As NATO-backed protests were beginning to take off in Ukraine after then-president Viktor Yanukovich agreed to accept a financial deal with Russia as opposed to the greater integration/austerity package proposed by the European Union, evidence of US involvement in the Euromaidan color revolution began to surface in the Ukrainian Rada.
Indeed, early on, there were individuals in the Ukrainian government who recognized that there was an international and NATO-centered plot at work in their country designed to overthrow the President and other elected officials using “swarming adolescents” and other more violent elements of protest and destabilization.
While color revolutions are often manifested through a variety of channels — the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, IRI, NDI, are just a few examples, — there were a number of relatively new participants in the game of national destabilization at play in Ukraine this time around.
For instance, even something as a seemingly innocuous “TechCamp” acted as a front for the color revolution apparatus in Ukraine. While the “TechCamp” concept is one that is presented as bringing influential and important members of the public together with members of the technology community for the purposes of greater training and understanding, the truth is that these “TechCamps” are actually operations used to disseminate methodologies for the implementation of color revolutions throughout the target country.
This was recognized early on by Oleg Tsarev, former Deputy of Ukraine and now a member of the separatist parliament in Eastern Ukraine. In November, 2013, before he was ousted from his position in the Ukrainian government, Tsarev attempted to warn the Rada of the involvement of the West with the protests taking off in Ukraine and the use of the “TechCamp” as a tool of destabilization.
Tsarev took his chance to speak to the Rada amongst howls of protest and managed to produce a speech that ultimately went unheeded to say the least. He stated,
In my role as a representative of the Ukrainian people…activists of the public organisation “Volya” turned to me…providing clear evidence…that within our territory…with support and direct participation…of the US Embassy in Kiev…the “TechCamp” project is realised…under which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine.
The “TechCamp” project prepares specialists for information warfare…and the discrediting of state institutions using modern media…potential revolutionaries……for organising protests…and the toppling of the State Order.
The project is currently overseen and under the responsibility…of the US ambassador to Ukraine…Geoffrey R. Pyatt.
After the conversation with the organisation “Volya“… I have learned…that they succeeded to access Facilities in the project “TechCamp“…disguising as a team of IT specialists.
To their surprise, briefings on peculiarities of modern media were held.
American instructors explained how social networks and Internet technologies…can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion…as well as to activate protest potential…to provoke violent unrest on the territory of Ukraine…Radicalisation of the population and triggering of infighting.
American instructors show examples of successful use of social networks…used to organise protests…in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
“TechCamp” representatives currently hold conferences throughout Ukraine. A total of five events have been held so far.
About 300 people were trained as operatives, which are now active throughout Ukraine.
The last conference “TechCamp” took place on 14 and 15 November 2013…in the Heart of Kiev on the territory of the US Embassy!
You tell me which country in the world would allow…a NGO to operate out of the US Embassy?
This is disrespectful to the Ukrainian government, and against the Ukrainian People!
I appeal to the Constitutional Authorities of Ukraine with the following question:
Is it conceivable that representatives of the US Embassy…which organise the “TechCamp” Conferences…misuse their diplomatic mission?
At this point, Tsarev was interrupted to the point that the officer chairing the session was forced to intervene in order to restore order and allow him to continue.
He picked back up where he left off and finished his statement. Tsarev said,
UN Resolution of 21 December 1965 regulates…inadmissibility of interference in the internal affairs of a state…to protect its independence and its sovereignty…in accordance with paragraphs one, two and five. I ask you to consider this as an official beseech…to pursue an investigation of this case. Thank You!
TechCamp
Tsarev’s statements were no mere “conspiracy theory.” Nor were they the ravings of a man about to be removed from power. They were simply the statement of fact that was itself admitted by the US Embassy in Ukraine via the US Embassy website.
For instance on March 1, 2013, the US Embassy posted a press release about the “Techcamp” that took place on the same day. It stated,
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in partnership with Microsoft Ukraine hosted TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 on March 1, 2013 at the Microsoft Ukraine Headquarters. TechCamps support the U.S. State Department’s Civil Society 2.0 initiative that builds the technological and digital capacity of civil society organizations around the world.
