GOTOV JE (He's Finished)! Part 2

This is a first-hand account of the events leading to the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic as President of Yugoslavia. Vladimir Sukalovic, a research assistant completing a PhD in computer modelling, broke net publishing ground last year when he wrote two despatches for On Line Opinion from Belgrade, at the same time that it was being bombed by the NATO forces.

Now he returns with a street-level perspective of the change of government. Part 1 can be found here and future postings will bring the rest of Vladimir's story in his own words.

From September 24 people protested almost every day. On a few occasions there were more than 100,000 people, and once 150,000 people came to the city square to protest against the election theft and the court decision not to count voting papers again. The same kind of protest was held all over the country. The message from all the towns in Yugoslavia was clear: Milosevic is history, Kostunica won, and we want Milosevic to step down and hand the presidency to Kostunica.

But Milosevic had other plans and he was buying time. In the first days after the elections he managed to steal 500,000 votes and thus make his defeat into a draw. If allowed to go to a runoff he would probably win!

DOS, knowing that Kostunica clearly won, announced that the victory of the democratic parties would be defended at all cost. We would try to remain peaceful but, if necessary, force would be used.

Workers went on strike, stores were closed, roads blocked. One of the first to go on strike were miners from the "Kolubara" coal mine, which supplies coal to power plants. Milosevic reacted swiftly and ordered power restrictions.

He also ordered the police to intervene to restore peace and order all over the country. TV and radio stations called DOS and Kostunica "Traitors", "NATO mercenaries" and "Enemies of the state". Even Milosevic himself went on air (for the third or fourth time in his 10 years as president) and pleaded for people to stop this "madness" and "chaos" and go back to work. His pathetic speech showed an old and frightened man, a shadow of the once bold and proud president. HE WAS FINISHED! But he decided to fight to the end.

DOS called a central protest meeting for October 5, which was to be held in front of the National Assembly in Belgrade and would last until the will of the people was officially accepted, with Vojislav Kostunica recognised as our new president.

On October 4, DOS published their plans. There would be three major routes to Belgrade: one from city of Nis, along the highway, another from the city of Cacak via the Ibar motorway, and a third from the province of Vojvodina across the Pancevo bridge. Police warned protesters that roads would be blocked but the people were so determined to reach Belgrade that nothing could stop them. The Mayor of Nis addressed the police and Milosevic, saying "We will come to Belgrade tomorrow, and if you want to stop us, you will have to shoot us one by one, but no road block and no police force will stop us". The Mayor of Cacak went even further, and decided to travel with a bulldozer all the way to Belgrade.

The people of Yugoslavia awoke at sunrise on Thursday, October 5 and headed to Belgrade. Smaller groups from villages joined along the way with bigger groups from towns, and soon it looked like three gigantic sand worms were crawling towards the capital city.

The column from Cacak, looked like this: a Jeep in front to warn the others of police roadblocks or other danger, the bulldozer carrier truck, then a truck loaded with rocks and stones for throwing at the police. After them came a truck full of beer and cola drinks, and the rest of the trucks, buses, and other vehicles transporting people.

Some people said the columns measured more than 30km in length and had more than 40,000 people each. The people from Cacak ran into a police squad that was determined to stop them from reaching their goal. After a brief conversation the yellow bulldozer was put to action. In few minutes the roadblock was cleared, police trucks and cars demolished and the policemen scattered across the countryside, running for their lives under a rain of rocks and empty bottles. Later, I learned that some of them received an order to shoot at will but they chose to retreat rather become murderers.

On that day I awoke early as I had to go to work. It was a sunny day, warm but a little bit windy. The city was quiet, quite the opposite of the usual crowded streets and traffic jams. Stores were closed; public transport reduced, and parts of town were without power.

I went to my office, drank coffee, read the papers, and spent some hours searching the Net for news. About 1:30PM, the director of my company called and told me to close the office and go where we all should go. He was reluctant to speak freely over the phone, as you never know when you are taped.

I decided to go straight to the meeting and see what would happen. In front of the Assembly were some 10,000 to 15,000 people; mainly those who decided to come early to get a better view. Those who came from places near Belgrade and those who travelled by night from all over the country to avoid roadblocks joined them. The crowd was getting bigger and bigger every minute as people came from all over the town.

Then I saw something that I will remember for the rest of my life: the column from Nis came over the highway and entered the Srpskih Vladara Street from the north, and the column from Cacak came in the same street from the south. Srpskih Vladara Street, one of the major streets in Belgrade, was completely filled with people.

As far as I could see were people, people, and nothing but the people. I felt like part of an unstoppable force that would make Milosevic see how wrong he was and send him to history, if not to jail. By 3:00 pm, the whole area in front of the Assembly and nearby streets was filled with people, and even modest reporters guessed that more than 500,000 people gathered there. Never before had Belgrade seen a crowd so huge and so motivated as on October 5.

