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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Milosevic goes into hiding after hundreds of thousands of outraged Serbs seize Parliament and the state-run media. A report from the Battle for Belgrade.
Oct 5, 2000 | Less than two weeks after he was voted out of office, the government of President Slobodan Milosevic appeared to have made its last stand Thursday night as hundreds of thousands of protesters stormed the streets of the capital, violently demanding his ouster.
Just hours after Belgrade citizens waged a day-long battle with police to take control of the Parliament building and a key government television station, the official government media was addressing opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica as the country's "president-elect."
With the nation's police and army in disarray, protesters swarming the streets and the opposition firmly in control of television, Milosevic must be looking for a way out. Indeed, news reports of the suspicious departure of three military planes Thursday evening fueled speculation that Milosevic might be trying to flee the country.
Serbia's opposition had scheduled a massive rally Thursday afternoon that was billed as the "final push to oust Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic." And that rally now appears to have turned into just that.
A day earlier, Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, controlled by Milosevic loyalists, issued a statement claiming it had annulled "parts" of the election, and later a judge serving on the court told Radio Free Europe that the decision effectively nullified the results of the election and would permit Milosevic to remain in office until his term expires in July.
Milosevic lost decisively in Sept. 24 elections, but has so far refused to concede his defeat to opposition leader Kostunica despite mounting evidence of electoral fraud. The Milosevic government insisted on a runoff election, but the opposition claimed it had won an absolute majority, over 50 percent, and a runoff was therefore unnecessary. The Milosevic government repeatedly refused demands for a recount or international mediation.
But the vast majority of Yugoslavs didn't buy the court ruling, and instead interpreted the technical legal maneuvers as an attempt by Milosevic to cling to power. People from every corner of Serbia turned out in droves Thursday to stop that effort.
By the time the protests were mounted, Milosevic's support had eroded so badly that his own government-controlled media was turning against him, and his security forces seemed helpless to fight the incessant throngs that stormed police blockades across Serbia.
In villages like Majdan and Ljiga, located an hour's drive from Belgrade, protesters overturned police vehicles with virtually no resistance.
But the most dramatic scenes were reserved for Belgrade, where a rally staged by the opposition was bursting with tension after only 30 minutes. A series of speakers proclaimed the beginning of democracy, vowing to "take what is ours."
Bogoljub Arsenijevic "Maki," an outlaw artist with militant political views, riled up the crowd with a revolutionary speech. "Belgrade will fall today," he told a euphoric audience from a makeshift stage.
The masses cheered, "Victory!" and "He's finished!" as other opposition leaders addressed the crowd.
Belgrade's new mayor, Milan Protic, a former history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, told the crowd, "Tonight it's over in Serbia. Everything around us is ours. Every hole they're hiding in is ours!"
The crowd inched forward, gradually pushing the police cordon back a few yards.
One hundred lightly armed police officers stood between the Parliament building and hundreds of thousands of angry citizens.
A half-hour into the demonstration, a small group of journalists, including this writer, stormed the police line in order to get a better view of the crowd. We had intended to get a good view from the steps of Parliament, but a demonstrator shouted, "What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Thousands surged up the steps. A melee ensued, but the police showed no signs of resistance. They appeared simply flabbergasted by the events swirling around them.
Stones came smashing through windows, often hitting protesters by mistake.
Police soon withdrew inside the Parliament building, and fired dozens of volleys of tear gas into the crowd. Opposition supporters fought back, tossing tear gas canisters back into the building. Hundreds choked and vomited on the pavement, thousands more lay incapacitated in the park across the street.
But soon the protesters returned, angrier than before, desperate to storm the building. Such scenes were repeated several times, but then came the farmers.