During the full day interactive workshop, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv paired leaders in the technology community with civil society organizations to provide in-depth exposure to low-cost and easy to implement technologies. More than 60 civil society leaders from throughout Ukraine came together to get hands-on training in a variety of areas ranging from fundraising using crowdsourcing, citizen journalism, PR tools for NGOs, Microsoft software and programs for NGOs, and more. These civil society organizations will be poised to use new technologies to grow their networks, communicate more efficiently, and keep pace with the changing world.
To date, State Department sponsored TechCamps in Ukraine have trained more than 200 civil society organizers from throughout the country and Belarus. The technologies and approaches presented help to build new networks of relationships, enhance skill development, and create new avenues for communication. Adoption of these technologies by civil society organizations will help support the missions of these groups as well as broader social goals of democracy, transparency and good governance in the 21st Century.
TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 was a follow-up to the original TechCamp Kyiv held in September of 2012. The mission of TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 was to transform TechCamp into a sustainable movement of civil society and technology experts networking and working together to build a thriving dynamic third sector in Ukraine. Two more TechCamps 2.0 will be held in Donetsk in April and Ivano-Frankivsk in May. U.S. Embassy Kyiv is also hosting a series of virtual TechCamp Meet-Ups with U.S. technologists sharing new approaches to combat social problems.
Besides the flashing neon Warning sign above anything involving the promotion of “democracy” by the United States, the press release is only a thinly veiled covering over an admission of a training session designed to enable color revolution NGOs and other destabilization organizations to implement social disorder and regime change. Indeed, the use of technology and communicationsare part of the reason the color revolution system has worked so well over the last several decades.
Technology and Communications In Color Revolutions
Indeed, what made the color revolution grow more successful is the predominance of the technology that now exists in today’s society. With the advent of cell phones, the Internet, social media and other forms of electronic communication, the ability of the color revolution to act in a more coordinated and effective fashion has been multiplied exponentially. Jonathan Mowat addresses this issue in his article “A New Gladio In Action: ‘Swarming Adolescents,’” when he states,
What is new about the template bears on the use of the Internet (in particular chat rooms, instant messaging, and blogs) and cell phones (including text-messaging), to rapidly steer angry and suggestible “Generation X” youth into and out of mass demonstrations and the like—a capability that only emerged in the mid-1990s. “With the crushing ubiquity of cell phones, satellite phones, PCs, modems and the Internet,” Laura Rosen emphasized in Salon Magazine on February 3, 2001,”the information age is shifting the advantage from authoritarian leaders to civic groups.” She might have mentioned the video games that helped create the deranged mindset of these “civic groups.” The repeatedly emphasized role played by so-called “Discoshaman” and his girlfriend “Tulipgirl,” in assisting the “Orange Revolution” through their aptly named blog, “Le Sabot Post-Modern,” is indicative of the technical and sociological components involved.
The emphasis on the use of new communication technologies to rapidly deploy small groups, suggests what we are seeing is civilian application of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “Revolution in Military Affairs” doctrine, which depends on highly mobile small group deployments “enabled” by “real time” intelligence and communications. Squads of soldiers taking over city blocks with the aid of “intelligence helmet” video screens that give them an instantaneous overview of their environment, constitute the military side. Bands of youth converging on targeted intersections in constant dialogue on cell phones constitute the doctrine’s civilian application.
This parallel should not be surprising since the US military and National Security Agency subsidized the development of the Internet, cellular phones, and software platforms. From their inception, these technologies were studied and experimented with in order to find the optimal use in a new kind of warfare. The “revolution” in warfare that such new instruments permit has been pushed to the extreme by several specialists in psychological warfare. . . . .
