"revolution" Interview By Israel Bayer

Tricks of the trade-off

SEptember 19, 2008

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Advocates say a strong-arm approach to prostitution along 82nd Avenue will only send sex workers walking into other neighborhoods .org

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evolution

A founding member of the youth movement that toppled Milosevic talks about non-violent revolt By Israel Bayer

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Staff Writer

rdja Popovic is a native of Belgrade, and a founding member of Otpor, the group credited with mobilizing a non-violent movement that brought down the indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, known as the Butcher of the Balkans. Popovic was elected to the Serbian Parliament in 2000 and served as the country’s environmental affairs advisor until 2003. He currently leads the Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies, an organization working with non-violent movements around the world. Slobodan Milosevic held power in Serbia for 14 years. His rule brought about a brutal repression of the people, including the ethnic cleansing of more than a quarter of a million people in Croatia and Kosovo. Milosevic controlled a battle-weary army, a brutal police force and most of the media. The regime underestimated a small group of individuals who created an organization called Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian. Otpor created a blueprint to non-violently overthrow repressive regimes around the world by creating social and cultural wars using music, ridicule, art, and non-violent direct action. Their tactics and philosophies have been used in other non-violent struggles, including the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in 2004.

Photo courtesy of Igor Jeremic´

The defaced image of Slobodon Milosevic on a billboard in Serbia.

See revolution, page 10

Trainings improve, but obstacles remain for mentally ill

Two years after James Chasse’s death, efforts are gaining ground in preventing similar tragedies. But is it enough?

By Amanda Waldroupe

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Contributing Writer

f anything has become clear in the two years following the beating death of James Chasse by the hands of Portland police, it is that police officers need to know what to do when responding to a situation involving someone with a mental illness. Soon after Chasse’s death, Mayor Tom Potter convened the Mental Health Task Force. On the task force’s recommendations, Project Respond, an information referral program for people with mental illnesses, received $290,000 in additional funding to strengthen the ties between law enforcement and mental health providers to deal with individuals suffering from mental illnesses. “Police officers are the default interveners for people with severe mental illness,” says Jason Renaud, a long-time mental health advocate and volunteer with the Mental Health Association of Portland. “They need to know what to do.”

“It takes a long time for the police to figure out a situation with someone’s that mentally ill,” says Greg Borders, Clinical Director of Crisis and Intake Services at Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare. One of the Task James Chasse as a student Force’s recommendations was to make a in high school training called Crisis Intervention Training mandatory for all patrol officers and their sergeants. Officers receive 40 hours of training about mental illnesses, their signs and symptoms, and how to interact with someone expressing those symptoms. Borders says that the training has helped the police to have a better understanding of how to work with individuals

with a mental illness. “There was a lot of energy after James Chasse died to increase capacity,” says Lynnae Berg, assistant chief of operations for the Portland Police Bureau. “We really wanted to get away from the idea of us and them,” says Leisbeth Gerritson, the Portland Police’s CIT coordinator. The program started in 1995, but was voluntary, and only a fraction of Portland’s police officers took it. Officers Christopher Humphreys and Kyle Nice, the two Portland officers who approached Chasse, did not have CIT training at the time of the incident, according to Gerritson. As of August 2008, 554 officers have received the training, and all 612 officers will have received the training by December 2008. With the CIT training, any officer has the knowledge to properly respond to a situation See chasse, page 5

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REVOLUTION, from page 1

point to give up our patriotism and control of what’s happening. It was our country. If you look to the Otpor movement from the very beginning, we were very much for independence. On one side it was very useful when you look at help coming from NGOs and other organizations, but we were very creative and successful in identity and ranks. We were in no way a puppet of the West. The Serbian regime, as many other regimes around the world, have found ways to present every prodemocracy force as a puppet of the U.S. That’s their favorite game. If you’re not supporting the regime, you are the traitor or a foreign mercenary. That’s the propaganda that works with the people. My advice to the people is to stick to your own policies, keep clear of your goals and the right people will find a way to help you.

Earlier this month, Popovic visited Portland to speak at the Students United for Nonviolence academic conference. Israel Bayer: Can you talk a little bit about Otpor and how the organization got started? Srdja Popovic: The organization started in 1998. The organization was founded by 11 young people, mostly students with experience with organizing protests. We felt like we needed to mount something new outside of the existing political scene. We started on a very small scale. We started with gaining visibility by making ourselves appear bigger than we actually were. We performed street theater, threw leaflets from the tops of buildings, made graffiti, Web sites, you name it — everything possible that 20 to 30 people with limited resources can do. The actions were well designed and gained a lot of media attention. We grew in ranks. We recruited, trained and repeated our tactics.

