How U.S. and EU Manipulate Public Consciousness: Montenegro

By Ion Todescu



I’ve been working on this post for a long time, meticulously collecting scraps of information piece by piece to give you a comprehensive picture.

It is well known that the U.S. employs a sophisticated network of non-governmental organizations to manipulate public consciousness in multiple countries across the world. NGOs also play a key role in preparing color revolutions.

These last months I’ve been closely following the events in Montenegro, a small country anxious about the efforts of its NATO ‘partners’ doing the best to integrate that Balkan state in the alliance. Well, you’ll be greatly surprised to find out the scale of those efforts.

It would be an understatement to say that a network of foreign controlled organizations is active in Montenegro. It’s not just a network, it is a system of its own, a ‘network of networks’.

This scheme illustrates the structural ties between the agents of influence which attempt to manipulate and brainwash the minds of Montenegro citizens:

As you can see, governmental structures, NGOs, media as well as commercial entities are involved in the unnatural process of pulling Montenegro into NATO.

The process is coordinated by the U.S. Congress and the State Department via USAID, NED, NDI, Open Society Foundation, Orion Strategies and RIF Group consulting companies, while NATO uses its Public Diplomacy Division; the European countries act via their embassies.

The coordinating body on the ground is represented by the Council for NATO Membership in Montenegro Parliament with Prime Minister’s Counselor for Foreign Affairs Vesko Garčević as National Coordinator for NATO.

The Council established a communication group of 12 members directly responsible for creating public support of Montenegro accession to NATO. Key members are as follows:

Olivera Đukanović, media relations coordinator

Ana Dragić, NGO sector manager

Valentina Radulović Šćepanović, political parties and local administration manager

The communication group signed a memorandum with more than 60 Montenegrin NGOs to propel its initiatives and create tools for manipulating public opinion. Thus, it created a large-scale, constantly developing network. It continues to draw new members and form units to impact the minds of the Montenegrin public from multiple angles under the cover of social activities. This resulted in a complex hierarchical structure with large NGOs distributing tasks among smaller organizations.

Here are the largest NGOs in Montenegro:

Network for Affirmation of the NGO Sector (MANS), executive director Vanja Ćalović

Atlantic Council of Montenegro, president Savo Kentera

Youth Atlantic Treaty Assosiation (YATA) in Montenegro, president Vladan Balaban

Center for Democratic Transition, executive director Dragan Koprivica

Center for Monitoring and Research

Alfa Center

Foundation for the Development of Northern Montenegro

Naturally, no information campaign can succeed without media. Every single day the Montenegrins are thoroughly brainwashed with talk shows, promo videos, newspaper articles and posts on the net advocating the idea of joining NATO.

Public opinion is juggled by national TV channels TVCG 1 and TVCG 2, Pink Media Group, TV Vijesti, Prva crnogorska televizija, MBC, RTV Atlas, NTV Montena;

newspapers Dan, Vijesti, Pobjeda, Dnevne Novine, Blic Montenegro, Informer;

news sites Cafe Del Montenegro, Vijesti, Radio and Television of Montenegro, etc.

Every TV channels’ monthly coverage features from 15 to 25 shows supporting NATO, and every periodical publishes no less than 40-50 editorials per month.

The money comes from the embassies of the U.S. and the European countries (specifically from the UK, Netherlands and Norway), USAID, NED, NDI, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Marshall Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Balkan Trust for Democracy, global NGOs such as Transparency International, etc.

Accession of Montenegro to NATO is also deemed beneficial by multinational corporations. This is the reason why Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Diners Club, T-mobile and Media Developmetn Loan Fund are agressively financing the country’s non-governmental sector and NATO advertising campaigns.

To understand the role of foreign invesments in the propaganda of NATO membership one can have a look at the scale of foreign financing of one of the Montenegrin NGOs, e.g. Center for Democratic Transition. I have obtained the data for 2009. Only 8 thousand euro from the total of 160 thousand were allocated by the governmental structures of Montenegro.

Source of financing Amount National Democratic Institute $60 thousand Embassy of Netherlands €36,140 Foundation Open Society in Montenegro €12 thousand OSCE mission to Montenegro €16 thousand NATO Public Diplomacy Division €8 thousand USAID $30 thousand Government of Montenegro €3 thousand Parliament of Montenegro €5 thousand Private companies €20 thousand Total Approx. €160 thousand

Run-of-the-mill advertising campaigns praising NATO and ignoring the 1999 bombings of Montenegro are not the only way foreign investors’ money is spent. The manipulators are not afraid of playing dirty.

NGO MANS collects information compromising government officials and authorities. So, the interest of Western and European governmental and non-governmental structures in the functioning of this organization could be explained by their wish to obtain information allowing them to influence the leadership of Montenegro.

Moreover, this year videos of prominent Montenegrin public figures calling for joining NATO were aired on TV and distributed on the web. Later many of the speakers retracted their words, stating that they were misinformed about the real purpose of the videos. Here is a screen shot of the retraction made by well-known restaurateur Krsto Niklanović. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I90nWUuWY6U

The authorities of Montenegro persecute those who oppose pro-NATO orientation and punish the dissidents. Last April, Marko Milačić, an activist of the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro, was arrested. Opponents of joining NATO live under constant police supervision and are periodically detained.

However, mass protests in the Montenegrin capital show that the process public opinion reshaping to erase anti-NATO stereotypes is not that simple.

It is confirmed by the polls ran by international research company IPSOS Strategic Marketing in the time period from February 2013 to October 2015. When asked, “If held today, how would you vote in a referendum on joining NATO?” the majority of Montenegrins spoke against joining.

Dec 2013 Jan2014 Feb2014 Mar2014 Apr2014 May. 2014 Jun 2014 Jul 2014 Aug2014 Sep2014 For 36% 37% 41% 42% 43% 39% 39% 37% 36% 33% Against 46% 43% 42% 45% 44% 47% 43% 44% 46% 50% Abstain 18% 20% 17% 13% 13% 14% 18% 19% 18% 17% Oct2014 Nov 2014 Dec2014 Jan2015 Feb2015 Mar2015 Apr2015 May 2015 Jun 2015 Oct2015 For 32% 35% 34% 32% 37% 32% 36% 36% 47% 52% Against 50% 48% 51% 49% 48% 54% 53% 53% 41% 46% Abstain 18% 17% 15% 19% 15% 14% 11% 11% 12% 2%

Pay attention to the measures taken by IPSOS before the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on December 1, when Montenegro was officially invited to join NATO. IPSOS data claims that the number of votes for joining NATO has risen sharply in October, while the number of abstentions declined. All fingers point at a fraud.

Since Montenegro had regained its independence the U.S. and the EU have created a multi-layered hierarchical system comprising multiple structures and organizations in order to reshape the public consciousness of Montenegrins and guarantee that the country joins NATO. This sophisticated ‘network of networks’ has engulfed government structures, NGOs and commercial companies working for one purpose. This method proved to be successful in Ukraine, where the U.S. and EU have achieved their goals. As for Montenegro, only time will tell.