To Drive the Shame Away

Some twenty minutes before the scheduled meeting of the Association for Changes at the central city square in Uzice, there were about three hundred apparently unconcerned passengers and about twenty police officers. The empty square motivated one Belgrade activist of this political coalition to ponder loudly on the subject: "Maybe it would not be so bad if the police forbade the meeting". Twenty four hours before the meeting, chief of the Uzice police uttered the prohibition of its actualisation. The pessimistic mood of the mentioned activist bettered within half an hour, because it took a short while for the square to be pretty manned, and then the unofficial journalist betting place began their inquiry on the number of demonstrators. The Beta Agency notified about 6 - 7.000 participants, foreign newspapers estimated the number up to 10 - 15.000, while the local reporters of the non-state media claimed that there were definitely 20.000 demonstrators. The majority of them were from Uzice, but many came from Cacak, Kosjeric, Bajina Basta, Arilje, Priboj, Pozega, Lucani, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Prijepolje...

The main slogan "Now or Never" was late for about half an hour, first because of the sound system and, after it was adjusted, the power in that part of Uzice was disconnected, so the reserve generator had to be immediately activated.

The person who had the honour to open the meeting was the mayor of Cacak and the leader of 'New Serbia', Velimir Ilic. After he was vigorously saluted, Ilic pleaded "to unite as soon as possible and drive away those who are the greatest shame in the entire history of the Serbs and those who are embarrassing us before the world".
"Our program is constituted of only one sentence - changes and their abdication", said the mayor of Cacak.

And all other speakers of the Association for Changes emphasised the subject of displacement of the current regime. Milan S. Protic from the Serbian Democratic Club stated that in the last ten years the enormous number of crimes have been committed in the name of the Serbian people, and therefore, the democratic Serbia is compelled to raise her voice against them. "This is not a usual political struggle, we have a huge task in front of us to save our country and our people", said Protic.

"The democratic Serbia has the enormous potential, which is not constituted only of the opposition, but also of the numerous intellectuals, the annoyed pensioners and workers, pupils and students, the humiliated and insulted soldiers, policemen and state officials. The one who brought them up to this point, must leave immediately. If Milosevic does not schedule elections by the end of the year, we are going to do it on behalf of the democratic opposition", said Vuk Obradovic, leader of the Social Democratic Party, the pictures of whom were among the dominating at the meeting. Goran Svilanovic, president of the Civic Alliance, greeted the masses with "Citizens of Uzice, good morning!", claiming that "while things are getting better for us, somebody else is growing depressed". He demanded a peaceful abdication of Milosevic "without blood", and called for urgent elections. "Everybody is curious who will come instead of Milosevic, and I can tell you, let it be the brave Novkovic from Leskovac", said Svilanovic.

At that moment, somebody from a building nearby cast a bunch of flyers on which it said "Your mentors destroyed our country and killed our nation" and "Where was your Djindjic while NATO was bombing us?". That was a cue to Vladan Batic, president of the Serbian Demo-Christian Party and a coordinator of the Association for Changes to say: "The socialists withdrew into a shell and here those from Uzice are casting flyers from their shell. And I can tell them that it was their mentor who destroyed our country and that's why we are going to condemn him here in this country, even before the Hague."

With enormous security measures ("you know the investigation against our president is being carried out, so he might be arrested") Zoran Djindjic, president of the Democratic Party arrived at the meeting, and obtained the loudest applause. He demanded that Milosevic must abdicate even "before any elections", and suggested the creation of an expert government which would represent the country during the transitional period. Almost the loudest applause of "more thousands of citizens" was dedicated to a politician who was not present at the meeting - President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, whose name was mentioned by Djindjic. President of the Democratic Party explained that the Association for Changes does not take part in any political battle, but only attempts to direct the immense public dissatisfaction with Milosevic's policy so far.
The twenty policemen saluted the end of the meeting at the central square in Uzice with relaxed smiles on their faces, while the leaders of the Association for Changes went on the corso in a nonchalant manner, with a somewhat more relaxed security.