1-200,000 RALLY Vs. EXTRADITION In BELGRADE! - MARCH TO KOSTUNICA'S OFFICE!

As I write this I am listening by connection with a friend's cellular phone to the rally in Republic Square in Belgrade.

The sound is indescribable. The crowd is immense, the biggest my friend has ever seen. People respond to the speakers with a sound like the roar of lions. The speakers and the crowd are passionately against the decree passed last Saturday by the DOS parties in the Yugoslav Administration, 'authorizing' extradition of Milosevic and other Yugoslav patriots to NATO's war crimes tribunal. Speakers are saying this is treason to the Serbian nation. That the Constitution is the highest legal obligation of any state and that by breaking the constitution one betrays the nation. They are saying that all Serbian people and others loyal to Yugoslavia must unite and take back their government and throw out those who have betrayed the nation to Washington, which dangles false bribes to humiliate the Serbian people.

I am told that this crowd, whose passion is so great the phone is vibrating against my ear, includes activists from parties besides the Socialists, including Mr. Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia. The DSS people are outraged that Mr. Kostunica has stifled within his own party criticism of this gross violation of the constitution. Earlier, one of them took the phone from my friend and yelled at me against the roar of the background: "We are now the Serbian Undemocratic Party!'"

I had the honor of being one of the speakers at the huge (though smaller) rally March 24th in this same Republic Square, to commemorate the onset of bombing of Yugoslavia on march 24, 1999. Afterwards one of the leaders of Kostunica's party gave me the red beret that he had worn as an officer in the Army of the Republika Srpska. He said, "Our coalition with Djindjic is just temporary."

But now Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Djindjic are acting as one. Has Kostunica betrayed his beliefs? Or was he always really a decoy to supply patriots the illusion of a hope that in him they had a defender within DOS? Whatever the case, now the U.S. has made its wishes quite clear and Kostunica has quite clearly obeyed and, say these activists in the DSS, crushed dissent in his party.

The noise has died down a little, and my friend is translating what some of the speakers said.

"At the rally people were speaking with one voice. They said: Abolish the decree! Serbian and Yugoslav governments should resign! Nobody should be extradited to The Hague! Those who adopted that illegal decree should be criminally charged! There must be general elections on all levels because the government has committed treason and lied and therefore nobody any longer supports them!"

MARCH TO KOSTUNICA'S OFFICE

The rally is over. I lost the connection with the first Belgrade friend, so I am calling another. (I will refrain from using people's names due to the intensity of the situation in Belgrade.)

A column of more 100-200,000 people has left Republic Square. They are moving through Belgrade. There is a truck in front, blaring music, and behind that, a broad line of people with a huge sign FREEDOM FORE SERBIA! EXTRADITE NO ONE TO THE HAGUE! Or words to that effect.

The column is without end. At this moment they are passing Djindjic's party headquarters, and the crowd is roaring their disapproval. I have to wait a few minutes for my friend to get far enough from that point for the noise to quiet down enough so he can be heard. My friend says:

"We will pass near the Serbian parliament and government and then we will go to Kostunica's office. Our people today sent him a letter reminding him of all his past statements, that he was against the Hague Tribunal, against extradition, that extradition violated the Yugoslav constitution, that it required a Yugoslav law, that he stood for the dignity of Serbia, that he stood for defending sovereignty from NATO and on and on and called on him to appear at the rally today. Now since he has not appeared we are going to his office to demand that he come out and address the people and explain: Who is ruling Yugoslavia?"

Earlier I spoke to an activist who had just been to the Belgrade prison where Mr. Milosevic is being held. Members of the People's Guards, a group of mainly women who were beaten by agents of the government while acting as unarmed witnesses at Mr. Milosevic's residence during the March 28-29th arrest attempt, are holding a vigil there. The activist told me that there is a large contingent of police outside, nervously guarding the gates.

This is what the current authorities, these great democrats, have been reduced to. Fearful cops, waiting for the people to storm the Bastille.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)