Vuk, What Are You Waiting For?

The opposition is ending its dialogue and is beginning its squabbling; the regime is stifling the opposition, it is assailing the cities where local power is in the hands of the opposition and is shifting its election campaign into gear; the people have decided that May 27 is in fact not May 27 at all, nor that there is any meeting of the opposition, and are instead putting on their bathing suits and going to the beach

There was a distinct impression last week that the Socialists, JUL and the Radicals were marching toward Belgrade.  In the last week of May, with the closing down of the independent media, the regime dealt the toughest blow to the opposition since it forced the breakup of Coalition Zajedno in the Fall of 1997.  The opposition proclaimed the defense of the media, but it did not proclaim the defense of cities where local government is in the hands of the opposition.  It appears thwarted.  After the taking over of Belgrade's Studio B and TV Mladenovac, after the disruption of Radio B2-92, the "disappearance" of Radio Pancevo transmitter, the municipal government in Belgrade which is under the control of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) has been left without direct communication with the citizens of Belgrade.  After the regime's blitzkrieg against the independent media, communication between opposition parties and their supporters has been made difficult in Belgrade and other cities, while spontaneous outrage by citizens, which SPO depended upon and alternately expected and calmed, was all too impulsive and insufficient.

On the level of government finance, the economic war against Belgrade is in full swing (a freeze on the three percent municipal tax due to the Municipal Government of Belgrade has been carried out by the Government of Serbia, along with a freeze on the cost of municipal services, all of which is accompanied by a cynical media campaign).  On Monday this resulted in a strike by the majority of private city bus owner-operators.  What ensued were malfunctions in the city transportation system and its collapse, which the regime's media are trying to blame on the opposition's municipal authorities.  The municipal government of Belgrade is sticking to its calculation that the price of transportation services should increase, but is not standing behind the strike.  On Tuesday the municipal government of Belgrade fired all private bus owner-operators and announced a bid for new contracts to all bus owner-operators who are willing to work for the present ticket price of three dinars per ticket!  The independent (state run) syndicate of workers of GSB (Belgrade City Transportation Authority) is issuing a call on the Government of Serbia to step in and protect the public interest.  The risk was increasing of potential incidents of outrage amid the atmosphere of gradual martial law.

After the violent breakup of the students' strike at the Faculty of Architecture of Belgrade University, the Serbian Minister of Education, Mr. Janjic, issued a decree of a halt to all university classes in Serbia.

Speaking at the Media Press Club Center on Monday, May 29, Professor Zaga Golubovic stated that the gangs of masked thugs who brutally beat up young men and women at universities are reminiscent of the Fascists falange in Germany during the thirties.  She believes that what happened at the university at the end of May is in fact an action which bans this institution and is part of the regime's strategy of stifling every oasis of civil society in Serbia.  A fairly weak reaction by students and professors ensued (student meeting at the Faculty of Philology with attempt by smaller groups of students to enter their faculties on May 29 and the initiation of a strike and its prevention).  Nebojsa Popov made observations at the Media Press Club Center about the symbolic nature of the student protests at the Plateau.  That area was fenced off for months with construction fences, and students finally knocked down the unsightly construction fence.  It was clear that nothing was being built or constructed behind that fence and that it was placed there only to prevent student gatherings.

According to Popov, this symbolic uncovering of the essence of our government (of a void behind the fence) is probably the most successful opposition action of the entire past week.

At another location another Potemkin-like facade was being erected - bigger and better.  Clearly aware of the fact that satanization of the opposition is only half the job, on May 29 Slobodan Milosevic embarked on his election campaign, praising the success of reconstruction projects, announcing new reconstruction projects and increases in the otherwise record breaking rate of growth.  The opposition allowed the government a full year to lay claim to the general effort of rebuilding the country.  Trstenik is the only city where the Mayor and the town's residents came out to whistle and protest against the government officials who came to cut red ribbons.  The success of the meeting in Novi Sad was insured by arrests made of activists who tried to deal out their pamphlets.

WITCHHUNT:  In the last month the police was directly used in the resolution of political conflicts between the regime and the opposition, where it battered demonstrators in Belgrade on three occasions (May 17, 18 and 19) and prevented the movements of opposition supporters (Pozarevac May 9, Belgrade May 27) by arresting, asking for identification, opening files on hundreds of activists, especially those with the Resistance student organization, across the whole of Serbia, in Pozarevac, Belgrade, Bor, Leskovac and other places.

