Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Can a strong enough opposition prevent ICA?

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/04/06/1954862/sudans-government-crushed-protests.html

"One popular method of outsmarting the protesters, according to the accounts of multiple eyewitnesses, was to send teams of plain-clothed young security men to the sites of planned protests. These agents would initiate anti-government chants, luring in youths who were waiting nearby for the demonstration to start. Once a small group formed, the unwitting protesters would be led down the street to a trap of police officers."

Yemen's government has worked aggressively to stifle any protest organizing using phones or the Internet.  They seem to have succeeded.  I remember in Somalia when the US was trying to catch a rebel there, he stopped using phones and relied on runners instead to carry his messages.

This case actually demonstrates to me how useful ICA is.  If it's stopped, that makes organizing much harder to do.
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http://www.merip.org/mer/mer258/praxis-egyptian-revolution

"Zero hour, as announced by protest organizers, was to be 2 pm. The stated plan was to demonstrate in front of the Interior Ministry and then disband at 5 pm. Security forces therefore sealed off all the vital downtown streets leading to and from the Ministry, allowing pedestrians to pass only after checking ID cards. But it was a ruse. On the morning of January 25, organizers used cell phones and landlines to disseminate the real locations of the protests and the actual start time: noon. “The protest locations announced on Facebook and to the press were the major landmarks. The idea was to start marching down small side streets and pick up people along the way, so that by the time demonstrators reached the announced locations, they would be large crowds that security couldn’t corral,” explained organizer al-‘Ulaymi."

So there's a counter example where the protesters used ICA to FAKE OUT the government counter punch.

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