The new techniques of warfare include the use of both lethal (violent) and nonlethal (nonviolent) tactics. Both ways are conducted using the same philosophy, infrastructure, and modus operandi. It is what is known as Cyberwar. For example, the tactic of swarming is a fundamental element in both violent and nonviolent forms of warfare. This new philosophy of war, which is supposed to replicate the strategy of Genghis Khan as enhanced by modern technologies, is intended to aid both military and non-military assaults against targeted states through what are, in effect, “high tech” hordes. In that sense there is no difference, from the standpoint of the plotters, between Iraq or Ukraine, if only that many think the Ukraine-like coup is more effective and easier.[1]
In his speech, “Between Hard and Soft Power: The Rise of Civilian-Based Struggle and Democratic Change,” military-industrial complex theoretician Dr. Peter Ackerman suggested that youth movements, not American military might, could be used to bring down North Korea and Iran and that they could have been used to bring down Iraq. Ackerman also stated in his speech that he was working with Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, the U.S. weapons designer, for the purpose of creating new communications technologies that might be used by these “youth insurgencies.”[2]
Yet the theory of “youth insurgencies” in no way began with Ackerman. As far back as 1967, the Tavistock Institute, the major psychological experimentation wing of the military industrial complex, was studying the effects of using “swarming adolescents” as an instrument of governmental disruption and regime change. As Jonathan Mowat summarizes,
As in the case of the new communication technologies, the potential effectiveness of angry youth in postmodern coups has long been under study. As far back as 1967, Dr. Fred Emery, then director of the Tavistock Institute, and an expert on the “hypnotic effects” of television, specified that the then new phenomenon of “swarming adolescents” found at rock concerts could be effectively used to bring down the nation-state by the end of the 1990s. This was particularly the case, as Dr. Emery reported in “The next thirty years: concepts, methods and anticipations,” in the group’s “Human Relations,” because the phenomena was associated with “rebellious hysteria.” The British military created the Tavistock Institute as its psychological warfare arm following World War I; it has been the forerunner of such strategic planning ever since. Dr. Emery’s concept saw immediate application in NATO’s use of “swarming adolescents” in toppling French President Charles De Gaulle in 1967.[3]
Facebook, Twitter, and Social Media in the Euromaidan
Tsarev’s words were not only accurate but, considering their implications, they were somewhat prophetic since many of the technologies and methodologies presented and shared in the TechCamp were no doubt employed in the Euromaidan color revolution. Regardless of whether or not the TechCamp was the actual center of color revolution technology activity (it was most likely only one part of a much larger effort), the methods and tools of technology and communications were no doubt employed. As Carola Frediani of Tech President wrote in her article “How Ukraine’s Euromaidan Played Out Online,”
After three months of demonstrations and fighting on the streets, ending with the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, there are few doubts that the Internet and social media played major roles in the revolution. While the Ukrainian press coverage was often limited, technology and online platforms not only materially sustained the protesters, but also helped them to reach an international audience.
Protestors began to mobilize on Nov. 21, 2013, after the Ukrainian governmentsuspend preparations for the EU-Ukraine Association agreement. They gathered in Independence Square (Maidan) in Kiev and used the hashtags #euromaidan and #евромайдан on Twitter and Facebook. The Facebook posts of Hromadske TV journalist Mustafa Nayem, encouraging Ukranians to gather at Maidan,received more than 1,000 shares in a few hours. At the same time, a number of independent video streams were set up, on platforms like UStream, live broadcasting what was happening on the streets.
The demonstrations swelled on November 24 when ultimately 250,000 people took to Kiev’s streets, demanding reforms as well as Ukraine’s European integration. The first social media pages also started to gain traction: the Euromaidan Facebook pagegained 70,000 followers in less than a week. As noted by two NYU researchers in the Washington Post, Facebook was being used much more actively than Twitter, acting as a news hub, as well as coordinating protests by noting the location of demonstrations, providing logistical and support information, distributing flyers for printing and dissemination, giving tips on how to behave and react to police, and uploading videos of police brutality.
A recent independent research study conducted by Kyrylo Galushko and Natalia Zorba from the National Pedagogical University ‘M.P. Drahomanov’ in Kiev confirmed the predominance of Facebook in organizing the protests. According to a poll of 50 Ukrainian social media experts and Internet opinion leaders, conducted between December 2013 and January 2014, Facebook played the largest role in mobilization. Twitter came in second place, followed by the Russian social networking site,Vkontakte, which is the second most popular social networking site in Europe. “Social networking services were the leading communication feature of protesters, instrument of mobilization for taking part in different actions and establishing other forms of social support,” explains Galushko to techPresident.
