Regime changes are engineered to remove nationalist/populist leaders or to fast pace globalist agenda. Social media is a tool used to manipulate people to align with their agenda. Social media is partnered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society, media organisations, and any other locals, co-opted with various inducements. Some are knowingly involved, others get foolishly roped in. When diplomatic corps representing the regime change operators interfere on behalf of these “agents of system change”, it’s a clue.

F. William Engdahl of Princeton University claims Srđa Popović’s organisation Otpor created in 1998, in Belgrade, was given $ 41 million to overthrow then-Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. Otpor was trained in methods of US regime change by Gene Sharp and US State department soft coup specialist former ambassador Richard Miles, who was instrumental in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) coup in Azerbaijan in 1993, as well as the CIA coup in Georgia to bring US asset Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Who, in Sri Lanka, has had soft coup training?

Otpor received outside funding from the National Democratic Institute. The Centre for Civic Initiatives distributed copies of Gene Sharp’s book From Dictatorship to Democracy to the organisation. The International Republican Institute trained 400 Otpor activists in nonviolent struggle. Otpor also distributed a training manual in nonviolent struggle based on Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action.

The agents of regime change are handsomely rewarded. Popović received the 2011 Foreign Policy magazine award “Top 100 Global Thinkers”. Popovic was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, World Economic Forum listed him “Young Global Leader” in 2014, St. Andrews University in Scotland made him Rector in 2017.

Following the successful regime change Popović created in the year 2000, CANVAS (Centre for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies) is being used to train activists in other parts of the world to carry out similar regime-change revolutions. CANVAS activists were funded by Freedom House, IRI, OSI to overthrow Milošević. 

Popović also helped topple Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. CANVAS boasts of training pro-democracy activists in more than 50 countries including Ukraine, Georgia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Georgia, Eritrea, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. Sri Lanka is also mentioned.

Engdahl claims Stratfor (US intel consultancy) is a shadow CIA for corporate clients Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and the US Government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The hacker colective Anonymous released 5 million emails from Stratfor in 2012 disclosing that Popović’s CANVAS was a spy for Stratfor. Wikileaks also revealed that CANVAS was also funded by Goldman Sachs and the Wall Street Bank.

Also, it is claimed that USAID channelled millions through NED, NDI, IRI, and OSI to Otpor to topple Milošević. 

Freedom House is funded by USAID, NED, and Soros. The Open Society Institute (OSI) was funded by Soros in 1993 specifically for colored revolutions in Eastern Europe. The International Republican Institute (IRI) is funded by NED (linked to the US Republican Party). The National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs – funded by NED chaired by Madeleine Albright (linked to the Democratic Party), while NED is supported by the US State Department and CIA.

Washington Post investigative reporter Michael Dobbs says the IRI has trained Popović and other Otpor leaders at Hilton Hotel Budapest in October 1999.

The training included how to organise a strike and how to communicate with symbols (the clenched fist became a logo of coloured revolutions). Resistance was to begin with street uprisings, which were were presented as “spontaneous” public dissent (this was not so). Behind the scenes of the “spontaneous uprisings” were Western advisors, pollsters, and consultants training thousands of opposition activists. Around 5,000 cans of spray paint were given to student activists to scrawl anti-Milošević graffiti on walls.

Unfolding of Milošević’s downfall and role of Otpor

• In June 2000, Milošević was to run for another term as President
• Otpor launched two campaigns for the election – with the first campaign “He’s Finished” printed on t-shirts, stickers and posters, and the second campaign “It’s Time” to encourage voter participation
• Otpor created the Democratic Opposition of Serbia to present a common candidate
• Otpor had tapped many decision makers to twist support to common candidates and many co-opted to join strikes and disobey national orders. It became “fashionable” to join the mass protests. Law and order came to a standstill.
• Otpor got the Opposition to bring its supporters to Belgrade to create numbers
• Otpors protestors burned the media building and several rooms inside the federal Parliament building (note Sri Lanka’s protests)
• On 6 October 2000, Milosevic announced his resignation

A key similarity in Serbia and Sri Lanka was that the so-called “youth” resistance had no known leader – primarily because groups of leaders were handling them from behind the scenes.

How do Popović and CANVAS connect to Sri Lanka? 

Sri Lanka is mentioned under the curriculum of the Harvard Kennedy School online leadership programme on Leading Non-Violent Movements for Social Progress. A co-instructor of this programme is Srđa Popović (of Otpor and CANVAS), according to the Harvard Kennedy School website.

Who were the Sri Lankan activists trained in leading non-violent movements? 

In June 2015, the US called for proposals from NGOs for projects on democracy, human rights, and rule of law. Reconciliation and ethno-religious projects were allocated $ 750,000 to $ 1 million under various themes. Who received these funds, how many have been trained by NED in Sri Lanka, and what type of training has been given to them?

University youth were trained and guided to overthrow the Serbian leader in 1999. Details of who funded them, who trained them, how they were trained, on what aspects they were trained came out after the Serbian leader was forced to resign. The world was made to believe that the people of Serbia, and in particular, the youth went spontaneously against the Serbian leader. Years later, we now know that there was no spontaneous “youth revolution”, similar to the Arab Spring, where activists are now admitting to being trained on how to overthrow their leaders.

It is only a matter of time. How Sri Lanka’s “aragalaya” took place will also emerge much to the embarrassment of many, though those who voluntarily took part unaware of the inside deals, should demand to know how much those who led the “aragalaya” was paid for getting the non-paid to get involved.

(The writer is an independent political analyst who writes on a broad range of topics, and was previously the International Human Rights Commission’s Goodwill Ambassador for Sri Lanka)

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

By Shenali D. Waduge