Following General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 accession to power in a bloody military coup, a movement in opposition to the dictatorship gained momentum over the next 15 years despite assassinations, torture, and the "disappearance" of over 3,000 political opponents and officials of the previous democratic government. In order to legitimize his regime, Pinochet staged a plebiscite in 1980 that created a new constitution and consolidated power in the presidency but also mandated another plebiscite in 1988 to reconfirm his tenure in office.

A grassroots nonviolent movement mobilized during the years leading up to the 1988 plebiscite, organizing opposition especially within labor organizations, universities, and the church. Innovative strategic actions that showed the breadth of popular discontent empowered people to join the resistance movement. After nationwide mobilization of voters, poll watchers, and demonstrators, along with an effective use of the media, a popular "No" vote on the plebiscite defeated the Pinochet regime, forcing the general to step down from the presidency, although he remained in control of the military until his arrest in London in 1998. Since then, gradually democratic institutions have grown and institutionalized in Chile as a consequence of nonviolent coalitions mobilizing for change.

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Egypt is currently in an uneasy transition towards democracy. The Mubarak regime is ailing, while popular dissent is on the rise. With more than 40% of Egyptians living on just $2 a day, estimated 30% unemployment, and more than 30% illiteracy, most Egyptians feel neglected by the state, yet unable to voice their legitimate concerns. Mubarak’s almost-30-year monopoly on power and the emergency status laws have left the country without strong opposition to the regime. The country is holding parliamentary elections in 2010 and presidential elections in 2011. Internet and Facebook activism provide an alternative space for newly emerging civil society groups and political forces to operate. Growing dissent movements are planning nationwide, grassroots organizing to peacefully mobilize against Mubarak and his party in the upcoming elections.

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An independent kingdom prior to Dutch colonization of the East Indies located on the northwestern end of the island of Sumatra, the Acehnese have long resisted centralized control by Jakarta.  An armed rebellion, backed by the CIA to destabilize the leftist Indonesian government of Sukarno, flared briefly in the late 1950s.  A new armed rebellion was launched against the right-wing military dictatorship of Suharto in the 1970s, led by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), with the goal of independence.  Acehnese civilians were caught in the crossfire and suffered terrible human rights abuses at the hands of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), particularly as violence escalated in the 1990s. In 1999, inspired by the referendum for independence in East Timor, student activists rejecting both Indonesian rule and the armed struggle of GAM, adopted a program of mass mobilization in support of a referendum on the future of Aceh. The Acehnese organized a series of rallies, boycotts and strikes. The Indonesian regime was astounded when hundreds of thousands of people (out of a population of 4 million) participated in pro-referendum rallies. 

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Opposition to the corrupt and dictatorial regime of General Mousa Traoré grew during the 1980s. During this time, austerity programs imposed to satisfy demands of the International Monetary Fund brought increased hardship upon the country’s population while elites close to the government lived in opulence. An opposition movement emerged, led by the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, which was brutally suppressed by the regime.

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A coalition of eleven Pakistani political parties known as the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) formed in 1983 to pressure the dictatorial regime of Muhammad Zia-ul Haq to hold elections and suspend martial law. The MRD, which remained mostly nonviolent, was strongest among supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Sindh Province. Though it launched one of the most massive nonviolent movements in South Asia since the time of Gandhi, failure to expand beyond its southern stronghold combined with effective repression from the military led to its demise a year and half later.

The nonviolent struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe became more pronounced from the late 1990s to the present. The struggle is led by opposition parties and civil society against the rule of ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) under President Robert Mugabe, who has been the sole ruler since 1980 when the country gained its independence from Rhodesian colonial rule.

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When a group of students founded the new organization Otpor (“Resistance”) in October 1998, the regime of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic seemed firmly entrenched. Only two years later, he was driven out of office after a massive mobilization of civil resistance inspired and in many ways shaped by Otpor organizers. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), the broad reform coalition that ousted Milosevic, dominated parliamentary elections in December 2000, took control of the government, and restored democracy to that war-torn country.

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Only eleven days after 17 November 1989, when riot police had beaten peaceful student demonstrators in Prague, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia relinquished its power and allowed the single-party state to collapse. By 29 December 1989, the so-called Velvet Revolution, led by the nonviolent coalition Civic Forum, transformed Václav Havel from a dissident playwright into the President of a democratic Czechoslovakia.

