Revolution ends in triumph as flames of freedom burn in Belgrade

By Julius Strauss in Belgrade

6 October 2000

AS dusk fell yesterday on a Serbia whose major institutions had gone upin flames, crowds of smiling Serbs promenaded on the main boulevards, crunching on broken glass, coughing in the thick black smoke and wondering at the revolution they had begun.

The tear gas of the early afternoon had been replaced by an overwhelming euphoria. For the Serbs, whose history has been a litany of internal divisions, it was a rare moment of unity.

Outside the federal parliament, people carried away bits of furniture and souvenirs they had rescued before flames engulfed much of the building. Four young girls carried a plush armchair. Others had more modest pickings, a leather-bound upright chair or a few bits of the paraphernalia of state.

Moving past the flames towards the state television building was Dusica, a woman in her early twenties. She had been the first person to enter the ravaged parliament, she said, braving volleys of tear gas and risking severe injury at the hands of Milosevic's guard dogs, his most loyal policemen. She said: "It was fantastic. There's no other word. I
took a shopping bag of souvenirs to give to my mum."

Near her was Djordje, a 17-year-old school pupil. Drunk on euphoria, he was wearing a camouflage bullet-proof jacket that he had taken from one of Milosevic's special forces personnel. In his belt was a hefty tear gas pistol. One of his friends had one too.

At the state television building there were nearly a dozen burning or burnt-out cars. One appeared to be a Land Rover, another a Yugoslav-made Zastava. The hated television station, which has broadcast Milosevic's vitriolic propaganda for more than a decade, was also in flames.

As in all revolutions, news was transmitted by mouth. A middle-aged man, once a member of Serbia's parliament, said he had heard that the police had joined the demonstrators in the south. Nobody was sure. A middle-aged couple strolled on the broken glass holding hands as if they were out for a peaceful Sunday afternoon walk. They smiled warmly at each other.

Fire engines were trying to douse the flames at the television station. The crowd, carried away by a sense of camaraderie, urged them on and clapped the firemen. They had not arrived in time to douse the two police vans set alight near the federal parliament.

The electricity supply came and went. The telephone networks went down. They came back on. In the dark, a helicopter could barely be made out flying high above the city in the direction of Dedinje, the leafy suburb where Milosevic and his cronies live.

Yesterday's revolution was a people's protest, joined by Serbs from every walk of life, young and old, poor and rich. Professors, workers, students and just ordinary Belgraders were all in it together. It had started that way, too. Serbia's revolution began to arrive on the streets of Belgrade early yesterday morning in a convoy of filthy buses.

By midday, workers and miners from the opposition towns of the south were beginning to mass, their grimy faces a testament to the roots of this revolution. They were deadly serious and very determined. The workers of Cacak had brought a bulldozer on the back of a lorry and said they had used it to crush police barricades on the motorway.

As hundreds of thousands of demonstrators poured into the city, Belgraders could not believe their eyes. One woman with a baby in her arms burst into tears. She said: "I can't say anything, I'm just too overwhelmed."

The federal parliament building was a prime target. The men lined up outside, buoyant with expectation. But these were not students or intellectuals from Belgrade. These were the hard men from Milosevic's proletarian heartland. When a few federal bureaucrats dressed in grey suits tried to talk them down, ringleaders waved their arms in the air,
urging supporters into the parliament.

At that moment a few dozen riot police carrying plastic shields and wearing sky-blue tin hats rushed from the building to confront the demonstrators. They formed a line, but the protesters had come prepared. They reached into their pockets for stones they had brought from the south and pelted the police. One person threw a red smoke bomb and then a yellow one exploded. The police flinched but held their line.

Officials from inside the parliament came out behind the police to look at the crowd. They were whistled at. "Red bandits, Red bandits," the crowd chanted. Velimir Ilic, the charismatic opposition mayor of Cacak, waved his arms for calm.

Down the road, state television workers marched, waving their press passes in a display of anti-government defiance. Amazed Belgraders cheered. Ivan, an editor, said: "We've got to get rid of these bastards."

Nearby a Volkswagen van with a red flashing light played The Clash's Should I stay or should I go?' The driver rallied the men from Cacak, who were waving large unwashed Serbian flags. A Cacak man said: "We've come to clear Milosevic out. It's now or never."

