Sunday, May 11, 2008
In a scene reminiscent of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's demise, thousands of ordinary Serbs overpower police to support striking coal miners.
Oct 4, 2000 | As massive nationwide anti-government strikes and protests spread and intensified in Serbia by the hour, the region seemed to be lurching closer toward violent clashes. On Tuesday, the increasingly beleaguered regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic issued an ominous warning signaling an imminent crackdown. Opposition leaders now concede they fear that their so far peaceful protests may meet with greater resistance and, potentially, violence over the next days, as the regime prepares to fight for its survival -- and the opposition does what it can to finish it off.
And in stunning developments at a coal miners' strike at the Kolubara mine 40 miles south of Belgrade, thousands of demonstrators managed to overpower police. With the miners and other ordinary workers joining the opposition's call for Milosevic to step down, the regime faces the historical echo of strikes that brought down Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. But the question remains whether the opposition can continue to build critical momentum.
"This is the last chance for a peaceful transition," opposition leader Zarko Korac said Wednesday by telephone from Belgrade. If the Milosevic regime today rejects the united opposition's demand that it recognize defeat and agree to step down, then, Korac says, "Yes, I think it will get violent in Serbia. People will have to answer the regime in the streets. We people have nothing. They have tanks and guns."
The grim assessment came as a Milosevic-controlled court was to issue a final verdict on a complaint filed by Serbia's united opposition. The opposition says their candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, decisively won Yugoslav presidential elections September 24 in the first round, with more than 50 percent of the vote. A regime-controlled election commission had earlier said neither Milosevic nor Kostunica got enough votes in the first round, and that they should stand in a runoff scheduled for Sunday.
Late Wednesday Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, after meeting in emergency session, announced that some of the presidential vote count was invalid and would be annulled. But the court did not specify which parts of the vote count were affected. Opposition leader Goran Svilanovic rejected a possible court decision that would call for rerunning of the first round of presidential elections.
"Definitely, there will be no second round for us," replied Dragor Hiber, a member of the united opposition's legal committee. That group met early Wednesday to finalize their strategy for bringing Serbia's political crisis to conclusion.
"From now to Saturday we will increase our protests and strikes. Tomorrow is 'D-Day' for our protests," Hiber elaborated. "We will bus hundreds of thousands of people from the provinces to Belgrade on five routes, with leaders of the opposition at the head of each column. Our idea is to entirely block Belgrade and to wait on the streets until Sunday" when Milosevic intends to head into the second round of elections. "We think if we have patience we can peacefully break the institutions of violence which the regime controls."
As the situation rapidly seemed to be spinning out of his control, an increasingly desperate Milosevic lashed out Tuesday, with ominous threats to force strikers to go back to work. Police in Belgrade arrested more than 50 demonstrators and strikers Tuesday, including the head of the public transportation union, and immediately sentenced many of them to jail for up to 60 days. Yugoslav authorities also announced a criminal investigation of two opposition leaders and 11 union strike leaders, whom they accused of sabotage and illegal abuse of the right to strike.
"The violent behavior of individuals and groups which are a threat to the lives of citizens, which prevent the unobstructed functioning of traffic, prevent normal work in factories, schools, institutions and healthcare institutions will be treated under the law," said a Serbian government statement issued late Tuesday, which was carried by state media.
But, in a sign of eroding loyalty to Milosevic from once-obedient officials, the investigative judge assigned to pursue the case against the 13 strike leaders refused Wednesday, according to local news wires.
Of particular concern to neo-communist Milosevic is the turning against him of his longtime former power base among Serbia's "proletariat" -- factory workers, trade unions, waterworks and power grid employees and coal miners. Along with tens of thousands of striking workers across the country, 7,500 miners at Kolubara, which is Serbia's largest coal mine, have been on strike since last weekend, causing severe power shortages in Serbia. Belgrade experienced some eight hours of rolling blackouts Tuesday and Wednesday as a result of the strikes.
The coal miners' revolt has come to symbolize and inspire the larger nationwide uprising against Milosevic. Analysts believe that Milosevic's fear at his plight has risen dramatically at the prospect of the striking Kolubara coal miners, who refused the personal pleas and threats of his top general Nebojsa Pavkovic to go back to work overnight Monday.
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