I.B.: Eight years after Milosevic’s reign, how has Serbia developed as a free and independent nation?

I.B.: How did music and art play a part in building the movement that ultimately led to the revolution? S.P.: Most of my generation comes from a rock-n-roll background. The music and the dramatizing elements, especially the fist design and branding became the kind of in-thing for people. It was attracting mostly young people. The average age of people in Otpor was only 21 – which made me, at 26, a dinosaur. It also gained popularity among the high school kids. Young people are so important. They spend so much time going door-to-door and spreading leaflets with our message. Young people play such a vital role in any non-violent movement because they have nothing to lose, they have crazy heads and they’re on the cutting edge of any number of innovative revolutions. Most importantly, they make older people look at themselves and feel ashamed for not doing more. I.B.: The idea of adopting military strategies and terminology to a nonviolent movement in the context of recruiting, direct actions and propaganda is fascinating. Can you talk a little bit more about this? S.P.: Absolutely. The teachings of my actual organization (Center for Applied Non-Violent Action & Strategies) are something you see in many movements, including the one of Gandhi. We use nonviolence as a form of warfare. If you want real non-violent change you have to apply the same principles of war. You need planning, discipline, you must

Srdji Popovic For more information go to www. aforcemorepowerful.com and look for “Bringing Down A Dictator,” a 60-minute documentary about the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. For more information on the Center for Applied Non-Violent and Strategies, go to www.canvasopedia.org take the offense if you want to win and you have to put your strong points at the opposition’s openly weak points. When you are faced with an oppressive police or military force you have to destruct and dislocate, which means you have to create a lot of activity and involvement all around a region or country. No central leadership, just recruiting and messaging and repeating the same tactics. If you follow these principles backwards I’m sure you will find this very thinking in Sun Tzu’s

Art of War some 3,000 years ago.

S.P.: Serbia is in a very vivid and dynamic transition nowadays. Belgrade is probably the biggest building spot in the region. We have like $2 billion worth of investment that has come here. Some of this is good, some not so much. For the fourth “Non-violent revolutions election cycle in a row can not be exported or we are electing people imported, unlike a violent to work for government. revolution. What do you That’s an achievement of the democratic need for a violent process. People realize revolution? You need 500 in the region that hundred men with a good democracy was born out plan. You take the airport, of the non-violent mass mobilization around the main roads, you put a election fraud – this bullet into the head of the happened in 2000 in Prime Minister, and then Serbia, 2003 in Georgia and in 2004 in the you pack up your things Ukraine. If you can pick and go to the next country one achievement in all and do the same thing... of these countries, it’s The only way to win in a that voters will decide the destiny of the non-violent struggle is to mobilize the majority of the country.

I.B.: The U.S. government gave more than $25 million along with offering experts in various fields, people.” to help bring down Milosevic. How did you avoid becoming a puppet of the U.S.?

S.P.: One of the biggest lessons with successful movements is that you need to cultivate external support. You have to cultivate it to the extent of understanding that governments do not have friends, only interests. Our relationship not only with the U.S. but other foreign governments was very clear. We were standing on the same side as you in the context of wanting a democracy, but were not willing at any

I.B.: Is the old guard still active in politics? S.P.: Yes. They reappeared in politics. Still, the strongest opposition party is the old guard. The good news is they do not have a majority. The bad news is that over time, those forces have influence with the secret police and organized crime in the region. They are capable of wielding power through these forces. The worst of it came in 2003 when the See REVOLUTION page 11

A brief history on the rise of Slobodan Milosevic and the fall of a violent dictator Slobodan Milosevic was the leader of the Serbian Republic (formerly Yugoslavia) and later Serbia from 1989 until 2000 when a non-violent revolution toppled the controversial leader. During his reign in the region he became known as the Butcher of the Balkans after a violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. In 1991, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia declared independence, followed by Bosnia in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new Federal Republic in 1992. Serbia under Milosevic led various military campaigns in the region to unite ethnic Serbs resulting in the ouster of the country from the United Nations. Milosevic kept tight control over Serbia and officially became the countries president in 1997. In 1998, an ethnic

Albania uprising in the formerly autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo provoked a Serbian campaign that resulted in the massacres and massive expulsions of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo. The Milosevic government’s rejection of an international treaty led to NATO’s bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999 and eventually to the withdrawal of the Serbian military and police forces from Kosovo. At the same time a youth movement was being born at the University of Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, called Otpor, meaning “resistance.” The youth movement began organizing students and citizens around the country to take part in a non-violent movement made up of art, music and direct action. Otpor organizing activities

were brushed off by Milosevic and the police, believing the group had no real power. By 2000, Otpor had recruited thousands of youth around the country and had organized hundreds of non-violent rallies that helped mobilize Serbians into taking action against Milosevic, the military and police. They convinced opposing politicians to unite under one party to run against Milosevic in the summer of 2000. After a massive voter turnout against Milosevic, the dictator declared himself the victor. Days later, hundreds of Otpor youth organizers and politicians convinced elders and workers throughout the country to go on a general strike that led to hundreds of thousands of people converging on Belgrade in a massive non-violent protest.

