwellian double-think
BBC
"Hezbollah
is so far the only dissenting voice
How can the majority be "a dissenting voice"
Kyrgyzstan
many predicted
same wave
would extend
Central Asia
Bishkek
was it a "lemon" revolution or a "tulip"
Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev, was overthrown on 24th March 2005
Uzbekistan
armed rebels seized government buildings, sprung prisoners
ight of 12th–13th May in
Andijan
long standoff
government forces started to move

Western media immediately misrepresented
government forces had opened fire on unarmed protesters – "the people."
constantly repeated myth
popular rebellion against a dictatorial government
violent putsch occurred in Kygyrzstan, The Times
scenes in Bishkek reminded him of Eisenstein films about the Bolshevik revolution, The Daily Telegraph
"power to the people,"
Financial Times used a well-known Maoist metaphor
"long march to freedom."
key elements
"the people" are behind the events
and
spontaneous
In fact
highly organised
deliberately staged
usually funded and controlled by transnational networks of so-called non-governmental organisations which are in turn instruments of Western power
The literature on coups d’état
Lenin
developed the organisational structure for overthrowing a regime which we now know as a political party
differed from Marx
not
the result of ineluctable anonymous forces, but that it had to be worked for
Curzio Malaparte’s Technique of a Coup d’état
1931
regime change
a technique

summer of 1920: Poland had been invaded by Trostky’s Red Army (Poland having itself invaded the Soviet Union, capturing Kiev in April 1920
British minister
Sir Horace Rumbold, and the Papal nuncio, Monsignor Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti – the man who was elected Pope as Pius XI two years later
diplomatic corps
should flee
Papal Nuncio disagreed
no revolution did break out in Poland
revolutionary forces were simply not well organised enough
Malaparte
discuss
ifferences between Lenin and Trotsky,
For Malaparte, as for Trotsky, regime change could be promoted in any country
providing that there was a sufficiently determined body of men determined to achieve it.
Manufacturing consent
second body of literature
control of the media during regime change
creation of a virtual reality. Control of this reality is itself an instrument of power
revolutionaries seize is the radio station
strong psychological reluctance to accept that political events today are deliberately manipulated.
News reports

come from a single source, usually a wire agency
BBC simply recycle
second factor
to rubbish news reports as manipulated is to tell people that they are gullible, and this is not a pleasant message
many elements to
manipulation
One
is political iconography
iconic events
storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789
storming of the Winter Palace during the October revolution in 1917
Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922
events can be elevated
political imagery goes
beyond
a simple emblem for each revolution
exercised over a long period
official party line to be repeated ad nauseam
dissenting views may be expressed and published
being mere drops in the ocean
never a threat to the tide of propaganda