Serbia Demonstrators Defy Scare Tactics

Roaring crowds defied government scare tactics and a blizzard Monday to march against the authoritarian rule of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and leaders vowed to press ahead with their 2-week-old protest.

Turning aside threats of a police crackdown--and the noticeably large presence of hundreds of police officers in helmets and flak jackets--thousands of demonstrators slushed through downtown streets and rallied outside opposition headquarters.

Police, meanwhile, reported that 32 demonstrators had been arrested for “destructive and violent acts.”

A boisterous protest that began when Milosevic annulled Nov. 17 municipal elections won by the opposition has mushroomed into the most sustained challenge ever to the regime. On Sunday night, Milosevic-controlled state television and a senior government official lashed out at opposition leaders, branding them fascists and terrorists and comparing them to Hitler.

“Are we frightened by yesterday’s speech?” Civic Alliance President Vesna Pesic called to the crowd Monday evening from the fourth-floor balcony of the opposition group’s headquarters.

“No!” they roared back.

“Do we understand the language he is using?” she continued. “He is not speaking Serbian. He is using a language of the past.”

The Sunday night verbal attack, and a similar tone in headlines in state-run newspapers Monday, suggested that Milosevic is losing patience and preparing to use police to crush the marches. No clashes were reported Monday, but several government officials, including the deans of two universities, joined a chorus of condemnation of the demonstrations.

The demonstrators took the precaution of changing their route and avoiding the offices of the government’s principal newspaper and television station, where protesting groups last week used rocks and garbage cans to smash windows. Milosevic’s proxies are seeking to portray the opposition as violent terrorists, but with a few exceptions, the demonstrators have been peaceful, their weapon of choice eggs.

On Monday, when no police action materialized, opposition leaders claimed they had called Milosevic’s bluff. “We defeated violence in a peaceful way,” proclaimed Vuk Draskovic, president of the Serbian Renewal Movement, another member of Zajedno (Together), the opposition coalition.

“We cannot be stopped. We will meet any provocation with sitting and singing . . . and flowers. We will not give him ammunition. If he is ready to produce a tragedy, we will not reply.”

Milosevic’s strategy is likely to be focused on a more long-term intimidation. After muzzling most independent media, he is now equating the opposition with the most hated enemies of the Serbian people: fascists and Albanian separatists. The tactic appears aimed at driving a wedge between the opposition and those loyal to the government in a society already severely divided.

Dragan Tomic, speaker of the Serbian parliament, who delivered the most scathing attacks on the opposition during an appearance Sunday night on state television, accused foes of the regime of “manipulating children”--a reference to the large number of students who are participating.

On Monday, the students responded.

“It is very nice that you are worried about us, Mr. Tomic,” Belgrade University’s student association said in a statement. “But where were you when kids of our age . . . were getting killed in Vukovar and various other front lines?

“While you were shedding our blood, you didn’t worry about our age.”

Milosevic sent Serbian paramilitary units to the Croatian city of Vukovar and other battlegrounds during a war between Serbia, the largest component of the rump Yugoslavia, and an independence-minded Croatia in 1991.