The message of American pollster Doug Schoen, “delivered to leaders of Serbia’s traditionally fractious opposition, was simple and powerful. Slobodan Milosevic–survivor of four lost wars, two major street uprisings, 78 days of NATO bombing and a decade of international sanctions–was “completely vulnerable” to a well-organized electoral challenge. The key, the poll results showed, was opposition unity.”
“Held in a luxury hotel in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, in October 1999, the closed-door briefing by Schoen, a Democrat, turned out to be a seminal event, pointing the way to the electoral revolution that brought down Milosevic a year later. It also marked the start of an extraordinary U.S. effort to unseat a foreign head of state, not through covert action of the kind the CIA once employed in such places as Iran and Guatemala, but by modern election campaign techniques.”
“While the broad outlines of the $41 million U.S. democracy-building campaign in Serbia are public knowledge, interviews with dozens of key players, both here and in the United States, suggest it was much more extensive and sophisticated than previously reported.”
“While the broad outlines of the $41 million U.S. democracy-building campaign in Serbia are public knowledge, interviews with dozens of key players, both here and in the United States, suggest it was much more extensive and sophisticated than previously reported.”
“Regarded by many as Eastern Europe’s last great democratic upheaval, Milosevic’s overthrow may also go down in history as the first poll-driven, focus group-tested revolution. Behind the seeming spontaneity of the street uprising that forced Milosevic to respect the results of a hotly contested presidential election on Sept. 24 was a carefully researched strategy put together by Serbian democracy activists with the active assistance of Western advisers and pollsters.”
“Had Yugoslavia been a totalitarian state like Iraq or North Korea, the strategy would have stood little chance. But while Milosevic ran a repressive police state, he was never a dictator in the style of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. His authority depended on a veil of popular legitimacy. It was this constitutional facade that gave Serbian opposition leaders, and their Western backers, an all-important opening.”
“Things moved into high gear in July, when Milosevic called elections. For the first time in Serbian political history, Western advertising techniques were used to test political messages. The messages were tested in a similar way to soft drinks or chewing gum, according to Srdan Bogosavljevic, head of the Strategic Marketing firm, which ran a series of focus groups on behalf of the opposition coalition and the Otpor student resistance movement with financial support from Western democracy groups.”
“”We approached the process with a brand to sell and a brand to beat,” said Bogosavljevic, one of Serbia’s best known pollsters. “The brand to sell was Kostunica. The brand to beat was Milosevic.””
“Visa restrictions imposed by the Milosevic government made it impossible for the U.S. consultants to travel to Serbia, so they organized a series of “train the trainers” sessions in Hungary and Montenegro. The trainers then went back to Serbia to spread the word.”
“Part of Kostunica’s appeal, the polls showed, was that he was widely perceived as anti-American. Because he was an outspoken critic of the NATO bombing of Serbia, it was difficult for the Milosevic government to label him a Western stooge or a traitor to Serbian interests.”
“To many opposition activists, Kostunica’s denials ring a little hollow. While it is true that his own party, the Democratic Party of Serbia, rejected anything that smacked of U.S. aid, his presidential campaign benefited enormously from the advice and financial support the opposition coalition received from abroad, and particularly from the United States.”
“The U.S. democracy-building effort in Serbia was a curious mixture of secrecy and openness. In principle, it was an overt operation, funded by congressional appropriations of around $10 million for fiscal 1999 and $31 million for 2000.”
“Some Americans involved in the anti-Milosevic effort said they were aware of CIA activity at the fringes of the campaign, but had trouble finding out what the agency was up to. Whatever it was, they concluded it was not particularly effective. The lead role was taken by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign assistance agency, which channeled the funds through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).”
“While NDI worked closely with Serbian opposition parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served as the revolution’s ideological and organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, a few hundreds yards along the Danube from the NDI-favored Marriott.”
“During the seminar, the Serbian students received training in such matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols, how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime. The principal lecturer was retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Helvey, who has made a study of nonviolent resistance methods around the world, including those used in modern-day Burma and the civil rights struggle in the American South.”
“Helvey, who served two tours in Vietnam, introduced the Otpor activists to the ideas of American theoretician Gene Sharpe, whom he describes as “the Clausewitz of the nonviolence movement,” referring to the renowned Prussian military strategist.”
“Back in Serbia, Otpor activists set about undermining Milosevic’s authority by all means available. Rather than simply daubing slogans on walls, they used a wide range of sophisticated public relations techniques, including polling, leafleting and paid advertising. “The poll results were very important,” recalled Ivo Andric, a marketing student at Belgrade University. “At every moment, we knew what to say to the people.””
“Had Yugoslav border officials been paying attention last summer, they would have observed an extraordinary increase in the number of Serbian students visiting a revered Serbian shrine in southern Hungary. “Making a pilgrimage to Saint Andrija” became the favorite excuse for opposition activists en route to another U.S.-funded program, this one in the Hungarian town of Szeged, just 10 minutes’ drive from the Serbian border.”
“Its purpose was to train election observers. […] Drawing on their experience of elections in such places as Indonesia and Mozambique, IRI consultants simulated vote-counting scams and ballot-stuffing techniques.”
“”Without the monitors, Milosevic’s people would have stolen the elections again,” said Alexander Trkulja, the coalition campaign manager in Backa Palanka. “They are masters in stealing elections.””
“An iron rule for both the coalition and Otpor was never to talk about Western financial or logistical support. To have done so would have played straight into the hands of the Milosevic propaganda machine, which routinely depicted opposition leaders as “traitors” or “NATO lackeys.””
“Even today, nearly two months after Milosevic’s fall, the topic is sensitive. Although the U.S. effort was clearly aimed at Milosevic, the Clinton administration prefers to depict it as a neutral democracy-building operation. “Our job was to level the playing field,” said Paul Rowland, head of the Democratic institute’s Serbia program. “We worked with parties that wanted to make Serbia a genuine democracy.””
Read more: U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition
Related: Otpor: rage of innocents
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