Session V: Developing Strategies to Defeat Coups

SESSION V

DEVELOPING STRATEGIES TO DEFEAT COUPS

PURPOSE OF THIS SESSION; (1) To learn about the role of strategy in planning nonviolent defense against coups; (2) To give participants some practical experience in planning anti-coup strategy.

MATERIALS NEEDED: (1) Flip-chart stand; (2) Pad of newsprint; (3) markers

ESTIMATED TIME: 1 HOUR, 50 MINUTES

THE MEANING OF “STRATEGY” (Trainer’s talk – 3 minutes)

1. Effective resistance to coups involves not only using specific tactics, like factory workers going on strike, but also following a broad strategy.
2. This session, therefore, focuses on strategy. What we will do:
   1. We will define the meaning of strategy.
   2. We will pose some questions about strategy for you to consider. Then we will outline some important principles we think you should have in mind in developing your strategy for defeating coups.
   3. Finally, we will have you do a group exercise in which you will develop your own strategic action plan for defeating a coup by means of nonviolent struggle.
3. Listen carefully to the presentation because you will be asked later to develop your own strategy.
4. What does the word “strategy” mean?
   1. Refers to a general plan of action that specifies how best to achieve one’s objectives.
   2. Example: Playing a game of soccer

i. Coach thinks through a strategy before the championship game.

ii. His objective: To score more points than the other team and win the game.

iii. His strategy: An action plan to achieve that objective. The plan will involve, for example:

1. His assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the other team.

2. His assumption about what strategies the other team is likely to use.

3. His thinking about when and how to use his players.

4. Which plays he will use.

5. What to do if there are injuries to key players.

iv. If the coach knows that his team tends to get tired and fade toward the end of the game, his overall strategy might be to score early and build as many points as possible so the other team will not be able to catch up with his team.

1. 1. The same kind of planning happens in warfare, political campaigns, coup plotting – any area of life where people are seeking the most effective means to mobilize resources to reach objectives.
   2. In your case, “strategy” tries to answer the question, “What is the best plan to achieve the objective of resisting and defeating a coup in my country?”
2. A warning – expect the unexpected. The unexpected happens. You cannot cover everything in your plan. Therefore:
   1. See the plan as a tool, but do not be bound by it.
   2. Use your creativity and ingenuity.
   3. If you are religious, know that God is with you when you fight for justice and freedom. Let God guide you.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT STRATEGY (Trainer’s talk – 2 minutes)

1. Questions about the coup plotters:
   1. What strategies are plotters of a coup in your country likely to use? What will be their objectives and how will they try to realize them? What will be their targets?
   2. What will be the strengths and weaknesses of those who plan a coup? What resources might they be able to bring to the struggle? What is likely to be the size of their effort, the prestige of their supporters, their access to technical means like military units, communications, etc.? What weaknesses might resisters exploit?
2. Questions about nonviolent resisters:
   1. Who are our most likely allies? What are the “circles of support” – from our inner core of the most active and dedicated resisters out to general supporters? What can be expected from each circle?
   2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of resisters and potential resisters? How can we maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses? How can we undercut the strengths of the plotters and maximize their weaknesses?
   3. What methods can we use that will be the most effective in defeating a coup?

IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES TO HAVE IN MIND IN DEVELOPING STRATEGY TO DEFEAT A COUP (Trainer’s talk – 10 minutes)

1. Quick response is crucial.
   1. Strategy must enable resistance to begin immediately after the coup is initiated.
   2. The longer the resistance delays, the more opportunity the plotters have to consolidate their control over the state apparatus and society.
   3. Coups generally are weakest in their first hours and days. A broad and deep resistance has the greatest likelihood of defeating the coup at this early stage. An early defeat of the coup means the resistance will not have to deal with a long-term struggle against a regime that has become entrenched.
2. Repression is likely to occur.
   1. Coup plotters may try to crush all resistance ruthlessly through mass arrests, shooting, and torture. They may try to “chop the head off” the opposition by killing the head of state, key political leaders, and members of the resistance.
   2. The strategic plan should expect repression and prepare resisters to face it with courage and with the determination not to give in, no matter what.
3. Resistance should be developed in every sector of society.
   1. Mass public meeting and street actions can be important tactics, but they should not be the sole strategy.
   2. Strategy should identify the key sectors of the society- political, economic, social, religious etc., and develop a resistance plan for each.
4. Resistance usually should defend social institutions, not buildings.
   1. Moscow in 1991: People placed their bodies between tanks and the Russian Parliament building. Sometimes important to defend specifically symbolic buildings.
   2. However, strategy should focus on defending social institutions rather than buildings because:

i. Extreme weather conditions (especially cold or prolonged rain) can make it difficult or impossible to keep a human barricade in place for long.

