1. Regarding the CANVAS document about fomenting a color revolution in Venezuela,

who were you working with on the ground to make that happen? Who were some of

CANVAS' primary funders for the Venezuela operation? George Friedman at Stratfor

mentioned that whoever did the media spin on Chavez in 2010 and engineered the

Exxon suit against the Venezuelan gov't was very good and well-connected, was that

CANVAS' work?


Regarding that document “CANVAS analysis on Venezuela," there is nothing really

secret or hidden from the public. The CANVAS analysis on Venezuela mentioned in

the Stratfor emails was made for public consumption. It was published on our website

for years (where you can see or download it).We publish an analysis of one country

in conflict every year, so you will find it with analyses of several other countries, like

Brazil, Burma or Syria. They are located at http://canvasopedia.org/library for years

now. Producing and publishing this kind of analysis is a regular part of CANVAS' work

(analyzing conflict areas and discussing it from point of view of nonviolent struggle is

what brought CANVAS to Foreign Policy's 100 top global thinkers, NYU or TED). People

who we work with, including activists, know from the beginning that the analysis will be

made for public purpose, and that it will be widely accessible to Stratfor or occupy.com,

whoever wants to read it. It has been shared and downloaded from many people, even

served as a reason for VZ government related media to attack CANVAS in years behind

us.

Stratfor and Friendman were wrong in understanding how CANVAS works, and you

can often find claims in the emails that we “just establish the shop and bring down

the government”. But CANVAS, which they never understood, is not an organization

which brings down governments. We are just in the business of sharing nonviolent

skills with activists. We don’t have any “shops” or “country operation” and we never

have in almost a decade of its existence so whatever Friedman or his staff claimed

in mails– there was nothing like “shop” or “operation Venezuela” from CANVAS and

therefore nothing specific about his country to be funded by Exxon, or anybody else.

As for Friedman`s note on Exxon – I don’t know what this mail reflects. What I know

for sure is that CANVAS has never received any “specific funding” for Venezuela– this

is just not the way we operate. we never got or would accept any direct government

or corporate money as an organization, for Venezuela or any other purpose – we have

strict organizational policies about this and we stick to those. so whatever Friedman or

stratfor people may falsely assumed in their mails, CANVAS never received funding from

NSC`s, NED`s GS`s Exxon`s or other government agencies or corporations.



2. What was the topic of the National Security Council meeting you attended in Washington

several years ago? And what are your current connections to the NSC? Other than his

funding of CANVAS, what is your relationship with Goldman Sachs' Satter Muneer?


This is yet another example of Stratfor's over-exaggeration and misunderstanding of

our work. Since Stratfor fell into “revolution export” narrative, they probably assumed

CANVAS has serious connection with NSC and other government agencies. And that

it is somehow run or funded by government or corporate resources. It is an old and

completely worn narrative, which was recently fueled by attempts to discredit Gezi park

protest by Erdogan-affiliated media (http://www.avrupagazete.com/konuk-yazarlar/

13503-taksim-gezi-parki-otpor-canvas-ve-bati-istihbarati.html), and also by Saudis trying

to discredit their female rights movement. That narrative, which unfortunately Stratfor

adopted, claims that all you need for nonviolent revolution is a few Serbs, a bunch of

money and an airplane ticket. It shows a basic misunderstanding of our topic. In order

for nonviolent struggle to be efficient it must be home grown, not exported or imported.

If you follow the email exchange you will see lot of over-exaggeration from Stratfor staff

towards CANVAS, some of which sound like sci-fi. Once again to quote one of my idols

Andy Bichlbaum when commenting stratfor activities on Yes Men: "if it was spying, it was

bad spying.”