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Estonia, which had endured foreign occupation for centuries, joined its fellow Baltic Republics of Latvia and Lithuania in a nonviolent movement that enabled them to become independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.  Beginning in the mid-1980s, Estonians began taking advantage of their unique and rich cultural tradition, particularly in choral music, to encourage a national reawakening.  Estonians gathered in the thousands and eventually hundreds of thousands to celebrate their heritage in song, in what became known as “The Singing Revolution.”  Raising the banned Estonian flag while gathering en masse and singing banned patriotic songs, the movement eventually gained support of the republic’s ruling Communist Party in defying Moscow, faced down Soviet tanks, and successfully declared Estonian independence.

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The Iranian Revolution of 1977-79 was the first in a series of mass popular civil insurrections which would result in the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in dozens of countries over the next three decades.  Unlike most of the other uprisings that would topple dictators in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia and Africa, the result of the Iranian struggle was not the establishment of liberal democracy but of a new form of authoritarianism.  However, except for a series of short battles using light weaponry in the final hours of the uprising, the revolutionary forces themselves were overwhelmingly nonviolent.  The autocratic monarchy of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi faced a broad coalition of opposition forces, including Marxists and constitutional liberals, but the opposition ultimately became dominated by the mullahs of the country’s Shia hierarchy.  Despite severe repression against protestors, a series of demonstrations and strikes over the previous two years came to a peak in the fall of 1978, as millions of opponents of the Shah’s regime clogged the streets of Iran’s cities and work stoppages paralyzed the country.  The Shah fled into exile in January 1979 and exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to lead the new Islamic Republic.

While a military junta ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, dissent was silenced. In broad daylight or in the middle of the night dissidents were swept from their homes, and across the nation those who spoke suddenly “disappeared,” either to prison with torture or the grave. It became dangerous to socialize with those who spoke out against the military....

The silence was broken by a brave group of mothers, searching for their missing children, who at first were motivated by family rather than politics. They gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the presidential palace, the national cathedral, and various government ministries. At the first demonstration on 30 April 1977 only fourteen women participated but by the following year hundreds were participating. On Mother’s Day, 5 October 1977, 237 mothers included their names and identity card numbers on a half-page advertisement in the national newspaper La Prensa calling for a “the Truth” regarding the disappearance of their children.

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The iconic struggle between the apartheid regime of South Africa and those who resisted it illustrates the complexity of some cases of civil resistance. Originally the use of civil resistance against apartheid was based on Gandhian ideas, which originated in South Africa in 1906 where Gandhi was a lawyer working for an Indian trading firm. Soon the African National Congress (ANC), founded in 1912, became the major force opposing the apartheid system’s oppression of the 80% non-European population of the country. Using mostly legal tactics of protest during its first four decades, the ANC became more militant in the early 1950s and began using nonviolent direct action.

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Guinea`s current situation remains one of those great contradictions of the natural affluence of most African countries. Although very rich in natural resources, Guinea remains a structurally poor country. Apart from the economy in the city, most of Guinea remains far behind modern market economics with subsistence agriculture, untapped markets and widespread poverty. Most Guineans continue to live in penury, while their leaders wallow in luxury. In addition, a far greater section of Guinea`s economic and political infrastructure remain underdeveloped, causing its economy to produce below even its median potential since independence. At present, more than 40 percent of the Guinean population is estimated to have annual incomes of merely $300 USD.

Yet, despite these dire economic conditions and a history of dictatorship, Guineans have repeatedly mobilized grassroots civil resistance and this, combined with international pressure, overturned the 2008 Camara dictatorship and led to a new plan for multi-party elections to take place in June 2010.

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The authoritarian and eccentric General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez became president of El Salvador after a military coup overthrew the freely elected government of Arturo Araujo in 1931. After ordering the killing of thousands of peasants and political dissidents during his first two terms, Martinez suspended the constitution in early 1944 and declared he would serve a third without an election. An armed revolt by dissident military and other elite elements that April was quickly crushed, but, on May 5, students organized a general strike that crippled most of the economy and civil society. Mass rallies formed spontaneously and nonviolent protestors stormed the National Palace. Humiliated and isolated, Martinez fled to Guatemala on May 11. 

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