ii. Determined, ruthless military units can crash through civilian defenders and their barricades. If strategy hinges on defending a building, then its loss is a defeat for the resisters. Supporters can become unjustifiably demoralized. They can believe that occupation of the building has put the rebels in control.

iii. Social institutions can be defended directly, apart from the buildings that house them. For example:

1. Seizure of a school building is of no use to someone trying to control education if the teachers, students and administrators have set up shop elsewhere, e.g. in homes.

2. Seizure of a parliament building has only symbolic value if the members of the legitimate government have moved elsewhere and are continuing to function. (You will recall from session IV that Ebert did this in Germany when Kapp took Berlin.)

3. Control of a radio station does no good if all the personnel have sabotaged the equipment and “called in sick,” while actually setting up clandestine broadcasting facilities elsewhere.

iv. Therefore, strategy should plan how specific social institutions can be defended, apart from their physical structures. It should ask:

1. What are key institutions or social sectors which can be organized for resistance?

2. What particular form of non-cooperation is most appropriate for each particular sector?

v. Each sector and social institution should have a plan appropriate to that sector.

1. Flexibility is very important.
   1. Strategy should be able to shift in order to take account of new and unexpected circumstances, e.g., the plotters change their strategy, unexpected weaknesses are exposed among the defenders, etc.
   2. Strategy should draw upon a range of nonviolent methods that can be used in different situations.
2. The general population should be able to defend against the coup apart from instructions by a leadership group.
   1. Leaders play a vitally important role, but people at every level of society and without detailed instructions can practice nonviolent resistance.
   2. Such capability is important because:

i. Leaders may be arrested, killed, or unable to communicate. (Part of the success of the 1967 coup in Greece was that the plotters rounded up all suspected leaders and arrested thousands of potential resisters.)

ii. People in their own setting (newspaper, TV station, court, police station, etc.) can build their resistance on their intimate knowledge of their institutions.

iii. Freeing people from complete dependence on leaders allows more creativity, initiative and potentially much larger numbers of resisters.

1. 1. Strategy, therefore, should prepare people ahead of time for the role they can play in defending their society and its institutions, even if leaders have been arrested, deported or killed.
2. Long-term defense may become necessary.
   1. If the resistance is not able to defeat the coup quickly, it is still possible to organize resistance as a long term strategy. Failure of a quick defeat of the coup does not doom the society to being ruled long-term by the usurpers.
   2. The rebels will have established control of certain key facilities and will have established a modicum of legitimacy and acceptance.
   3. The struggle will then change from simple anti-coup defense to a longer-term conflict with an established dictatorship.
   4. A long history of successful nonviolent combat against dictatorship may be drawn upon for ideas and inspiration.
   5. Resistance may have to change from massive non-cooperation to defense of “key points” that the plotters wish to control. Examples:

i. Norwegian teacher’s struggle against Quisling’s attempt to take over Norwegian education.

ii. Poland’s 10-year nonviolent struggle against its communist government.

iii. A few illustrative possibilities:

1. Police find themselves “unable to locate” leaders they have been ordered to arrest and they warn people of impending arrests or repressive action.

2. Teachers refuse to introduce plotters propaganda into the schools.

3. Clergy continue to preach about the duty to struggle for freedom.

WRITING A STRATEGIC PLAN (Group exercise – 1 hour, 35 minutes)

1. Trainer to group
   1. We have discussed important questions about strategy and outlined important principles.
   2. Now, we would like to give you a chance to apply these ideas by writing your own strategic action plan.
   3. The plans will be very rough, because we have limited time. But this is an exercise to get you thinking. Later, you can refine the plans.
2. Trainer instructions to group:
   1. Divide line into small groups of 8 or fewer. Name a recorder for each group.
   2. Each group has paper and pencils.
   3. Will be given 45 minutes to write your strategic plan.
   4. Your plan can be written in any form you like, but it should cover the following points (which trainer writes on newsprint):

1. Assumptions about Plotters: Their Strategies? Their Objectives?; Strengths/ Weaknesses?

2. Assumptions about Resisters: Our Allies?; Our Strengths/ Weaknesses

3. What strategy should the nonviolent resistance use?: Most effective methods?; Institutions/sectors?; Form of Noncooperation for each sector?; Repression?; Leadership?