A few minutes later outside the parliament a fight broke out between a demonstrator and a nervous riot policeman. Protesters began to pound the street with stones, then three men in full combat gear dashed out from the building and began pumping tear gas grenades into the crowd.

I dropped my cigarette, clutched my throat and began to run. More teargas canisters fell. With tears streaming from my eyes and barely able to breathe, I looked for Ivan, my guide. We ran as fast as our lungs would allow to find sanctuary. Everybody else was doing the same. Middle-aged women and children were crying from the gas.

But the crowd regrouped. About 20 minutes later, drummers led the protesters back towards the parliament. Whatever the risks, by lunchtime tens of thousands of Belgraders had joined the southern workers. Liljana Ilic, 50, was wearing a red and white track suit and Reebok trainers. She said: "We are not scared any more of the gas. We want to see this through to the end."

Nearby was a portly Orthodox priest, Father Pajsije, who comes from the Kosovo monastery in Decani. He said: "I'm here for the same reason as everybody else. I may be a priest but I belong to these people."

Groups of men sat around, their lined faces and poor clothing testimony to their ingrained poverty after a decade of economic slide. Milan Markovic, also 55, said: "We're going nowhere until Milosevic goes. Their tear gas is merely eyewash."

Miroslav Terzic, 45, a butcher from Cacak, said: "We didn't come here to waste time. We've already used our bulldozer to smash down the police barricade and we are going to use it to smash down Milosevic."

Nearby, other protesters stood on the bulldozer. Bratislav Avramovic, 39, an electrical engineer, said: "We've come from Cacak. Belgrade is asleep. We've come to wake them up."

A member of the state television addressed the crowd: "We can't resist you any more. He's finished. The television is in the dark. We must have darkness before Serbia can have light again."

But at 3pm the regular afternoon news was shown on state television. Almost unbelievably, it made no mention of what was happening on the streets. While revolution was breaking out on the avenues of Belgrade, in the back streets life went on as normal. Pensioners and mothers with small children were out for their midday walk.

The revolt gathered new life shortly after 3.30pm. Young men and students broke through police lines and began running towards the parliament building. The police were confused, then ran for cover inside.

As they mounted a rearguard defence, salvo after salvo of tear gas was fired into a crowd which by now numbered several hundred thousand. But for the hard men at the front, the tear gas did not deter wave after wave of attacks on the building. One worker drove a large yellow bulldozer across the square towards the parliament.

Then the football fans from Partisan Belgrade stormed the building, apparently from the left. As the front of the building was wreathed in white tear gas smoke, huge plumes of black smoke began to pour from the back.

A roar went up from the crowd: "Serbia, Serbia, Serbia, Serbia." Once again the tear gas began to bite, but nobody wanted to run this time. As the waves of teargas ebbed and flowed, so they moved back into their positions before retreating again. A police helicopter flew overhead. The estimation of 400,000 people would have been radioed to Milosevic's residence.

People were now flooding into the space in front of the parliament from every artery. The huge Bulevar Revolutie was jammed. "We're going to Dedinje," shouted the crowd. Then a singer, Bora Djordjevic from Cacak,began to sing a reworked folk epic. "There's no second round for Mira's husband," he sang, in a reference to the loathed Mrs Milosevic.

More buses began arriving. A churchman addressed the crowd: "We're with you in our prayers." As flames could be seen coming from the right wing of the parliament building, five gunshots were fired. Then there was a break, then more single gunshots.

Protesters began to throw papers out of the first floor windows of the parliament. Miroslav, a carpenter, pushed his seven-year-old son to the front of a balcony so he could see the historic moment. "He's a veteran demonstrator and has spent more than 100 days on the streets trying to bring Milosevic down," the father said proudly.

A speaker from the city council standing on a roof addressed the crowd. He said the police should put their rifles in boxes. Reports arrived that demonstrators had taken over police stations. A man clambered on to one of the green domes on top of the sandstone parliament and changed the flag. He was wreathed in smoke from the fires below. Burnt paper from the parliament floated gently through the air, suspended by the rising heat.

Other opposition leaders flocked to the square. "The army, the army," the demonstrators shouted. "The police are with us, the police are with us," a man shouted through a megaphone.

One young man pointed me at the setting sun as some last rays fell obliquely on the ravaged square and said: "You see, there is sun over Serbia for the first time in 50 years." State television played bland music.