‘That is an impressive group. They go, set up an ‘action’ in a country and are trying to

oust its regime. When used appropriately, they are stronger than c combat group of

plane carrier”

Some misunderstanding our educational mission, and operational principles also

visible in emails, like the one I previously mentioned on Venezuela, just read them loud

and you may want to laugh:

“They simply set a shop in a country and start educating people how to bring down the

government”

Now-this is funny, specially when you run a Serbian nonprofit of 5 employess in tiny

office which CANVAS really is, no “shops in countries” aircraft carriers or anything like

that, just 5 people, computers and 70 square metre office in Belgrade. Stratfor staff

speculations may fantastic, but it is simply NOT true.

So, you need to separate the “assumptions” of overenthusiastic Stratfor staff and

reality. For example, in the same exchange of emails, published recently by Serbian

newspaper (http://1389blog.com/2013/11/20/wikileaks-soros-us-government-funding-
for-otporcanvas-activists-who-overthrew-slobodan-milosevic/) those enthusiastic staff

assume that because we as founders of CANVAS and are coming from the OTPOR

movement that “we have open funds in NED, IRI, OSi.” The truth is different. Whatever

Stratfor assumed, we don’t get any funding from NED, OSI, George Soros or National

Security Council, Goldman Sachs, Exxon or any similar organizations, and we never

would.

To clear a confusion, I do know a person who served in the NSC, Michael McFaul,

whom I met through Stanford University almost ten years ago, and we have kept talking

on several conferences sonce, as he is one of world's leading academic authorities

in democratization. I have met with him twice while he was serving in NSC, before he

went off to lead the US embassy in Moscow. But whatever Stratfor may enthusiastically

assume, I have never participated in a meeting or done a presentation in NSC, and

outside privately knowing professor McFaul neither me or anybody from my organization

doesnt know anybody else who ever served at NSC and have no connections there.

This is yet another example of dramatization by a Stratfor analyst. But if somebody

would invite CANVAS to give such a presentation, at a place like NSC, or any serious

decision making place on this planet north or south, east or west, that could do anything

for our cause — let’s say persuade people there or any other organization against

military intervention in Syria — I would do it first thing in the morning. Wouldn`t you?


3. Are the activists you're in contact with aware of what Stratfor does? And how many

of the activists whose emails you forwarded to Stratfor are aware that you gave their

information to a third party?


Activists are always consulted and aware before we put them in touch with any third

party, whether it's a journalist, activist or international organization, and they chose

whether they will talk to that third parties or not — and we are always clear about that.

It also worth attention how head of stratfor, George Friedman in his email evaluates

CANVAS or our activists

 Mail: George Friedman: “Guys. Please hear me. I’m not interested in jared cohen [co-
founder of Movements.org] or canvas or any of these guys. I know who they are, I know

who pays them and they won’t give you an honest answer on their Egyptian contacts no

matter what. “

But your question is great because it opens a broader question, which is why we talk

to guys like Stratfor in first place. Let me be clear here, we have presented to groups,

institutions and universities for a decade now, in an effort to educate them on the

power of nonviolent struggle, and its potential to change world for the better. For that

cause CANVAS will present anywhere — to those committed to activism and nonviolent

struggle, but also to those who still live in the Cold War era and think that tanks and

planes and nukes shape the world, not the common people leading popular movements.

If we can persuade any decision maker in the world, in Washington, Kremlin, Tel Aviv

or Damascus that it is nonviolent struggle that they should embrace and respect – not

foreign military intervention, or oppression over own population – we would do that. I

would present this idea to anybody, and I wish somebody had presented it to NATO

before they bombed my country, and almost killed my own mom in the NATO bombing

of Serbian National TV building in the spring of 1999. Would I speak to NATO or Assad,

if I thought that it will change their violent point of view? Yes I would. Wouldn’t you?

Activists we work with support this approach, and respect our commitment to exposing

the truth about their struggles to the world.

