There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself

There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself

Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements.

The degree of liberty or tyranny in any government is, it follows, in large degree a reflection of the relative determination of the subjects to be free and their willingness and ability to resist efforts to enslave them.

Dictatorships are never as strong as they think they are, and people are never as weak as they think they are.

That is straight out of Gandhi. If people are not afraid of the dictatorship, that dictatorship is in big trouble. … If you fight with violence, you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapon, and you may be a brave but dead hero.

Violence by the defenders will be used by the putschists to justify overwhelming repression which they want to use anyhow. It will be used to CLAIM that the putschists are saving the country from ‪‎terrorism or ‪#civil war‬, and are preserving "‪law‬ and ‪‎order‬