Milosevic was ousted from power and remained on the run for nearly a year where he orchestrated the murders of dozens of political leaders, organizers and others. He was eventually arrested by authorities in the spring of 2001 and later tried and convicted of war crimes. He died in the United National war crimes tribunal detention center. Otpor founders went on to create an international organization called the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies that would later play an important role in the non-violent uprisings in the Ukraine and Georgia. — Compiled by Israel Bayer

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REVOLUTION, from page 10 first democratic Prime Minister of Serbia and my very good friend was assassinated. The good news is most of those people responsible for the assassinations are in jail for a very long time. The bad news is we lost one of the brightest leaders of our generation in Serbia. people play such a

“Young vital role in any non-violent movement because they have nothing to lose, they have crazy heads and they’re on the cutting edge of any number of innovative revolutions. Most importantly, they make older people look at themselves and feel ashamed for not doing more.”

I.B.: Otpor currently does workshops and offers Web-based tools for movements around the world. The organization has been instrumental in helping youth movements throughout Eastern Europe, including contributing to the uprising that birthed the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003) and the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine (2004) among others. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement? S.P.: Yes. Three out of the 11 founders of Otpor created the Center for NonViolent Action & Strategies. We are an international network of trainers from nonviolent movements from all over the world. We have brought together trainers from Serbia, Georgia, the Ukraine, the Philippines, Lebanon, South Africa and more. We travel around the world transferring knowledge of our successes. Our specific policy is that we do not interfere with what’s happening on the ground. We don’t give specific advice, not because we

DEALER, from page 9 During the second rehab attempt he never even reached this rock bottom feeling as he swallowed some pills every day just to function normally. But the motivation to quit was there. ‘I begged doctors to help me overcome my addiction. After doing well for some time, I was prescribed Prozac in combination with Bromazepan, in an attempt to slow down the usage of the previous drug. Nothing helped. Only after the third attempt, with the help of a loving friend, John managed to stay away from the pills without caving in again. ‘And what happened then…it was as if a volcano erupted,’ he gestures, wildly. ‘It was as if I had woken up from a long dream. I had been asleep for 15 years. Now I know how a coma patient feels like. When I woke up I experienced the worst headache. That came from my brain starting to work again. It’s scary though. All the old sorrow came up again. Benzodiazepines don’t solve any problems, they only cover them. I went into a psychosis. This stuff is worse than heroine. It paralyzes your mind; you repress everything, but it has to come out eventually in every possible way. In prison I used thirty pens to put down on paper the feelings I repressed for so many years.’ The detoxification effects weren’t fun, John admits. ‘You should have seen me….I was stuffed with poison. Recuperating addicts sometimes tell you about experiencing itchy eyes. That’s the poison coming out of your body. If you only knew how much has come out of my face in the past two years. I may even have swallowed

couldn’t, but because we choose not to. We transfer knowledge and education. The simple fact is that non-violent revolutions can not be exported or imported, unlike a violent revolution. What do you need for a violent revolution? You need 500 hundred men with a good plan. You take the airport, the main roads, you put a bullet into the head of the Prime Minister, and then you pack up your things and go to the next country and do the same thing. Non-violent revolutions are all about numbers. The only way to win in a nonviolent struggle is to mobilize the majority of the people. The reason a non-violent revolution can not be imported is that Ukrainian people will not follow Serbian organizers, they will follow Ukrainian organizers. That’s where we come in and share knowledge, ideas, and technology, but no leadership. We work to help movements have the tools needed to achieve mass-mobilization, efficiency, reduce fear, and work with media. For example with planning, we work to give people the tools they need and they plan themselves. We are working to spread these tools all around the world. I.B.: How are you funded? S.P.: Many of the funds for the organization come from my partner who owns a large internet company and myself. The workshops that we’ll put on all over the world are coming from so many different sources – local businesses, private donations, sometimes it’s nonprofits or NGOs, sometimes the United Nations. We do not accept traditional funding from governments including the Serbian government. I.B.: There’s so much misinformation in the media about what’s actually

