Color revolution being re-primed in Macedonia by Wayne Madsen

 Color revolution being re-primed in Macedonia

In an effort to throw up a road block to the Russian "Turkish Stream" pipeline that is to bring natural gas from Russia through Turkey and into Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary, the Obama administration has set about to foment another "color revolution," this time in Macedonia.

The strategy of the Obama/George Soros interventionists is to bury the Macedonian government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski with unfounded charges that it engaged in massive wiretapping of some 20,000 Macedonians, including leaders of the opposition. The source of the transcripts of intercepted communications of Macedonian citizens allegedly came from the former chief of the Macedonian intelligence service,  Zoran Verushevsky, who may have had assistance in collecting the wiretaps from his friends in British and U.S. intelligence. The intercepts have been used by Social Democratic opposition leader Zoran Zaev, a favorite of the Soros network and the U.S., to hammer Gruevski for allegedly eavesdropping on the opposition. Somehow, Zaev gained possession of copies of the intercepts, which he then used to attack the government.

The Balkans destabilization strategy has also seen the rise of Albanian nationalist irredentism along the fragile Kosovo-Albanian border with a recent attack on a Macedonian police border post at Gošince by 40 armed men wearing the insignia of the outlawed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). That action came at the same time that Kosovo's Foreign Minister, Hashim Thaci, the former leader of the KLA, defied threats by Serbian authorities to arrest him for terrorist charges brought in 2007 and visit Belgrade to attend a conference. The arrest of the Kosovo foreign minister would set the stage for a NATO/EU confrontation with Serbia, another critical partner in not only the Turkish Stream pipeline but the Chinese-funded Balkan railway part of the Silk Road project that will link the Greek port of Piraeus to Budapest through Macedonia and Serbia.

Reappearing on the Macedonian side of the Kosovo border: the patches of the outlawed Kosovo Liberation Army, once led by Kosovo foreign minister Hashim Thaci who once "sexually serviced" U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in return for U.S. recognition of Kosovo independence. Perhaps the leaders of Kurdistan, Somaliland, Baluchistan, and other aspirant states should all line up to provide Albright with "drilling services" in exchange for independence. After all, it worked for South Sudan with Albright's god-daughter Susan Rice.

The attack by the restored KLA on the Macedonian border post, where Macedonian police officers were held hostage before the Albanian raiders returned to Kosovo, could not have been possible without the knowledge of Kosovo's military protector, NATO, which operates its largest military base in Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. In 2001, when KLA forces, allied with Macedonian Albanian nationalists, fought Macedonian forces in the town of
Aračinovo, Macedonia, forces of the U.S. private military firm, Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI) were involved with both sides. The Ochrid Agreements saw Macedonia grant generous autonomy rights to its Albanian population in an effort to keep the violence that wracked Kosovo and Bosnia from spilling over into generally peaceful Macedonia. The attempt by the Soros network to foment violence within the Albanian community is a clear attempt to pry away the Albanian party, theDemocratic Union (DUI) led by Ali Ahmeti, from the six year-old VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition government led by Gruevski.

The U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, has made waves in Skopje by publicly supporting the putsch being called for by former Social Democratic prime minister and president Branko Crvenkovski, a native of Sarajevo, Bosnia who has been at the forefront of calling on Macedonian youth and college students to hit the streets of Skopje to stage a color revolution against the democratically-elected government of Gruevski. If all this sounds familiar, it should. It was U.S. ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt who, working with his boss, State Department European Affairs Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland, who conspired with Ukrainian opposition leaders in late 2013 and early 2014 to organize the Euromaidan protest that eventually saw the democratically-elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, toppled from power and the subsequent outbreak of the Ukrainian civil war.

By stoking opposition desires for a similar color revolution in Macedonia, Baily is playing with fire by also fomenting problems by using Albanian nationalists. Such a combination would start a violent civil war that would rival that between Kiev and the Russian population of eastern Ukraine. Macedonian and Serbian Slavs pitted against Albanians in Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia's Sanjak region would not only bring another violent war to the Balkan peninsula but would also spell the end of the Turkish Stream pipeline through the Balkans and the Chinese-financed rail link from Greece to Budapest. The Balkans would remain a NATO frontline war zone under the total domination of the United States and European Union. Two Albanian political leaders, Prime Minister Edi Rama and former prime minister Prime Minister Sali Berisha have spoken out in favor of a "Greater Albania," consisting of Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and parts of Greece. The message for the Balkans is clear: if it continues to entertain the Turkish Stream pipeline plans and the Chinese rail project, the Albanians will rise up and resort to civil war to protect NATO's and the EU's domination over the peninsula. The Albanians, it should be noted, were the most loyal people of the Balkans in providing support for Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

After Verushevksy was arrested for being the source of the communications intercepts and Zaev was caught with his passport while attempting to flee Macedonia, the Soros-financed color revolution teams switched strategies to foment problems with the country's large Albanian minority, representing a third of the population. Today, Macedonia teeters on the brink of renewed ethic violence, with Nuland and her gang of neo-conservative Zionists waiting anxiously for the beginning of a new Balkans body count.

Colored Revolutions: A New Form of Regime Change, Made in USA by Eva Golinger

In 1983, the strategy of overthrowing inconvenient governments and calling it "democracy promotion" was born.