In several instances of arrests made of criminals, the police and the state media announced that the arrested criminals were found carrying Resistance Movement pamphlets, or that an arrested criminal is a supporter of the Serbian Renewal Movement, which was supposedly aimed at supporting the passage of the law against terrorism.  In two drastic cases (Pozarevac and the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade) the police failed to react against smaller and larger gangs of thugs who were beat up demonstrators and who were clearly hired by the regime to do so.

The opposition has been clearly shaken by the regime's campaign.  But the greatest damaged suffered by the democratic forces has been the indecision of opposition leaders which is shaking public confidence in the opposition as a public institution.  Ten days of defense of Studio B passed with the opposition expecting citizens to show up from nowhere and to multiply.  Too many internal meetings were held and too many agreements were made, without efficient channeling of the events in the street, with the constant query which is the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) not protecting Belgrade more energetically and what is Vuk Draskovic waiting for?

Of course, in a situation like this, those who have less to lose are tabling proposals filled with greater risk.  During the opposition discussions of the proposal for a general municipal strike to be called in all cities after the closing down of Studio B, that proposal was not accepted, in all likelihood because of SPO apprehensions about the institution of martial law as the government's response to a strike by municipal workers...  "A coup has been carried out against Studio B (radio and television).  Why does the Belgrade Palace continue to have running water and electricity if the Belgrade Municipal Authorities have the power to turn them off?  Why is access to Serbian and Yugoslav government institutions not blocked off with Belgrade municipal buses?" Goran Svilanovic asked at the meeting in Nis.  The reaction by SPO Spokesman Ivan Kovacevic on Tuesday indicated the growing tension as a result of the radical proposals: he suggested that all those who want to block transportation in Belgrade should do so with their own cars.  He mentioned the risk of instituting of martial law in Belgrade.  However, a great number of opposition leaders observe that martial law is already in progress and speculate frequently and maliciously about the reasons for the SPO blockade: corruption, blackmail, fear, absence of will, lack of responsibility toward the public...  Immediately after that meeting, it became clear that the leaders of certain parties are beginning to distance themselves from the current attempt at agreement in the opposition.  Greater impatience is being expressed by those who had opportunity to see the logic of the regime from the inside: generals Vuk Obradovic and Momcilo Perisic, former Mayor of Belgrade Nebojsa Covic, along with politicians from the activist-oriented Alliance for Changes - Goran Svilanovic, Vladan Batic and Zoran Djindjic.  Batic even suggested that the opposition could potentially fall apart if things continue as they are.

It appears that the majority of the public fails to understand the interests the opposition has in waiting passively in a situation like this, even though some rational reasons for this do suggest themselves - the hope that they will meet the beginning of the official election campaign with certain advantages, such as access to voters' registries in Belgrade and elsewhere where the opposition is in power.

The considerable change in public opinion from April to May suggests that the loss of credibility is far costlier than such seeming advantages.  In an atmosphere like this, the majority of the opposition supporters understood that May 27 is not The Day and instead they flocked to the beach (100,000 people soaked in the sun on Belgrade's Ada Ciganlija), while a few feisty opposition supporters are applauding the students' Resistance Movement and are raising their fists.  On the following day a number of these supporters are disappointed in front of the Municipal Parliament of Belgrade because of the halt to the otherwise badly attended public speaker news read by the former Studio B staff, and shout "Pansies!"

In this atmosphere the opposition is waging a foreign policy campaign announced last week by Vuk Draskovic - three of the most influential opposition leaders (Draskovic, Djdindjic and Kostunica) traveled to Moscow on May 29 where they achieved a certain success in view of the fact that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sided with the opposition in its call for a peaceful resolution of the situation and a return of Studio B to the opposition.  This could suggest something of greater significance, perhaps that Russia intends to give up on Slobodan Milosevic as its confidant.  It remains to be seen how this Russian maneuver will be understood by the regime.  The fact remains, however, that the uncoordinated opposition did not manage to do anything with this shot of adrenaline coming from Russia.

