International Herald Tribune, March 17, 1997. The lead story in today's “Trib” covers the refusal of the European Union to send troops to Albania to deal with the consequences of the collapse of a financial scheme that bankrupted hundreds of thousands of citizens. The riots produced by the scandal sent hordes of protesters and thugs into the streets, emptying the armories of guns and tanks as the Albanian armed forces collapsed, and with them the government's legitimacy. The Trib's reporter notes the worrying parallel with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. He might also have recalled that the Albanian collapse was triggered by a peaceful movement in Serbia earlier in the year, when hundreds of thousands of protesters forced the government to restore the opposition's local election victories (see Chapter 6).

The same issue of the Trib features seven other stories relating to social movements, protests, and rebellions from around the world. Also on page 1 are a report on the armed rebellion in eastern Zaire and another on the peaceful march of Belgian, French, and Spanish workers to protest the recent closure of an auto plant in Belgium (see Chapter 11). Page 4 covers both a peaceful protest march of twenty thousand poor people in Thailand against a government development project and a violent clash between rival ethnic groups in Indonesia.