guardsmen were joking around with an empty casket draped with an american flag. she has received threats, and national guard has taken steps to protect her but removed her from duty. thank you for joining us on al jazeera america. inside story.is next. >> confrontation were violent early on. a long tense stand off, and then fatal violence again. people, protest and power. that's the inside story. >> hello, i'm ray suarez. the world has been watching the

center of ukraine's capitol kiev since november when growing protests met the government's decision to pitch the country toward its historic ally moscow rather that is brussels and the beckoning european union. for a time it looked like it may be de-escalating. there were talks and changes in the government opposition. there had been sporadic violence all along, but it came to a point where it looked like president viktor yanukovych was unwilling to restore order to the city. then came this week. and the escalation from both sides that led to more than two dozen deaths. it's hard to know where things go from here in a divided capitol where fires burn figuratively and literally. >> ring of fire is burning against in independent square in

kiev tonight. protesters using the blazing barricade to protect themselves from the government forces trying to evict them from the square. the stand off began three months ago and reached a deadly peak tuesday. 240 people were injured. >> even i am ready to go on the front line, but as i'm a woman protesters won't allow me to get there. i'm staying here for the troops, for ukraine. i lost my boys, but i'm not squared. people who stay here don't have fear. >> independent square is the epicenter of this political standoff, but it has spread to other parts of kiev and around the country. the opposition wants the president viktor yanukovych out, calling for new parliamentary elections. but the split within the

opposition seems to be igniting violence. some factions have clearly been radicalized, and as the positions harden, the situation escalates with peaceful resolution out of reach. >> i've been calling for dialogue since the beginning of today's confrontation. as i categorially don't support barriers or bloodshed, it's my life principle that no power is wore the drop of blood spilled for it. >> i was happy. with the opposition. they don't want to listen. and protests, perhaps stopped the demonstration. >> the president blamed the protesters for violence saying the opposition crossed the life when it called people to arms. the protesters responded the

government want keeping its promises with change. the crisis is both political and economic, and the country is caught in a tug-of-war between russia in the east and the european union in the west. the protests begin when the government rejected aid from the e.u. in favor of economic help from russia. russian president vladimir putin reportedly called president yanukovych and expressed support for his swift settlement. a russian spokesman said its up to ukraine government to resolve this without external interference, adding the responsibility rests with the extremists. president obama on the road to mexico endorsed the peaceful outcome in kiev and one that reflects the will of the people. >> i want to be clear that as we work through these next several days in ukraine, that we're going to be watching very carefully, and we expect the

ukrainian government to show restraint, to not resort to violence in dealing with peaceful protesters. we've said that we also expect peaceful protesters to remain peaceful. >> german chancellor and french president hollande condemned the violence and threatened sanctions against ukraine. e.u. foreign ministers will take up specific steps when they meet thursday. concessions were made and agreements made before flames lit up the night. as the square continues to burn tonight, it's unknown if the government crackdown has changed the dynamics so much that more fighting will take place before it's over. >> as it turns out it's quieter at independent square tonight.

you're looking at a live picture now, in the last hour word has come from kiev that the warring sides in ukraine's struggle have agreed to a truce, that the government of viktor yanukovych has agreed to begin negotiations with his opponents and an announcement posted on the website said that negotiations will begin aimed at stabilizing the country. the violence in the ukraine and more broadly when does popular resistence work and when does it fail.

>> i would like to start with you. it may seem a little shallow, but in the good news-bad news binary world, if 25 people died last night, announcing a truce tonight can't be anything but good news, can it? >> well, obviously it's a good news if there is a truce tonight. this is not the first time that there has been a truce. the first time that sort of open event conflict broke out a back in january things got very bad, and there was an exchange of fire, rubber bullets from one side and molotov cocktails and bricks on the other side that also ended the truce. while there is a truce now this is a time for the international community in particular the organization for security and corporation for europe to immediately deploy a panel of

independent human rights investigators who can establish the fact what violations were committed by which side of the confrontation and urge the government to start a process of accountability. that's what's been missing all along. that's what actually triggered the protest movement from being sort of a movement for european integration to a movement of one that is let's get viktor yanukovych out of here. over november 30th there was horrible police violence to break up a small but very peaceful protest on independent square. after that violence, and no accountability for t people started coming out in huge numbers. accountability, investigation of human rights violations and accountability is extremely important right now. >> well, i'm wondering if it's even possible to know for sure what happened over the last

three months. there were rumors rife in the square of false flag groups, people who mingled with the protesters who actually belonged with the government. people who were entirely from third parties radical movements who became agitators on the square. that called for an investigation. that's interesting to me. i wonder if the facts can ever finally ever be known. >> is that a question for me? >> yes, please. >> i believe the facts can be known but i think it requires a protracted, detailed, thorough and impartial investigation of who did what and when. this is a very--the protest movement is actually very many different movements. there are some who have come out to midon square because they're true believers in integration.