The principal player on the opposition scene, the Serbian Renewal Movement, clearly underwent two phases between may 13 and 27: at first there was much flaunting of the call for "rebellion", "rebellion" ("Slobodan Milosevic, do you hear that!?"), with the calculation that the people's grumbling will give greater negotiating weight in an election year.  When Miosevic behaved according to his old method ("I can't hear them, but they will be arrested!"), a halting calculation ensued in the interest of avoiding martial law in Belgrade.  Even the initiative by the students' Resistance Movement, supposed to be carried out at different points in the city with the objective of informing citizens of the agenda of the May 27 meeting, was not adopted because of the conviction that the Resistance has already been satanized successfully by the state media and that their involvement might only contribute to alienating people from the meeting.  This was a wrong calculation, simply because the time has come when the regime is beginning to work for the opposition when the regime's threats are being interpreted differently.  Since the beginning of the regime's campaign against the students' Resistance Movement, the main gesture at all city squares has become their trademark upraised fist, regardless of what that might mean at this point and how different people might perceive that gesture.

The unquestionable growth in the popularity of the students' Resistance Movement is in all likelihood a response by the opposition supporters to repression and to satanization.  However, the growth in the support for the Resistance is primarily public criticism of the opposition's ineffectualness.

The meeting held in Belgrade on May 27 was not as small as some report it to have been.  It was probably equally well attended as the May 15 meeting, although this was far below expectations.

Vuk Draskovic began with his old appeal: "If half a million people had come out, there is no police force in the world which could stand in their way."  Zoran Djindjic suggested: "Fight with the police if you want to defend your television and only then call us (the opposition) to help you."  This was public criticism of the Serbian Renewal Movement for behaving too passively in the case of the takeover of Studio B.  However, it immediately became clear that the gathered supporters reacted far less enthusiastically to the speeches made by the main opposition leaders (Draskovic, Kostunica, Djindjic), than to the speech made by the representative of the Resistance, Nemanja Nikolic from Krusevac who is a student at the Faculty of Technology, and who told the opposition leaders that they did not manage to find common language in seven days and that now they have seven minutes to do the same.

The Alliance for Changes dealt out pamphlets calling on volunteers to join in their "Corps" and to help this coalition to visit every village in Serbia as part of the United Opposition Protest.  Djindjic is taking an opposite position with regard to the elections, by contrast with Draskovic and Kostunica.  Having learned the lesson of his unsuccessful boycott in 1997, he is now calling for an election campaign in spite of everything.  Draskovic keeps repeating that under conditions like this there can be no election, while Kostunica's party is voicing opinion that the elections are further and further away than ever.  The May 27 meeting is reminiscent of the open disagreement at the August 19 meeting in 1999, even though disagreement is not as manifest and the reaction of the public is not as poignant.  The line of disagreement is the same as before: the Alliance for Changes is in favor of general and energetic action.  In the shadow of war the Alliance for Changes did not meet with success, but is now probably in a better position because the public is waiting for someone to initiate changes, and Djindjic appears to be weighing new opportunities.  Both before and after the May 27 meeting, the main political question has been: "Vuk, what are you waiting for?"

STATE OF AFFAIRS

THE GOVERNMENT:
-making threats
-announcing an antiterrorist campaign
-protecting its turf without any consideration
-compromising faculty deans
-closing universities
-closing the independent media
-opening bridges
-giving concessions
-declaring battle against terrorism
-fixing a world gone amuck
-writing indecent letters to powerful people in the world
-beginning its election campaign

THE OPPOSITION:
-analyzing
-feeling public opinion
-preparing expert studies
-engaged in foreign affairs
-discussing and reaching agreements
-offering radical proposals
-not making any decisions
-not demonstrating any plan of defense
-not showing clearly what it want now
-issuing appeals to the population for civil disobedience
-beginning to squabble
-letting the regime make headway
-calling citizens to meetings, but "sends messages" that now is not the time
-asking what is the matter with the people

THE PEOPLE:
-singing songs at sports stadiums against the President
-carries Milosevic's pictures according to order
-fighting with the police
-running away from the police
-going to the beach
-going to meetings
-returning from meetings
-vowing never again to go to another meeting
-asking how long this will continue and when will that final meeting take place