Typical example on how this may be misinterpreted are in another tweet – linking to

email where we are “accused” for putting stratfor on Bahrain center of human rights list.

https://twitter.com/GlobalRevLive/status/401575360707715072

Now, if you are an activist and aware of miserable repression over peaceful pro-
democracy protesters in Bahrain, would you do anything to put anybody, stratfor or

occupy included, on the mailing list that reports about their epic struggle, as we all know

western media turns a blind eye on, because of their own interests. If you could do

anything you would. Even only to re-post their reports from Bahraini Centre Of Human

rights, I invite every reader to do that, as this may help people in Bahrain have their

words heard. Wouldn’t you?

During the heroic struggle of the Egyptian youth, we put in touch many people from the

media and activist world with Egyptian activists in charge of challenging Hosni Mubarak,

one of most brutal dictators. (Some of journalists, like those from Al Jazeera made an

award-winning documentary movie about it: http://www.youtube.com/v/QrNz0dZgqN8)

We probably put 10 top journalists and a few human rights lawyers in touch with those

activists, with their consent, of course, before we introduced them to Stratfor. We wanted

their voices to be heard, which was the reason we connected them to as many people

as possible.(This example also contradicts Stratfor's inaccurate assumption that we are

somehow working “only” in the countries ruled by US enemies. Wasn’t Mubarak an US

ally?)


8. What's your relationship with Marko Papic? Are you still in touch with him, even

though he's left Stratfor? 4. In regards to your relationship with Stratfor, who contacted

who first? Was it you who approached them, or them who approached you?



Marko is a fellow Serb, a great fan of OTPOR, who contacted us first. But regarding

the leaked emails, he really often misunderstands, glorifies or over-congratulates

OTPOR and CANVAS. His superiors never took his point of view seriously, so relying on

his emails is not indicative of the view of the entire firm.

Now, you guys know Occupy movement well…Can you imagine a few foreigners

coming in, “setting a Serbian shop” at zuccoti park and telling people what to do and

start effectively to lead the protests?. There were theories like this before, sometimes

from autocratic regimes, sometimes by conspiracy theorists like David Icke (http://

www.davidicke.com/headlines/54498-the-human-race-is-getting-off-its-knees/) and you

can find all kind of fantastic stories, whether those from conspiracy theorists like Icke,

or government controlled media in several coutnries, crediting, or accusing CANVAS

for starting any uprising, at Gezi or Zuccoti Park. And it sells news, of course. But, this

is not serious thinking. Revolutions like the one done by Lech Valensa , MLK or Harvey

Milk don’t come from elites but common people whom I like to imagine as “hobbits” like

you or me or Andy. Common sense and history also teaches us that both democratic

or social revolution must be launched and run by local groups, not foreigners, and are

won or lost by indigenous local creativity, commitment and strategy, of people who care,

not “imported” by any foreign group, CANVAS included. Can you imagine the world

where all you need for democratic-or social revolution is few Serbs, bag on money and

airplane tickets? But people power is a team sport, and requires thousands of people

committed to change their own future, and that’s how it always has been, from Gandhi

to Harvey Milk to the Occupy movement.


7. I saw that you sent Stratfor an invoice for travel expenses. How were you paid, and

what was your retainer for your job as a consultant/informant? 8. Are you informing your

activist contacts ahead of time of your connections to Stratfor, Goldman Sachs and the

NSC?


 Outside of educating activists in how to perform nonviolent struggle, CANVAS does

institutional and academic presentations and the invoice you mention relates to the

first and only time I has presented to Stratfor in May 2010. So correspondence you

mention are just typical presentation arrangements where we have charged for the

travel expenses. We have presented to at least 50 different institutions, conferrences,

think tanks, and universities in last several years. We present the basics of nonviolent

struggle and this presentation is available online in many recorded speeches, from the

University of Syracuse to the Yes Lab at NYU. I assume that by now what we present,

has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people online.