Through the creation of a series of quasi-private "foundations", such as Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House and later the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC), Washington began to filter funding and strategic aid to political parties and groups abroad that promoted US agenda in nations with insubordinate governments.

Behind all these "foundations" and "institutes" is the US Agency for Inter- national Development (USAID), the financial branch of the Department of State. Today, USAID has become a critical part of the security, intelligence and defense axis in Washington. In 2009, the Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative became official doctrine in the US. Now, USAID is the principal entity that promotes the economic and strategic interests of the US across the globe as part of counterinsurgency operations. Its departments dedicated to transition initiatives, reconstruction, conflict management, economic development, governance and democracy are the main venues through which millions of dollars are filtered from Washington to political parties, NGOs, student organizations and movements that promote US agenda worldwide. Wherever a coup d'etat, a colored revolution or a regime change favorable to US interests occurs, USAID and its flow of dollars is there.

How Does a Colored Revolution Work?

The recipe is always the same. Student and youth movements lead the way with a fresh face, attracting others to join in as though it were the fashion, the cool thing to do. There's always a logo, a color, a marketing strategy. In Serbia, the group OTPOR, which led the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, hit the streets with t-shirts, posters and flags boasting a fist in black and white, their symbol of resistance. In Ukraine, the logo remained the same, but the color changed to orange. In Georgia, it was a rose-colored fist, and in Venezuela, instead of the closed fist, the hands are open, in black and white, to add a little variety.

Colored revolutions always occur in a nation with strategic, natural resources: gas, oil, military bases and geopolitical interests. And they also always take place in countries with socialist-leaning, anti-imperialist governments. The movements promoted by US agencies in those countries are generally anti-communist, anti-socialist, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist.

Protests and destabilization actions are always planned around an electoral campaign and process, to raise tensions and questions of potential fraud, and to discredit the elections in the case of a loss for the opposition, which is generally the case. The same agencies are always present, funding, training and advising: USAID, NED, IRI, NDI, Freedom House, AEI and ICNC. The latter two pride themselves on the expert training and capacitation of youth movements to encourage "non violent" change.

The strategy seeks to debilitate and disorganize the pillars of State power, neutralizing security forces and creating a sensation of chaos and instability. Colonel Robert Helvey, one of the founders of this strategy and a director at AEI, explained that the objective is not to destroy the armed forces and police, but rather "convert them" -- convince them to leave the present government and "make them understand that there is a place for them in the government of tomorrow". Youth are used to try and debilitate security forces and make it more difficult for them to engage in repression during public protests. Srdja Popovic, founder of OTPOR, revealed that Helvey taught them ". . . how to select people in the system, such as police officers, and send them the message that we are all victims, them and us, because it's not the job of a police officer to arrest a 13-year old protestor, for example. . . ."

It's a well-planned strategy directed towards the security forces, public officials and the public in general, with a psychological warfare component and a street presence that give the impression of a nation on the verge of popular insurrection.

Venezuela

In 2003, AEI touched ground in Venezuela. Colonel Helvey himself gave a 9-day intensive course to the Venezuelan opposition on how to "restore democracy" in the country. According to AEI's annual report, opposition political parties, NGOs, activists and labor unions participated in the workshop, learning the techniques of how to "overthrow a dictator". This was a year after the failed coup d'etat -- led by those same groups -- against President Chavez. What came right after the AEI intervention was a year of street violence, constant destabilization attempts and a recall referendum against Chavez. The opposition lost 60-40, but cried fraud. Their claims were pointless. Hundreds of international observers, including the Carter Center and the OAS, certified the process as transparent, legitimate and fraud-free.

In March 2005, the Venezuelan opposition and AEI joined forces again, but this time the old political parties and leaders were replaced by a select group of students and young Venezuelans. Two former leaders of OTPOR came from Belgrade, Slobodan Dinovic and Ivan Marovic, to train the Venezuelan students on how to build a movement to overthrow their president. Simultaneously, USAID and NED funding to groups in Venezuela skyrocketed to around $9 million USD. Freedom House set up shop in Venezuela for the first time ever, working hand in hand with USAID and NED to help consolidate the opposition and prepare it for the 2006 presidential elections. ICNC, led by former Freedom House president Peter Ackerman, also began to train the youth opposition movement, providing intensive courses and seminars in regime change techniques.

That year, the newly-trained students launched their movement. The goal was to impede the electoral process and create a scenario of fraud, but they failed. Chavez won the elections with 64% of the vote, a landslide victory. In 2007, the movement was relaunched in reaction to the government's decision to not renew the broadcasting license of a private television station, RCTV, a voice of the opposition. The students took to the streets with their logo in hand and along with the aid of mainstream media, garnered international attention.

Several were selected by US agencies and sent to train again in Belgrade in October 2007. Student leader Yon Goicochea was awarded $500,000 USD from the right-wing Washington think tank, Cato Institute, to set up a training center for opposition youth inside Venezuela.

Today, those same students are the faces of the opposition political parties, evidencing not only their clear connection with the politics of the past, but also the deceit of their own movement. The colored revolutions in Georgia and the Ukraine are fading. Citizens of those nations have become disenchanted with those that took power through an apparent "autonomous" movement and have begun to see they were fooled.

The colored revolutions are nothing more than the red, white and blue of US agencies, finding new and innovative ways to try and impose Empire's agenda.

Posted by Eva Golinger