Serbia Chief Gags Radio Reports of Protests

Ignoring a warning from Washington, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday shut down the only radio stations in the capital that had provided reliable coverage of massive anti-government protests.

The move came as five Supreme Court justices broke ranks with a Milosevic-controlled judiciary and lent support to the demonstrators, who are protesting the president’s decision to annul opposition victories in Nov. 17 municipal elections. It was the first crack in the formidable state machinery that keeps Milosevic in power.

Despite growing domestic and international pressure, Milosevic appeared to be hardening his position and scuttling efforts to find a peaceful solution to the tense political standoff that has exhilarated opposition forces for more than two weeks. The protests continued Tuesday, with 50,000 demonstrators marching noisily through Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital.

“The government seems to be retreating into a bunker mentality, which is self-damaging and self-defeating,” said a European diplomat who has been involved in efforts to open dialogue between Milosevic and his opponents. “I do not now see any chance for common ground, for rapprochement or for bringing the two sides together.”

In an ominous characterization of the opposition, the chief spokesman for Milosevic’s Socialist Party, Ivica Dacic, blamed the unrest on “foreign extremist factors.” Dacic linked the opposition to “all those forces that satanized our country in previous years”--a veiled reference to the United States and the foreign media.

A day earlier, the U.S. State Department agreed that the Serbian president “stole” the elections and warned that Washington would react with “outrage” if he used force to repress the demonstrations. It was the most severe wording to date in what has been a generally mild U.S. reaction.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns called Milosevic’s action in closing the radio stations “a transparent effort to keep the Serbian public in the dark.” He added, “It demonstrates the fundamental lack of respect and lack of regard the Serbian government has for democratic principles.

“It is curious indeed that the Milosevic regime views even these modest and peaceful attempts to speak publicly by members of the media to be somehow a threat to the Serbian government itself,” he said.

Independent radio station B-92 and a smaller, student-run station, Index, were ordered closed Tuesday by the Federal Communications and Transport Ministry. At 2:07 p.m., in the middle of a newscast, the plug was pulled on B-92, after several days in which the signal had been periodically jammed.

B-92 had gained a loyal following as one of the few sources of independent news in a country where most media, firmly controlled by Milosevic and his Socialists, have ignored or condemned the demonstrations. Since the start of the daily marches and rallies, elderly men and women desperate for information could be seen straining to listen to B-92 despite its menu of avant-garde techno music.

Managers at B-92 were notified that they would be shut down in a fax from the ministry, which said it had been investigating the reports of jamming when it discovered that the station did not have a license and was operating illegally. Few nongovernment radio and television stations anywhere in the Balkans are ever awarded licenses, and B-92 had been working on a semi-legal basis for seven years.

Also Tuesday, five Supreme Court judges published an open letter on the front page of the independent Nasa Borba newspaper, labeling as “shameful” a decision to let stand Milosevic’s annulment of election results.

Last week, five other members of the Supreme Court issued a ruling that confirmed Milosevic’s electoral shenanigans by rejecting an appeal from the opposition. The five speaking out now accused their colleagues of bowing to political and electoral pressure.

“I do not believe in defending the state from democracy,” Justice Zoran Ivosevic wrote.

The defection of the judges is significant because analysts here believe that for Milosevic to be removed from power, pressure will have to come from within the regime--not from a coalition of disparate political parties with narrow appeal.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.