The First Opposition Victory

Some 20 people fell in central Belgrade’s Sremska street trying to escape from maddened riot police who caught up with them and beat them so hard that the sounds of their truncheons resounded over the sound of screams. The police cordon knocked down professor Milan Markovic halfway between Sremska street and Republic Square. The good professor was hit by every policeman who passed by him.

The night between Sunday and Monday saw riot police beating men, women and children all over central Belgrade. They even continued beating up people who fell down from their blows.

Police Colonel Sreten Lukovic tried to justify the police action in a talk with students on Tuesday: "The police can’t hit people selectively. You know what mass psychology is. When they move forward they don’t choose: women, children... Whoever is in the way."

The colonel should know the police isn’t a mass and it’s violence has to be selective, purposeful and restrained.

The spirit of the modern praetorian guard who were pampered by Belgraders for days seems to have been nurtured in some completely wrong way. That spirit left a large number of people with scars, fractures and bruises to remember the police truncheons and boots. The city medical emergency center treated 190 people that night, mainly the chronically ill and a much larger than usual number of people injured on the streets. The urgent medical care center received 29 people. Many, like one women in Sremska street whose blood flowed down her hair over her cheeks, didn’t want to stay in the hospital under any circumstance. Scores of people (Zajedno sources say the number goes as high as 300) were beaten in central Belgrade that night.

Reporters were beaten en masse, whether by order or because they’re always in the forefront mistakenly thinking their ID will allow them to get on with their job. Four BK TV cameramen were beaten up and their cameras broken. Reporter Maja Vidakovic was beaten on the hands, head and breasts, cameraman Sava Ilic and his assistant Vanja Ilic were beaten up and their camera broken. BK TV assistant cameraman Dejan Zaninovic was stopped by the police, and his tapes were confiscated before they beat him up. Reuters cameraman Sergei Karazin had his camera broken when the police caught him in front of the national theater before he was beaten up so badly that he needed six stitches for a head wound. The injured reporters and camera crews include Reiner Herher of Associated Press TV, a CNN cameraman, BETA news agency reporter Predrag Vujic and Blic reporter Marko Petrovic.

It was a night of completely senseless, unprovoked, brutal violence which began at 11:00 on Sunday night on both ends of Brankov bridge and ended after 2:00 am. The whole thing started when a huge cordon blocked Vuk Draskovic and a column of people from New Belgrade with the explanation that has to sound cynical after 75 days of street protests: the gathering was not authorized.

Vesna Pesic and Zoran Djindjic led columns of protesters from Slavija square and the crossroads at Vukov Spomenik. They decided to head for Brankov bridge to put some pressure on the police so the New Belgrade column would be allowed to cross the bridge. But the two groups of protesters started a kind of sit in. Speakers said they’d stay there a week if they had to. The police used the stairs on the sides of the bridge to relieve cordons and seemed rigid with signs that they had orders to resort to violence. At around 9:00 one policeman even stepped out of the cordon to tell a man; "get you child away, there’s going to be big trouble tonight".

For a short while the old railway bridge was also closed but the police re-opened it with orders to close it if a big group of people arrived there. When I passed by the cordon of police on the old bridge I heard several policemen discussing professional techniques: "Grab him like this and hit him". The railway bridge was badly lit at that moment and seemed ghostly. On the New Belgrade side there was smoke from fires people had lit by the river to keep the sub-zero cold at bay.

Some people thought about crossing the railway bridge but gave up on that risky adventure.

A rumor spread: "The Patriarch is coming". A priest really did borrow a mobile phone from a reporter and tried to contact the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church. On the old Belgrade side of the railway bridge, traffic was slow and this reporter saw three angry, cursing policemen stop a car whose driver said something to them. The driver got out of there as fast as he could. The police on the bridge laughed at his fear. That might have been a sign that the police had been given orders to use force. On the Belgrade side the crowd at Brankov bridge had dropped from the huge numbers that covered the road all the way to Zeleni Venac to the size of the small crowds that kept vigil in Kolarceva street when the police blocked the student march for a week. Several prominent people spoke. Draskovic somehow made his way to that side and Djindjic went over to the New Belgrade side.

At 11:30, at the place where the police had already piled shame on themselves by beating student protesters in March 1991, riot police started their most brutal and massive action since then. Just after that time, the coordinated police attack began on both sides of the bridge. The people on Djindjic’s side didn’t want to back away but decided to get the children out of harm’s way. Djindjic and the adults were beaten and pushed to the sidewalks. One group tried to raise a barricade at the Hyatt hotel but were beaten away.

One the Belgrade side the police weren’t so tactful. They chose to be ruthless. Draskovic saw what was coming and pleaded for everyone to walk back to Freedom (Republic) square, then he begged them to go away and leave him in front of the cordon alone but no one obeyed. Vesna Pesic saw that the police would charge and advised people to sit down which many people did and the police stopped for a moment. Draskovic then called people to rise up slowly and walk away. When some people started moving away the police began beating up the ones who were still on the ground. Two armored cars with water cannon were driven in and cold water was poured all over the crowd in the sub-zero cold. Some were knocked down by the freezing blasts of water. One woman ran into a nearby shop to change into borrowed clothes because she was wet to the skin. Younger people tried to tip over concrete posts and slow down the police charge. All that was left behind on the frozen Brankova street once the police cordon went through it were a few stones and whistles.

Pesic and a group of people made their way down to the street below the bridge but there was a police ambush waiting for them. She was beaten on the arms and legs and finally escaped to someone’s apartment. Most of the crowd ran away to Zeleni Venac and Narodnog Fronta street where another water cannon and a cordon of policemen eager to hit everyone in sight were waiting. The police enjoyed brutally beating up people they had cornered or surrounded. In Narodnog Fronta street a group of football fans rushed up with baseball bats and saved a young man.