Milosevic’s servants, the army and police, realized that even in their ranks, Slobists (those who vote for Slobodan Milosevic) were outnumbered by antiSlobists by 3:1 or 4:1. Milosevic was sinking and the rats started to leave the ship. First to disobey his orders were the policemen in small cities who knew they could not act upon Milosevic's orders and avoid retaliation from their neighbours. Even the hard-liners decided that the time had come to ask for forgiveness, or even defect to the other side.

But the Minister of the Interior and the Chief of the Secret Police together with special anti-terrorist forces and part of the army were determined to fight. So a fight was inevitable.

Knowing that the army would use tanks to quell the demonstrations, I walked around the Assembly building and to the nearby State TV station Radio Televizija Srbije (RTS). The RTS building was a symbol of the Milosevic regime, as TV news was one of his most notorious ways to manipulate people.

Milosevic used to send around 1000-2000 fully armed and armored police every time some kind of protest was going on, but this time, they were not there. Another strange thing I saw was three Jeeps without license plates or any marks but with camo paint. I guessed they were PUCH jeeps used by the Yugoslav Army, but the camouflage paint looked more like NATO paint than our drab olive color. I concluded that whoever was inside the RTS building was a trained professional and went on walking in a circle around the meeting place rather than stand in the crowd.

At 15:45 I was just behind the RTS building when I heard whistles and shouts, followed by the worst human stampede I have ever seen. I ran for about 400-500m, and then turned around. People were running from the meeting place and pouring into nearby streets. The wind carried a smell very familiar to me: tear gas. Later I learned that the people had confronted the police forces at the Assembly entrance and almost run them over, when the police received the command to use "every necessary mean to stop people from entering the building".

But the people pressed in and police fired so many cans of tear gas that it was impossible to breathe. The people scattered but the wind was blowing and the tear gas was carried away. People charged the Assembly building again, and this time they reached the main door. The police had used up all of their tear gas, and some of them fired their side arms into or over the crowd but killed no-one.

The crowd backed up for the last time. Nearly 200 policemen were stranded inside the building. Their commander abandoned them and they were low on tear gas.

The people continued to press on the main door, and countless stones were thrown into windows. The police forces were in a desperate situation, and they decided they had no way out but to surrender and hope they would avoid being mobbed by the crowd.

Who started the fire in the Assembly basement, and whether it was planted on purpose or just an accident, will always remain a mystery, but in a few moments the whole basement was on fire and thick black smoke poured out of the broken windows. Facing the mob on the outside and fire in the building, the police surrendered and the people stormed the National Assembly. Some people said the police gave up when they received the order to fire at the crowd, but I personally think that the order was misinterpreted as "use arms only in self defence, and try to retreat under fire if in grave danger".

By that time I was facing police forces who exited the RTS building and tried to help their friends who were trapped in the Assembly building. They had also run out of tear gas and the people were determined that no police or army force would drive them away from the meeting. The police tried one last desperate plan to reinforce forces in the RTS building and Assembly building with forces from a nearby police station but the people raised barricades and blocked the streets.

I was careful to maintain distance, so I could run away if things became too bad but still throw rocks at them. On a few occasions the police charged down the street, but only to scare those who were throwing rocks. At other times the police were standing still. We used that time to build some barricades, using trash cans, cars, and other things we found. In that way we blocked a few streets so no car, van of bus could pass through to the RTS building and reinforce the police. But the people were encouraged by the easy fall of the Assembly building and surrender of the police forces guarding it, and decided to continue their charge to enter the RTS building.

The yellow bulldozer was put into action one more time, as it smashed the front door of the RTS building and left a hole so big no police car could block it. People encircled the RTS building and the police retreated deeper into the basement and cellar. Rocks destroyed almost every window in the building, and someone set a fire to force the police to surrender or be burned alive. At that moment I was still one street down from the RTS building when I saw an Armored Troop Carrier, going through the barricades at full speed. It was followed by two more ATCs, and four humvees (I'm not sure about the name, but I recognize a NATO or US army jeep, when I see one).

They breached the barricades and fired so many tear gas shells on us that I was almost blind from crying. There was no way to endure that concentration of gas, so I backed up few street away and entered a residential building to ask for some water to rinse my eyes and mouth. I was afraid that the ATC's were the army’s and that the army was overtaking the town, but then something strange and terrifying came to my mind.

The ATC wasn't ours and we don't have humvees in our army but, most of all, our soldiers don't have black gas masks, and don't wear black leather gloves without fingers. What I saw was more like delta force than anything else. In the days before demonstrations, there was a word on the street that Milosevic would use one part of his forces dressed as NATO soldiers to provoke incident and proclaim a state of emergency. To me, it looks like exactly like that. I rinsed my eyes and face, and went back to the street expecting the worst.

P.S. This is part two... Expect part three in a few days.. situation is getting better. (16/10/00)