79 - The Possibilities of Civil Disobedience: Sri Lanka, Sudan, Russia
Protesting civilians can bring down oppressive governments, as many thousands of Sri Lankans did over the past 100 days, as Sudanese seem to have done three times in a row, and as the “color” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan brought about substantial political shifts starting in 2004. But to accomplish such meaningful changes without too much bloodshed, and mostly peacefully, the protesting masses must count on soldiers (and their commanding officers) refusing to shoot -- tolerating, even approving, civilian dissent. The key to such a beneficent outcome is a ruling junta’s loss of legitimacy.
Video footage of Sri Lankan civilians swimming in their president’s pool, enjoying the ambience of his state resident, and even cooking rice in his kitchen all testify to a triumph of civilian dissatisfaction over the corrupt and cruel rule of the Rajapaksa family – even before President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (once a US citizen) had fled his country to the Maldives and then Singapore. The protesters cleaned up after themselves and kept order; soldiers watched.
The protesters and soldiers together shared the realization that the Rajapaksa regime (#68, “Putin-like Compatriots, VI: the Rapacious Rajapaksas,” April 29; “Conniving with Putin-like Strong Men Rarely Pays: Sri Lanka,” June 27) had bankrupted their serendipitous isle, forcing its 22 million inhabitants into penury while President Rajapakasa and his brothers (a prime minister and a finance minister) lived well and probably sent sums overseas. (Mahinda and Basil Rajapaksa are banned from leaving Sri Lanka.)
When Ranil Wickremesinghe, the much-reviled prime minister, becomes president today after a parliamentary vote, he will have the almighty task of persuading the IMF to lend Sri Lanka $3.1 billion so that the island off southern India can begin to pay for imported gasoline and foodstuffs. The rapacious Rajapaksas managed Sri Lanka during the coronavirus pandemic so badly that farmers could not find fertilizer, and their crops failed. Tourism vanished because of the pandemic and because Sri Lanka had no food or fuel. Remittances (from Persian Gulf countries and elsewhere) continued, but at a much reduced level because of the coronavirus pandemic. Most of all, the Rajapaksa regime borrowed wantonly from China, used vast sums to repay loans, and forfeited a new port and territory as a result. The Rajapaksas also tried to force farmers to switch to organic farming overnight, which could not work, and cut taxes when they should have been raising them.
Why Wickremesinghe wants to continue to cope with this colossal mess is unclear. Even more foreboding is whether he can accomplish anything significant quickly enough to give the protesters what they want – food and fuel, medical supplies, electricity at night, and some assurances that Sri Lanka will see better days. India is helping, the IMF presumably will lend, and the US should do much more than it is now doing.
The Sudan
Protesters - in the streets since 2019, and especially since the October coup that restored military rulers to full power (#29 – “Putin-like Compatriots, IV: Sudan and the Russians,” April 13) – have not been assisted very much by soldiers. About 114 civilians have been shot in the desperate days since October. Nor is it yet evident that the illegitimacy of the junta led by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Daglo (Hemeti) is as yet fully demonstrated. The security forces are still powerful.
Nevertheless, protesters –mostly professionals and students – have ceaselessly used the tactics of civil disobedience to confront the al-Burhan regime. Sit-ins are employed to confront the soldiers. But troops continue to fire back. Last week the efforts of the protesters seem to have resulted in the military junta’s agreement to hand the government back to civilians, restoring Sudan to the kind of arrangement that it enjoyed from 2019 until October 2021. General al-Burhan said that the military would no longer participate in national talks facilitated by the UN and regional blocs, wanting instead “to make room for political and revolutionary forces and other national factions” to form a civilian government. (France24, July 4).
What that means has not been spelled out. Burhan is not revealing his hand. Nor, possibly, does he know exactly to whom he wants to convey power and on what terms. So the protesters are winning, but as yet inconsistently and opaquely.
Burhan says that the Sovereign Council, which now rules Sudan and which he and Hemeti control, will give way to a civilian-led replacement body. But, he also indicated that the military would reconstitute itself --- seemingly alongside a civilian arrangement—as a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Whether there is anything new in such a re-shuffling, and whether Burhan and Hemeti are actually giving up any authority, is still unclear. Conceivably, as many of the protesters believe, Burhan is merely announcing a reconfiguring that is cosmetic, and designed to appease not the protesters, but the African Union, the UN, the United States, all of whom have been seeking to mediate between the junta and the protesters.
The protesters themselves are buying little of Burhan’s rhetoric: “We don’t have confidence in Burhan,” said one protester, perched on a barricade. “We just want him to leave once and for all.” (France24, July 4)
The Forces for Freedom and Change, the umbrella organization of the protesters, and the Umma opposition political party, are deciding how they should respond, and whether they should trust Burhan. He says that the Supreme Council will be in charge of defense and security issues only, but which are those, and do they include keeping order and preventing a civilian regime from acting on its own?
Unlike Sri Lanka, the old order is still in place in Sudan and civil disobedience has slowed, if not yet ousted, soldiers and their commanders. The legitimacy question is still only partially answered.
And Russia?
Furthermore, what has worked in Sri Lanka need not ever work in Russia. Putin still has a firm hand on the nation’s security apparatus and army. His deceitful campaign has been effective within Russia. Even if some Russians question Putin’s coerced legitimacy, millions have not, and even callow army recruits are not yet ready to abandon Putin’s invasion.
Civil disobedience is not yet a decisive option in Russia.