The police continued chasing people towards Terazije and Republic squares. A big cordon stopped the fleeing crowd from running down Srpskih Vladara street. They savagely beat everyone they could. Rastko Kostic, a student and member of the main board of the 96/97 student protest, was surrounded on Terazije by five policemen and beaten until they knocked out two of his teeth, inflicted head injuries, broke his arm and two fingers on his left hand.

In Kolarceva street professor Zoran Lucic received several cuts on his head and the police beat his wife down to the ground and kicked her around. Some of the younger protesters threw stones at the police. People weren’t letting the police get close any more, keeping a distance of at least 30 meters from them and shouting "Ustashi, Ustashi."

The police advanced hitting their truncheons on cars and city buses and finally charged down Knez Mihajlova and across Republic square breaking car windows.

At the National Theater, eight policemen beat up one man. When the police charged down Francuska street in 1993, a group of young men from the suburb of Dorcol taunted them from the dark: "Come to Dorcol" which the police did not do. This time they went to Dorcol hunting down anyone in sports shoes with badges and whistles and anyone else they found. What they did that night can only be called ruthless retaliation against everyone and anyone. They beat up a young couple who never realized what hit them.

Vuk Draskovic claims he escaped in a friend’s car from a group of men in leather jackets who were shooting at them.

Djindjic crossed the bridge once the police intervention was over in New Belgrade and headed straight for his Democratic Party (DS) headquarters where he told B 92 radio that he was going home through Republic square and Vasina street and added that Milosevic had obviously lost his nerve and had lost.

Everything the Serbian police ministry had to say about the massive raid was that the police intervened to prevent a blockade of public traffic and prevent greater disturbances or public order.

Professor Slobodan Vujosevic was beaten up at the entrance to the university school of natural sciences. The police attacked a number of young people who were just standing in front of the university school of philosophy. One young man was leaning against a wall while eight policemen beat him. About an hour after midnight, several uniformed policemen rushed into the school of philosophy, hitting everyone in sight. They injured two students seriously and another two slightly. The students withdrew to the first floor. The police saw an increasing number of students coming in from one of the classrooms (some witnesses say they saw them bringing in a fire hose) and decided to leave, breaking windows as they did. They beat up students in front of the Mathematics schools stopping them from sheltering in the building.

The students who staged a protest in front of the Belgrade police headquarters the next day were told that eight students had been jailed although they had reports of 43 arrested. The arrested students were released on Wednesday afternoon, some with visible bruises. Teachers at the school of philosophy ceased all activities until cases of violence against students are investigated as well as the case of the police breaking into the university. Teachers at the schools of mathematics and technology condemned the police action. The Belgrade arts university rector and the deans of all it's schools condemned the police brutality. The deans and institute directors at Belgrade university condemned the police and the violation of the university’s autonomy.

And what was the regime-appointed rector of the university whose autonomy was violated doing in the meantime?

He is reported to have hired body guards.

The reactions to the police action were natural. Condemnations and more condemnations came from a number of countries and were voiced by the likes of a spokesman for US President Bill Clinton’s administration, the foreign ministers of France, Belgium, Great Britain and others.

After events like this, a dangerous, threatening calm usually settles over Belgrade but this time the whistles were silent for not even a whole morning while people recounted the events of the night. The morning Belgrade’s taxi drivers held their street protest over the killing of a cabby. The students asked the public prosecutor to receive them around noon and then "walked through the bloody streets of Belgrade" to Brankov bridge to burn SPS election posters. One group feigned a charge against the winter palace and marched to the building housing the SPS and JUL seats. A rally against violence was held on Republic square that afternoon at 3:00 with a crowd of between 50,000 and 80,000 to send a clear message that the wave of violence had only increased bitterness.

After that rally, a group of young men, perhaps football fans, tried to exact revenge from the police. The riot police charged a little after 5:00 and were met with a hail of stones. The angered policemen charged down Knez Mihajlova street beating anyone they could get their hands on, they rushed into a department store and grabbed some young man, threw a woman to the ground and broke into a jewelry store to beat another man. The police set up another cordon halfway down the street to ambush anyone there. Several people fled to the school of philosophy or ran into stores. Many were beaten before the doors were opened. In Zmaj Jovina street some people tried to stand against a wall but the police hit them and kicked anyone they walked past. One man was left lying on the street.

On Tuesday evening when the rally ended, about 10 hooligans abused everyone around them on Republic square. There were no police in sight for an unnaturally long time (almost an hour) although a bus full of them was parked close by and out of sight. When they did intervene, policemen headed straight for the school of philosophy. They broke the windows on the door but members of the student protest security didn’t let them in. That night was filled with tension in expectation of a new attack on the school. The dirty game or low intensity special warfare continued.

That day, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic sent a letter to his Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic instructing him to draft a special law (lex specialis) declaring that the final results of the local elections are what the OSCE fact finding mission said in its report.

He invoked state interests, pointed out that this is a pragmatic way to resolve the crisis in system institutions. After almost three months of hesitation he finally swallowed the bitter pill. He masked the mess by saying that what the opposition and protesting people called election fraud is an "election dispute". Marjanovic said he would urgently draft the law and submit it to parliament, the parliament speaker naturally voiced support along with FRY President Zoran Lilic, the SPS and JUL.

There were reports a week earlier during a visit by Russian diplomat Igor Ivanov that Milosevic will finally resolve the crisis in a matter of days. The pill was so bitter that he hit everyone in site while he swallowed.

Student banners commented his decision: "Tito had Rex (a dog), Slobodan has Lex". Zajedno and the students are continuing their protests until the November 17 election results are reinstated and every seat is verified and until the state media are freed and the people whose reporting and statements raised tensions for 77 days and until responsibility is established for the police violence.