Night of the Opposition

The amount of euphoric delight which was present at the various New Year's Eve city carnivals throughout Serbia is unexplainable. Do the people scream in such a cathartic fashion because of something that is departing, or because of something which is arriving, or because of a simple comprehension of how large that fraternity with whistles is in the civil festivities of sounds, light and movements, or as concisely put in Belgrade slang in all that "groovy fun"?

Such festivities are usually used by the regimes to strengthen their rule, for presenting the citizens with a picture of happiness and prosperity. However, here all seems topsy turvy, in Belgrade where the carnival was held, in Novi Sad, where waltzes were danced, in Kragujevac, in Kraljevo where ox was being roasted, in Nis where a huge mass of people gathered in the central square, that night showed strong signs of destruction of the mechanisms of repression. This time when the watch hands met, there was no dilemma whether someone was intensely thinking of someone else.

The thirty or so members of the student leadership drove quietly, prior to the beginning of the carnival, by city public transport to Dedinje, the "forbidden city", to read out on New Year's Eve in the snow their Magna Charta of the free citizen there, a high quality classical political proclamation. Generally, in the background of the noisy happenings high quality declarations are starting to emerge. Eight days prior to New Year's Eve, at the Congress of the Association of the Free Cities and Municipalities of Serbia, on the basis of the European charter on local self-rule, principles were adopted of future laws on local self-rule in which is stated that public services shall be handled primarily by those authorities which are closest to the citizens.

A week before New Year's Eve, following the unsuccessful rally For Serbia, the regime made only clumsy moves. On Wednesday (December 25) evening, the chief of the SPS group in the Assembly of Serbia Gorica Gajevic presides over the short (long enough to make it a TV coverage item) introductory session of the panel at the Assembly of Serbia, but beside the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) only a representative of New Democracy is present and the newly formed MP group December 1, made up of dissidents from Seselj's Serbian Radical Party. Seselj's radicals, in whose ranks initiative is appearing to start anti-regime demonstrations in that party as well, refuse to take part in the Assembly work, along with the delegates of the political parties now joined in the political organization Zajedno. The panel, as is well-known, was to dwell upon the experiences of the electoral system, the role of the media, the position of the parties and citizens rights, and, as was announced, television would broadcast its work.

These are topics which the opposition has an interest in and due to which the political crisis in Serbia came to be, yet the form is too loose and informal and the whole arrangement reminds one of a real pup sale. First of all, the opposition repeats that it shall not sit at that table before their election victory of November 17 in the largest cities is recognized.

The next day, on Thursday (December 26) some rumors in Belgrade and reports of some foreign newspapers from Geneva speak of the nervousness of president Milosevic due to Gonzales's report on the November elections and of the efforts of minister Milutinovic to stop that report from being made public. A certain diplomatic delegation a few days later cannot reach neither Milosevic nor Milutinovic, is met by someone from the lower echelons in order to have it hinted that official Belgrade actually accepts that report, yet it needs time to consider it in detail. The Yugoslav diplomatic service is giving out conciliatory statements.

However, scary messages were sent out to the local public. Last Thursday in the center of Belgrade, after they had allowed the students to walk down the streets of Belgrade, around 3 p.m. the streets of Srpskih Vladara, Terazije, Kolarceva and Mose Pijade were divided by strong police cordons, brought out with the goal of re-establishing traffic in the very center of town, blocking traffic from Brotherhood and Unity Bridge to Bulevar Revolucije and driving the demonstrators into the pedestrian zone. However, a group of citizens with whistles walk about between the cordons in a demonstrative way shouting: "I love you too!". That message of Milosevic spoken to his rally participators can be heard at each step amongst the demonstrators and is becoming a new code which portrays the spirit of the mesmerizing laid back irony.

On Friday (December 27), it looks as though the police are acting out another scene from the athletic exercises and now takes up a diagonal position, on the edges of the deserted streets along Terazije and Kolarceva and Srpskih Vladara on which there are no cars. Belgrade looks as though Felini has risen from the dead to direct a movie.