The EuroMaidan Facebook pages were set up in both Ukranian and English with the latter, “aiming to deliver information on ongoing events in Ukraine to the non-Ukrainian and non-Russian speaking community,” explains EuroMaidan News Team coordinator Irina Pakhomova to techPresident. “The project consists of two parts: a blog, that is meant to be a publishing source of analytical materials and a Facebook communitythat gives timely releases of events around the clock.” The EuroMaidan News Team is a group of 25 volunteers, including 4 people from Brazil who broadcast the news in Portuguese.
Pakhomova notes how online social networks has also allowed for unprecedented speed in communication. “Back in 2004, during the Orange Revolution, neither Facebook nor Twitter existed, so information was available only through conversations with witnesses who were present at demonstrations, or through newspapers, journals and TV,” says Pakhomova. “Today, social networks spread information in seconds, which helps to inform communities – be it news broadcasting or requests for assistance.”
[…]
“Social media was the lifeblood of the protest movement,” says Revnuets. “Still is and will remain so until the job is done. The protests aren’t over. We have to make sure the new government doesn’t screw up like the Orange folks did back in 2005. After over 80 people killed by the regime, we have no right to let that happen again.”
Taras Demchu, another well-known blogger from Kiev, agrees. “Twitter was a source of the newest news and information while Facebook was for long discussions and coordination of protests,” she explains to techPresident. “Also, video streams were important at a time when traditional TV-channels didn’t tell the truth. For example, Hromadske.tv, which is like a new media crowdsourcing TV-channel, has become very popular.”
Frediani also notes the importance of the involvement of various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in the Euromaidan protests as well, an important role that very few in the mainstream or alternative media are willing to discuss.
It should also be noted that what is referred to as “civil society organizations” are in reality protest groups, NGOs, and other “revolutionary” actors. The name “civil society organization” is merely a covering to mask the true nature of the groups.
Foundations, NGOs, and Color Revolutions
While color revolutions have tended to be vastly more successful in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe than in the Middle East, what is important to understand, whether color revolution or death squad organization, is that the NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), Foundations, and “Human Rights” organizations are always acting as on-the-ground trainers, manipulators, and propagandists of and for the “revolutionaries.”
As Eric Pottenger and Jeff Frieson of Color Revolutions and Geopolitics describe the color revolution process,
Color revolutions are, without a doubt, one of the main features of global political developments today…
It’s a fact that Western governments (especially the US government) and various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) spend millions of dollars to co-opt and “channel” local populations of targeted countries against their own political leadership.
Empty democracy slogans and flashy colors aside, we argue that color revolutions are good old-fashioned regime change operations: destabilization without the tanks.
Yet the color revolution is not merely some communiqué presented to a small group of people than organically gains a life of its own. There is an entire science behind the application of a movement of destabilization. As Pottenger and Frieson write,
Many are the professions that utilize this type of understanding, including (but not limited to) marketing, advertising, public relations, politics and law-making, radio, television, journalism and news, film, music, general business and salesmanship; each of them selling, branding, promoting, entertaining, sloganeering, framing, explaining, creating friends and enemies, arguing likes and dislikes, setting the boundaries of good and evil: in many cases using their talents to circumvent their audiences’ intellect, the real target being emotional, oftentimes even subconscious.
Looking beneath the facade of the color revolutionary movement we also find a desire-based behavioral structure, in particular one that has been built upon historical lessons offered by social movements and periods of political upheaval.
It then makes sense that the personnel of such operations include perception managers, PR firms, pollsters and opinion-makers in the social media. Through the operational infrastructure, these entities work in close coordination with intelligence agents, local and foreign activists, strategists and tacticians, tax-exempt foundations, governmental agencies, and a host of non- governmental organizations.
Collectively, their job is to make a palace coup (of their sponsorship) seem like a social revolution; to help fill the streets with fearless demonstrators advocating on behalf of a government of their choosing, which then legitimizes the sham governments with the authenticity of popular democracy and revolutionary fervor.
Because the operatives perform much of their craft in the open, their effectiveness is heavily predicated upon their ability to veil the influence backing them, and the long-term intentions guiding their work.
Their effectiveness is predicated on their ability to deceive, targeting both local populations and foreign audiences with highly-misleading interpretations of the underlying causes provoking these events.