happening on the ground between Georgia and Russia. Do you have a sense of what’s actually happening and how the global community should be thinking about the conflict? S.P.: What is happening in Georgia now is the people are victims of foreign aid and outside forces encouraging the country to join NATO, while Russia is flexing its military muscle. Georgia is a byproduct of the legalization of preemptive violent intervention in the 21st Century. It’s a policy of double-standards, especially for the U.S. Russia only has to look to the Middle East to say OK, you bomb independent countries, build military bases and recognize the independence of a region brought about by a violent overthrow of a government. If it’s OK for the U.S., why is it not OK for another superpower? It’s very bad for everyone around the world. I.B.: How do we overcome these realities in the United States? S.P.:  The only way you can change things are with numbers. And the only way to mobilize alternatives is to give them realistic alternatives. I must say that witnessing the tremendous amount of new voters and young people registered to vote in the November elections is promising. Obama has reached out through technology and the Internet and touched an entire generation of people. All of these people are becoming active in politics. Obama through technology has not only inspired people in the U.S. but around the world. Mobilizing people to participate in the electoral process in the only way I can truly see the United States’ foreign policy changing. It’s very important, because America no longer wears a pretty face around the world.

more pills than Elvis. I have actually been kind of addiction is done to you. I have just as fat as him. The only difference been slowly pushed into a coma, it is like between him and I is that I’m still here — an attempted murder. You become a slave I’m a medical miracle. When somebody to your doctor and your doctor becomes quits after being addicted for so long, your dealer. First he prescribes, which seizures can occur. Benzos weaken your makes you addicted, then he starts muscles and cause significant harm to nagging that you should use less. Benzos your body’s biggest are truly hard drugs. muscle, the heart. I And still they are know many people certified by the “First he prescribes, which who experienced a government makes you addicted, then stroke as the drugs everywhere. Even he starts nagging that you wear your body children of 7 yearsshould use less. Benzos are down. Last year I old can get Valium on also found myself in prescription.” truly hard drugs. And still intensive care all of John filed a they are certified by the a sudden with heart complaint and started government everywhere. failure.” a procedure at the Even children of 7 yearsBut apart from Medical Disciplinary the pain and the Board against the old can get Valium on physical problems, doctor who prescription.” it was the shame prescribed him the — John Broek that affected John medicine. He lost, the most. ‘I’m not but didn’t cave in: the man I’ve been for 15 years anymore. ‘Hundreds of people die in accidents due My son had to get reacquainted with his to tranquilizers every year. I myself have dad all over again; I fell off the wagon caused many accidents. I owned the most when he was 4 and I came back to earth beautiful cars in the world and wrecked when he was 19. Suddenly I saw him with them all. Friends told me: “Did you lose totally different eyes. “hey, did you know track of your driving ability?” I sometimes your eyelashes are so long and nice, son,” say: “Benzo has cost me my life, but I said to him. I never really looked at him Mercedes Benz saved it. I was one of the before.” first people to be saved by an airbag. I And then John got angry. Nobody ever have now been clean for three years and I told him about the addictive nature of haven’t gotten a scratch. That tells it all, sleeping pills and tranquilizers. “My life doesn’t it?’ got wrecked as a result of prescription Nevertheless, 1 million Dutch people drugs. I went there to get help and got take around 250 million tranquilizers each prescribed something that’s heroine’s year. 650 thousand of them do this brother or sister. But at least if you take regularly. A large percentage of them are drugs like heroine, you’re doing it to addicted. ‘However, few of them will admit yourself, you make that choice. But this it,’ John says. ‘There’s a taboo around this

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issue. As long as you’re using, you don’t talk about it. You’re scared that you would be ‘out’ otherwise. When people admit they’re using tranquilizers, they always take just one a day. Well, I can tell you, they lie. After three weeks of daily use your body doesn’t work in the proper way anymore without them. Your body is getting addicted, which makes you need to increase the daily dosage. Yet despite the addictive risk the prescriptions are still easy to come by. According to the ‘Dutch Institution for Responsible Medicine Use’, a repeat prescription is given by an assistant in 61 percent of cases, not by the doctor. Many older women who take the drugs have been using for some 10 or 20 years. My own mother had already used this shit for 30 years. With all the consequences it brings, I think they should at least mark the boxes with a death sign, just like cigarettes.’ Nowadays John has been clean for three years. Bit by bit he is rebuilding his life again, but it isn’t easy. ‘I’ve become a new person, but all the old sorrow is still present in my mind: a criminal record, debt, friends and family who were alienated. I have to hold my hand up to survive. Through the social department I finally got a little house. From the money I got for decorating I bought clothes. As a result, I have lived in a sort of construction site for 7 months, but you know what, I sleep like an angel. At around 8 p.m., I get tired and around 9, I’m in my crib. It’s a revelation to be no longer dependent on sleeping pills for a good night’s rest.” Courtesy of Straat Magazine © Street News Service: www.street-papers.org

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