The younger generation starts off a game with the street traffic lights - when they turn green they step out onto the traffic lined pedestrian crossing and freely scream, and when the lights turn red, they quickly retreat to the sidewalk and shout at the small red pedestrian "red gang". The police cordon closes off the pedestrian crossing in front of the Jugoeksport shop towards Makedonska street, yet the game continues in front of the National Theater, where the mass of people have stopped traffic. In the evening that game shall finish with tragic and ugly consequences. While the last groups were dispersing somebody had send para-police formations in civilian clothing out into the streets armed with truncheons, clubs and baseball bats to beat in the middle of Terazije and Srpskih Vladara streets tens of citizens, public workers and journalists. The target of the anger of those who were beating people up was especially aimed at TV cameramen. Someone is once again "stopping Reuters".

It is possible that that moment could have seemed very risky to someone from the authorities due to the reason that news from Geneva was crossed with news of the victims of Milosevic's rally For Serbia along with rumors on possible agitation in the army.

On the very day when the police cordons took over Terazije, from the vehicle-speaker stand turned towards the police Vuk Draskovic sends out a message that the coalition Zajedno has received assurances that the officers would protect the people, he mentions the Nis parachutists, yet those present understand that sentence more as a rhetoric take-off.

News of the announcement of a group of officers will arrive later in a more concrete shape, there will be speculations as to the authenticity of those documents, but one announcement of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army on "attempts of speculation, manipulation and imputation of the role of the army" practically confirmed that something was behind it, and the forced New Year's congratulations addressed to Mr. Lilic from the members of the general staff accompanied by another announcement only confirmed that impression.

An important reason for that clumsy demonstration of police force can be fear of a further complication of the situation because the members of the rally For Serbia have been identified as gunmen who have shot Ivica Lazovic in the head in Knez Mihajlova and because the coalition Zajedno has accused the members of the regime rally for the death of Predrag Starcevic, along with suspicions that it could be deduced from the behavior of certain doctors from the emergency center that there were attempts to hide and cover up the cause of death. At such moments no one can predict how much rage shall such an event incite. All was leading towards a dangerous and anarchy-like erosion of authority of the institutions and towards inducing the citizens to take refuge in chaos for personal self-defense. Draskovic tried to calm the citizens down by appealing upon their restraint, he announced court trials for those who were inciting violence, but he also spoke out a warning: "We are not animals..."

At the funeral of Predrag Starcevic on Saturday December 28 at the Novo Groblje cemetery some ten-fifteen thousand people attend in absolute silence, during which footsteps over the snowy ground were clearly heard, which sounded like a dull escalation of tension. The mass of people who were leaving the cemetery in the blizzard took over Ruzveltova street for a short period, only to be turned at the sidewalk towards the Republika Square by the police cordon where they perform the "prisoners walk".

The week marked with blizzards was accompanied by "prisoners walks" activities in the closed circle from the Republika Square to Knez Mihajlova. The students, who invented the prisoners walks method relax the atmosphere in the evening by maneuvering in various ways and forcing the police to run around and finally hand the Studentska Square over to the students. One of the previous evenings a police cordon did not allow the students to go to Kalemegdan park. On Monday, the students who got through one of the passages surrounded the police shortly calling out to them: "How will you get home!"

Many details say that the autocrat who rules over Serbia has been ridiculed. On Tuesday evening a reptile was carrying the sign "Slobosaurus", while at the student platform scenes were acted out from a prison cell, at Terazije people are lining up to kiss traffic policemen. The magicians at the student Plateau were "stealing ballots". At the snowy suburban bus stops, as traffic was in a state of collapse, young people were hitchhiking with whistles in their mouths coloring with their sounds the beginning of the fever of the New Year's Eve celebrations. Hundreds of thousands of people were dancing all along Slavija, Terazije and Knez Mihajlova, Republika Square, Vasina, the Academic plateau. People were still arriving when the initial participants started to head away from the town center.