others come to midon square because they want to see viktor yanukovych out. the vast majority of them have been quite peaceful. then as team wore on there have been--i mean, i saw them with my own eyes. we can't deny it. who have attached to the street movement but who are street fighters. they've come with molotov cocktails and bricks to toss at police. they have pitch forks and they made catapults and all kinds of improvised weapons to fight the police who have been armed with rubber bullets, stun grenades which they have retrofitted with some dangerous things to make them very much more lethal than they are already are, and water canons and the like. i have to say, in addition to

the kind of open doctor the street fighters, the anti-government street fighters on the one side and the police on the other side, you also have, as you said, we can't rule out that there are provocateurs who are in the crowd basically since the street movement got started. perhaps pro government provocateurs, and then on the other side there are also--we've had consistent reports of pro government thugs who have gone around not only in kiev, but in other parts of ukraine to beat anti-government protesters, threaten them, torch their car, and the like. >> i want to give the others to comment on these new developments. peter, can this, this terrible last 48 hours that now results

in the truce be the beginning of something that ends in a solution, or is the ukraine situation so complicated and so deeply divided that this is just almost a skirmish in what is bound to be a much longer conflict? >> i don't know as much about the events of the ukraine as the last speaker has described, but everything i've heard confirms what she has said. in terms of the conflict we've looked at over the years there is nothing exceptionally con flecomplexor violent, but they e created by the opposition with concrete decision. for example, there has to be agreement between the opposition in terms of goals of leaders and the conflict. is this about e.u. integration

or what is this conflict about. once the conflict is decideds, those who don't stick with the discipline, it basically uncovers the thugs that the spooker was referring to, and who is really doing what to who. it means large scale participation. that means it can't be just in a limited place. there has to be strikes and elements that are very deficient than protests in a small place. there was one woman who said she can't be in the midon because she is a woman. well, in the orange revolution there were women and children in the midon because the other factors i spoke about were in place. there are strategic choicer choices that have to be made.

>> we just heard peter talking about the opposition agreeing on basic principles. can this group that has a lot of people with a lot of different agendas, frankly, agree on a couple of motivate aggravating basic principles that this go into this conflict with from here on out? >> you know, it's not clear that the opposition has control over its own forces. so the opposition is so diverse and includes people who are running from liberals all the way to extremists, nationalists, almost neo-nazis, and some people who are mobilized because as rachel said street thugs that it's unknown if the opposition can control it's own forces. that's one of the conditions to look at as this develops. the other one is the extent to

which the opposition is willing to assume some kind of compromised solution. now they were offered earlier a place in the ukrainian government, and they rejected that, and you know maybe that would have been a better solution at that point in time although it's very hard to imagine in some ways anybody really fitting in with the kind of criminalized type of rule that the yanukovych regime has pursued. you know, part of the question also is even if the opposition does exceed to some kind of agreement, what are the prospect notice long run for that holding up? >> joining us from princeton we'll take a short break. when we come back we'll talk more about the situation in ukraine where a truce has just been called at the 48 hours of terrible violence, and we'll look more widely at people's power movements in other places of the world and ask if this is a model that really works. this is inside story.

al jazeera america. we open up your world. >> here on america tonight, an opportunity for all of america to be heard. >> our shows explore the issues that shape our lives. >> new questions are raised about the american intervention. >> from unexpected viewpoints to live changing innovations, dollars and cents to powerful storytelling. >> we are at a tipping point in america's history! >> al jazeera america. there's more to it.

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. the political unrest in ukraine took a sudden deadly turn this week, and the unrest is not just in the capitol of kiev. just a few minutes before our program began there was word of a truce. president viktor yanukovych met with opposition leaders, and peter, ukraine is just one country on a fairly long list of places where huge numbers have taken to the streets to push back against the government, peacefully, violently, a whole range but jotting down a couple of names, iran, thailand, burma, all have had movement with a very mix set of outcomes. what are some of the things to look for as we look at these other countries and their long-term prospects and also ukraine?

>> well, the fund mental theory of civil resistence people power movements non-violent conflicts, if it remains non-violent it disrupts the existing order to the extent that the authoritarian has. it has to remain non-violent. it has to maintain high levels of civilian participation, so there needs to be diversity beyond just protests. there is really two kinds of tactics in these moments. tactics of commission where you're doing a protest and they want you to stop doing it. or tactics of omission, where you're not doing something, and they want you to stop. there has been a study unour

auspice that is one 2011 woodrow wilson award for the best study of political science that year and it was called "why civilian resistence works," and it looked at 339 insurrections. two-thirds of which were violent. one-third were non-violent. the success rate on the violent, was 26%, and the success of non-invite was 50%. so when we see this 47% manifested in ukraine or the disappointment in egypt and certainly in sear y we say this couldn't work, but the story is far more complex than that. >> rachel, how important is it to have identifiable leaders that not only are well

recognized inside the cory, but can speak to the outside of the country, too. we saw the opposition leader in jail for some time, a face for the rest of the world. does that help? is it important or inciden incio this wider story? >> i have to defer to the professors on these issues, but i believe that leadership is extremely important in insuring that movement stay unified, and that they carry a--that they stick to an agenda. particularly i think if you want a movement to stay peaceful, i think that leadership is

absolutely crucial. otherwise when you have leaders who are actually afraid of losing their legitimacy see thrh the crowd because they stand down their arms or to, for example, let the police task i think there is a leadership problem. we've seen that happen at one point in the previous confrontation stand off in january. when they went up to the armed crowd to say, look, let's find a solution here. they booed him. they hissed him. they sprayed water at him. so i think credible leadership

is extremely important. >> professor, we'll come to you right after the break and talk more about the current prospects in ukraine. a short break. stay with us. this is inside story.