With this explanation in mind, consider the description provided by Ian Traynor of the Guardian regarding the “revolutions” and “mass movements” which was taking place in Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, and Georgia in 2004 and the time of the writing of his article. Traynor writes,
With their websites and stickers, their pranks and slogans aimed at banishing widespread fear of a corrupt regime, the democracy guerrillas of the Ukrainian Pora youth movement have already notched up a famous victory – whatever the outcome of the dangerous stand-off in Kiev.
Ukraine, traditionally passive in its politics, has been mobilised by the young democracy activists and will never be the same again.
But while the gains of the orange-bedecked “chestnut revolution” are Ukraine’s, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.
Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.
Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.
Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.
That one failed. “There will be no Kostunica in Belarus,” the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.
But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.
The operation – engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience – is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections.
Traynor’s article represents a rare moment of candor allowed to seep through the iron curtain of the mainstream Western media regarding the nature of the Eastern European protests in 2004. Even so, Traynor’s depiction of the methodology used by the Foundations, NGOs, and government agencies stirring up dissent and popular revolt is equally illuminating. He writes,
In the centre of Belgrade, there is a dingy office staffed by computer-literate youngsters who call themselves the Centre for Non-violent Resistance. If you want to know how to beat a regime that controls the mass media, the judges, the courts, the security apparatus and the voting stations, the young Belgrade activists are for hire.
They emerged from the anti-Milosevic student movement, Otpor, meaning resistance. The catchy, single-word branding is important. In Georgia last year, the parallel student movement was Khmara. In Belarus, it was Zubr. In Ukraine, it is Pora, meaning high time. Otpor also had a potent, simple slogan that appeared everywhere in Serbia in 2000 – the two words “gotov je”, meaning “he’s finished”, a reference to Milosevic. A logo of a black-and-white clenched fist completed the masterful marketing.
In Ukraine, the equivalent is a ticking clock, also signalling that the Kuchma regime’s days are numbered.
Stickers, spray paint and websites are the young activists’ weapons. Irony and street comedy mocking the regime have been hugely successful in puncturing public fear and enraging the powerful.
These slogans and symbols are the product of mass marketers employed by State Departments and intelligence agencies for the sole purpose of destabilizing and/or overthrowing a democratically elected or unfavorable (to the oligarchy)government.
Still, Traynor sheds even more light on the mechanism and methodology used to create and implement a color revolution when he mentions the regional players such as the various agencies, Foundations, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are involved in movements such as the ones mentioned above. Traynor continues,
The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaign
US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data to plot strategy.
The usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American.
In Serbia, US pollsters Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates discovered that the assassinated pro-western opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, was reviled at home and had no chance of beating Milosevic fairly in an election. He was persuaded to take a back seat to the anti-western Vojislav Kostunica, who is now Serbian prime minister.
In Belarus, US officials ordered opposition parties to unite behind the dour, elderly trade unionist, Vladimir Goncharik, because he appealed to much of the Lukashenko constituency.
Officially, the US government spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine, the figure is said to be around $14m.
Conclusion
The results of the Euromaidan color revolution are, as they say, history. Yet it is not distant history but a one that is playing out before our eyes as a shaky ceasefire agreement continues to hold in Eastern Ukraine while the West does everything it possibly can to violate the agreement and initiate a war with Russia which could take the form of WW3 or even thermonuclear war.
The American people and the world’s population as a whole must become more streetwise regarding movements that appear to oppose corrupt governments as the vast majority of the movements are nothing more than the “Order out of Chaos” strategy employed by governments themselves – foreign or domestic – for agendas that have nothing to do with the interest of the general population.
We must quickly learn the formula behind color revolutions, destabilizations, and the agendas of the world oligarchy before it becomes too late for us all.
Notes:
[1] Tarpley, Webster G. Obama: The Postmodern Coup. Mowat, Jonathan. “A New Gladio In Action: ‘Swarming Adolescents.’” Progressive Press. 2008. Pp. 243-270.
[2] Tarpley, Webster G. Obama: The Postmodern Coup. Mowat, Jonathan. “A New Gladio In Action: ‘Swarming Adolescents.’” Progressive Press. 2008. Pp. 243-270.
[3] Tarpley, Webster G. Obama: The Postmodern Coup. Mowat, Jonathan. “A New Gladio In Action: ‘Swarming Adolescents.’” Progressive Press. 2008. Pp. 243-270.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.