It seems a bit clearer now why Milosevic had gathered throughout Serbia all those poverty stricken people to bring them over for the rally and turn them against the "walkers", as though he had no supporters in Belgrade, on whose right to be able to walk the streets he refers to. Someone had, possibly accurately, assessed that even the Belgrade workers shall easily accept the new code, the new trend of barking at the government, that they could easily turn towards the other side in mass numbers where the atmosphere is less rigid, where things are spoken of which people feel themselves and finally where their children are.

The second answer can possibly be found in the fact that the organization for the campaign For Serbia is actually a Yugoslav United Left (JUL) accomplishment and that the large SPS machine is actually recoiling more from the coup d' etat intentions of JUL than from the opposition and has simply from its very depth ignored that undertaking. Anyway, the conflicts between SPS and JUL concerning the constitution of the new municipal assemblies came to light in Batocina and Babusnica. The messages from Montenegro speak of the trap in which SPS has found itself in a specific way which are inducing Milosevic to recognize the conclusions of the international commission which he had invited himself, as well as the signal sent by New Democracy that it could pull out from the government in case President Milosevic does not opt for reforms but rather for dictatorship or a civil war. President Milosevic had in his New Year's Eve message mentioned economic reforms, but failed to mention democracy in a single word, as well as moral obligations which result from the conclusions of the OSCE commission which he himself had invited.

However, neither the character nor the direction of the state propaganda have changed. As they have continued in the same footsteps, they shall stop broadcasting weather reports as well. State media incoherently omitted to report how on New Year's Eve thousand of people danced, sang under the fireworks "at the opposition", which was an obvious and bizarre ignorance of reality. They can only get out of that scrape by the journalistic rule that says how a man who was bitten by a dog is no news, while a man who had bitten a dog is, that it is no news that people are "with the opposition" since everybody is already there, but rather that some had to head for the maternity ward is.

When blatant lies are spoken out in name of the government, that has to be a sign of either great confusion or of some unhidden very dangerous intentions.

The opposition, by its public gestures, announces that following the procurement of their electoral victory of November 17, the focus of their battles shall be the media. In Politika daily Biserka Matic a veteran of this newspaper has been suspended due to an open letter in which she demands the resignation of the current director and editor-in-chief of this newspaper. In Kragujevac, immediately after the new city hall has been constituted the battle for the liberation of the local television station has commenced which has at the last moment by acts of dubious legitimacy been shoved under the state-owned television (RTS) cap. The new director of the future liberated local television station as chosen by the Kragujevac town hall is the writer Vidosav Stevanovic. On January first of 1997 the students, with various drums, cymbals, lids, pans walk along some ten Belgrade streets in the action which bore the name: "We don't have a TV, but we have a tam-tam..." On Dorcol, the Terazije plateau, as well as in New Belgrade, the citizens answer back with noise from their own apartments.

On January second the government still acted as though January first was just a nightmare and strong police forces were once again positioned at Terazije. The first working days in the new year could turn out to be days of negotiations, but due to habit the government shall continue to postpone, maneuver, pretend and threaten. The opposition, emboldened by the citizens New Year's Eve message, might try to undertake something more concrete than walks. The Ministry of Justice of Serbia prior to the New Year, in a long and confusing text, sends out a public announcement on the progress of the affair with the electoral manipulations in Nis and in one segment of that announcement "buys time" with the remark that the case is still in the hands of the Nis committee which has been counting ballots for 45 days now. Since the Nis committee has been beating around the bush for days, the ministry sends out a warning in which is stated that such an occurrence cannot prevent an inquiry which has been opened up following an order of the President of the republic. The Nis committee, even after that falls into a stationary position and delays its decision with legal deadlines. Fearing that it could be manipulated by a game of deadlines the Nis opposition lodges an appeal. On the second day of January 1997 on the 45th day following the elections, without Golub Golubovic the public prosecutor who has sent in his resignation due to medical reasons, they open up the ballot box once again and continue to count, count, count...