Protesters bring Serb capital to standstill

By Julius Strauss in Belgrade

4 October 2000

THOUSANDS of protesting students, pensioners and state workers brought chaos to Belgrade yesterday, closing down the city's intersections, marching through the streets and stopping traffic on the main motorway.

As an opposition campaign to "shut down Serbia" entered its second day, a wave of optimism swept the capital, bolstered by news from the countryside of fresh outbreaks of strikes and civil disobedience, especially in the hard-line opposition towns in the south.

Demonstrators took heart after cars guarded by wire mesh and carrying Slobodan Milosevic's special police were stopped by bands of cheering students. In one incident, police waved to demonstrators. In Slavija, one of Belgrade's biggest squares, police chatted with protesters.

News of the latest developments was carried by word of mouth, mobile phone and email as authorities continued to jam Radio B2-92, the opposition's main mouthpiece. As cars, buses and trams were abandoned or stood in long lines at blockades, the residents of Belgrade took to their feet, moving in waves from one gathering point to another.

Huge rubbish containers and concrete flower basins were hauled into the road to leave blockades wherever they passed. By late afternoon only a few die-hard motorists were still in their cars, steering around barricades and driving backwards down one-way streets in vain attempts to reach their destinations.

On the country's main north-south motorway, which runs through Belgrade, protesters singing "Slobo, kill yourself and save Serbia" put blocks of concrete, chunks of wood and old tyres across both lanes. Even many of the drivers who were forced to wait tooted their approval on their horns.

Behind the Federal Parliament, one elderly woman, Mirjana Canic Redojlovic, had a large yellow face glued on to her tweed jacket. But instead of a smile the cartoon face had a scowl. The caption read: "They lie, they steal, I'm very angry."

In good English she explained: "I've been waiting for freedom since 1941 [when the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia], not just the past 10 years. Milosevic must go." Vesna and Miroslav demonstrated together in the main Belgrade street of Terazije.

Vensa said: "We are molecular biologists and we have no politics. But today more than 50 of us are on the streets. The opposition won the elections and it's time for Milosevic to go." The opposition had called yesterday's protests from midday to 5pm and by 11.45 many of the cafes were closing.

Front doors were bolted and a sign, "Closed because of robbery", was taped to the doors, a reference to Milosevic's theft of his opponent's electoral victory. Ivan, who owns a new cafe in a quiet leafy square in Belgrade, proved to be an excellent guide to the unfolding campaign on the streets.

Skipping along motorway hard shoulders and through unkempt back gardens he kept us just shy of roving police patrols but close enough to the unfolding drama to get a view. Every 10 or 15 minutes his mobile phone rang. "The police have attacked protesters in a village outside Belgrade," he reported once. Then: "Sounds like shooting has been heard in one of the suburbs."

Another time a friend called to say riot police were massing in a tunnel that runs under the heart of the city. Most of the reports turned out to be just rumours, but as the day wore on a sense of excitement passed through the crowd like electricity. One woman in her thirties asked Ivan: "How will this all end?" "With blood," he replied. "Surely not," she countered.

As the demonstrations slowly grew and miners' strikes hit the Belgrade electric grid with power cuts of up to four hours, Milosevic showed no sign of weakening. The Serbian government, which he controls, issued a fierce statement warning of a crackdown if strikes and blockades did not stop.

It said: "Any violent behaviour of individuals and groups that threatens citizens' lives, disrupts traffic and prevents industry, schools, institutions and health facilities from carrying out their normal work will be prosecuted by law."

"The meaning is clear: it means bang, bang, bang," said a man called Viljko, curling his fingers into the shape of a pistol. Others, too, fear that the increasingly hard-line rhetoric of the regime heralds a violent purge, possibly after a second round of elections due on Sunday. One man, on the terrace of a cafe, said: "I have a friend in the special police. He said Monday is the day they're waiting for and then they'll sweep all the demonstrations away."

Meanwhile, the Belgrade public prosecutor called for the arrest of 11 striking miners and two opposition leaders, Nebojsa Covic and Boris Tadic, on suspicion of "criminal sabotage". The threats, however, were not enough to quell the enthusiasm of two secondary school children standing by the opposition headquarters. Both are members of the student resistance group Otpor, which yesterday handed out a pamphlet showing "polling stations" where Milosevic claims to have won in Kosovo.

One was a shattered building with no roof, the other a branch of a fiercely anti-Serb ethnic Albanian party. Milos, one of the schoolchildren, said: "It's all over for Milosevic." The other, Nemanja, said: "We will resist." A 19-year-old taxi driver said: "If we give up now, he'll keep screwing us until he dies." It is a desperate conclusion shared by many Belgraders who say this time there can be no backing down.