I don’t understand the insinuations about “my job as consultant-informant” because

they make no sense. So lets make things very clear: I was never a consultant or

informer and was never paid something like a retainer. Whoever invites us to present

a theory of nonviolent struggle is welcome, as we see educating people about this as

our mission. We normally charge travel costs and small daily fee, or course different,

according to academic rules, lecturer fees for academic institutions like Colorado, NYU

or Harvard at the very same pattern we did with stratfor – so nothing really strange

in this presentation, parts of which you can see at TED http://www.ted.com/talks/

srdja_popovic_how_to_topple_a_dictator.html or google zeitgeist, we also charged

our travel costs at those presentation, there was not any difference. We could in the

same spirit and rules offer the same presentation to media outlets like occupy.com or

activists groups free of charge, and we have done it many times in past. As for second

question –whether we are “hiding something from activists, you can ask direct question

on whether we are open and honest to our fellow activists to one of my favorite creative

activists in the world, that we deeply admire -the Yes Men. who invited us for same type

of presentation to their Yes Lab at NYU on September 29, 2011, in midst of the Occupy

movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAxf_i9ALm8) — whether or not would

I answer any of the issues from this email with students present there, or over a beer

with the activists like Andy Bilchbaum we speak with. People we work with know who we

are. You can talk to the Yes Men and see how they feel about these emails. I assume

you will get an answer and understand that CANVAS is always honest with activists we

admire.

As on speculating “On Informants” quote…

As an activist since beginning of nineties and living under the nasty regime of Slobodan

Milosevic with its notorious secret police, I have a long history of being spied upon.

Once we defeated the Serbian butcher Milosevic we got to see our secret police files

and I have proudly discovered that my phone was being tapped since I was 23 and that

Serbian secret police had a nice 178-page file on me as a “state enemy” for leading the

nonviolent movement. Activists we work with are often spied on by their governments,

so we take their safety as very important. Don’t know if Stratfor or anybody was spying

upon us, but we definitely wouldn’t jeopardize any of our activist’s safety, so we

always follow their lead and never expose them to anybody without their consent.

Are you or CANVAS still currently connected with Stratfor, and does your wife still have

her part-time job there?

None of my colegues and family members are not in touch with anybody from stratfor

any more.


What are some of CANVAS' current projects, as far as your goals of regime change in

countries with oppressive governments?


As I have mentioned CANVAS is educational institution, not political organization

which has any goals regarding “regime change” and our mission is to make nonviolent

struggle as public, accessible and user friendly to as many nonviolent activists in the

world, regardless of country, race, religion or sexual orientation. We are in the middle

of three big projects which will hopefully help activists in many countries to wage their

struggles. First one is small booklet, a kind of “how to manual” called “Making Opression

Backfire”(see more at https://www.facebook.com/MakingOppressionBackfire), which

collects tehniques and case studies on how activists from more than 20 countries around

the world prepared for oppression, dismantled fear and apathy and put a “prize tag” to

the opressor when faced with various level of oppression (anything from pepper spray

to live rounds, principles of fighting oppression are the same, though level of oppression

may wary-its always about winning over fear and finding right tactics to deal with

situation). Next step would be to translate this cool booklet and make it available for free

for as many language versions and countries that we can, I hope language versions it

would be shared through activists networks and independent media outlets in at least 20

countries, fromVenezuela to Bahrain in form of small PDF, easy to download and print

even in countries with weak internet acess.

 Second important thing will be phone application, designed for activists faced with

oppression, which will help them gain knowledge, and download for free tools to react to

any oppressive situation in the world.

Third and biggest project is what we call “CANVAS distance learning program”, which

will put together all of our workshops and presentations into open learning online course

which will enable thousands of people- regardless of whether they fight ilegitimate

political or corporate power will have access to complete CANVAS content online,

and many great case studies coming from activists practicing nonviolent struggle

everywhere-from Arab street to Wall street, together with academic readings and videos

of sucesfull nonviolent actions, and to do it openly and free of charge. Whether activists

or students will use this knowledge to challenge Asads or Kim Jong Uns of this world in

nonviolent way, or to protest against building new coal plants or greedy oil companies

while struggling for important treat of climate changes – its CANVAS mission to make

this knowledge available and free and we hope we will achieve it in next year.