Activists’ tanks attack government authorities in Odessa
If the Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych eventually steps down it will not be because radical activists with improvised weaponry made him do so (though the romanticization of the maidan struggle will become a norm). It will be because millions of Ukrainians would have continued their current day-to-day nonviolent resistance: coming out to maidan in Kyiv in such massive numbers that the security forces will not dare to shoot; organizing peaceful demonstrations in towns and cities across the country; leading mass funerals for killed protesters; lighting candle lights throughout Ukraine; calling for and staging economic boycotts; blocking trains carrying the interior security forces; blocking highways to stop movement of thugs; locking down the police facilities to prevent security forces from leaving them; blocking airports; seizing government buildings in the regions; running parallel political, judicial and administrative institutions; setting up neighborhood watch groups; writing about and showing government repression that is disproportionate to any threats it faces; calling out the security forces and the army in the Ukrainian cities to declare they are with the people; forcing defections from the state bureaucracy and ruling Party of Regions on all levels of government; winning international solidarity. This civil resistance will bring Yanukovych regime down.
Leave a Reply