Gotov Je (He's Finished)! Part 3: the final part ... so far

People broke in, smashed everything they found and even tore the furniture apart piece by piece. After the demolition of the office, some boys wrote graffiti on the now bare walls – the last JUL in Belgrade!

Even greater damage was done to the cosmetics shop, "Scandal", that belonged to Slobodan's son, Marko. People not only broke everything inside, they even took paint from the walls, and then sprayed more graffiti on the walls – "Go now to your daddy and cry!". The same fate befell almost every office of the SPS and JUL parties in Belgrade.

After the demolition, the liberation of the free media began.

In "Beogradjanka" tower, where Studio B Television and Radio Index station transmitted their programs, 15 policemen surrendered to my friend, who tricked them into believing that 100,000 people were in front of the tower, trying to get in. Studio B Television was completely controlled by the government. It was the first TV station to broadcast live from the streets of Belgrade, since RTS Television stopped broadcasting programs for many hours.

After a while, the first news came in, and it was good news: Belgrade's police HQ had surrendered and dismissed the whole police force. The army announced their neutrality in the clashes, as they had to protect the county, not the politicians. We were truly triumphant.

As Television Studio B started to broadcast their news, people spontaneously gathered in the center of the city to celebrate. That was another scene that touched my heart. After ten long years, people were smiling again.

All through the night people walked through the streets of Belgrade, looking for the last remnants of the old regime. After the Assembly building and the RTS building, people marched to the "Politika" building, the biggest news agency in the country, and "liberated" it also. Needless to say, the management of "Politika" left their offices and ran in panic at the sight of the people coming their way. In the morning, "Politika" printed "People of Serbia chose Kostunica for President", and a lot of people bought the papers to have a souvenir of the historic day.

I spent the rest of the night in the street. Too nervous to sleep, I was walking around, looking for friends, listening to stories and telling how I spent those few hours of what I called "revolution". I was sad to learn that the demonstrations had a death toll, as two people died during the day. One girl fell from the truck roof, under it's wheels, and died on the way to hospital, and another older man, suffered a heart attack, when he heard that Milosevic was gone. He was Milosevic's last victim.

Among the 300 wounded people, no one was in a critical condition, but a lot of them were shot either in police action, or later by accident during the celebration of the victory. I was uneasy because I heard that Milosevic was planning to use his personal guard and still-loyal forces to storm the town in the morning and retake control of the Assembly and the media he had lost, but that was only a rumour. Another rumour was that he had already left Serbia, on his way to Russia. But the very next day Milosevic appeared on TV and congratulated Kostunica on his victory. "From now on I will be in the opposition," he said.

In the days that followed, we saw numerous "liberations". Almost every media (TV, Radio or Press) was liberated, and their editors, directors and other key persons who were servants of the Milosevic regime were expelled, or better yet, they quit. Others who were known criminals or Milosevic's trusted men who were trying to get out of the country, or just to save what they had snatched in the past 10 years.

The TV station "Kosava", property of Milosevic's daughter Marija, was turned off on the night of 5th October and some days later sold to an unknown person for a small fraction of its real value. Others, who served Milosevic but didn't identify themselves in public quickly changed sides, and pledged loyalty to Vojislav Kostunica. Some of them praised Kostunica as their saviour as they had been forced to do as Milosevic wanted.

There were a few attempts to take money (or gold) from the country and run but they were stopped, except Milosevic's son Marko, who left the country in an airplane, with a passport in the name of Marko Jovanovic. There were some rumors that he tried to enter China but was turned away.

Those who occupied top positions in Milosevic's party, SPS, and Mirjana's JUL resigned, and most of them went into hiding. Those who decided to stand their ground until the end were forced to resign and sometimes even thrown out of their offices. After the resignation of Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Minister of Police and the Interior, everyone felt much safer, as the police forces were transferred to the control of DOS. Slobodan Milosevic faded away and the people of democratic Serbia celebrated for many days and nights.

PS. Even now there is so much to write about, especially about common people, workers, teachers, doctors who cleaned their factories, schools and hospitals of left-wing elements and Milosevic's servants.

But, we still have severe power shortages, almost every day, and in the face of coming winter I am afraid that this one will be much harder to survive than last one.