Crackdown Feared as Serbia Bans Protests

The government of President Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday banned street demonstrations amid signs that the embattled Serbian leader may be moving to crush an opposition movement that has been protesting election fraud for more than a month.

Police, who on Tuesday beat protesters in the first significant violence recorded since the demonstrations began, will “intervene” to end any “disruptions of law and order” on city streets, the Interior Ministry said in a statement issued late Wednesday night.

The warning followed another day of protest, when defiant and boisterous opposition demonstrators returned to the snowy streets of this Serbian and Yugoslav capital, despite clashes the day before with Milosevic’s bused-in supporters and his riot police.

Opposition leaders had earlier said they feared Milosevic would use Tuesday’s violence to justify a wider crackdown, and they predicted a protest ban would be ordered. A previous prohibition was ignored. But that was before police beatings and other skirmishes injured more than 50 people.

Vuk Draskovic, one of three leaders of the opposition coalition known as Zajedno, or Together, late Wednesday urged his followers to disregard the police order. “We are walking against the stealing of elections, and we will continue walking,” he told radio listeners. “Citizens, behave as though you didn’t hear the [government] message and walk tomorrow in all directions.”

On Wednesday, the protest began with a lower number than usual of students, who used liquid detergent and brooms to “decontaminate” the site of the previous day’s pro-Milosevic rally. Later, tens of thousands of opposition activists marched through downtown, then gathered in Republic Square. No riot police were visible and no violence was reported. Today may be different.

Shattering more than five weeks of relatively peaceful protest against Milosevic for annulling opposition victories in municipal elections, Tuesday’s fighting has made a solution to the political crisis seizing Serbia seem more remote than ever. Both sides hardened their positions Wednesday.

“Frankly, it seems now there is no room for dialogue,” said Vesna Pesic, another Zajedno leader. “We can be nice and say we are ready for dialogue, but the reality we saw yesterday is he [Milosevic] doesn’t want it.”

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In police-escorted buses, Milosevic transported thousands of his rural, working-class supporters to Belgrade on Tuesday for a rally timed to upstage the daily demonstration by opposition forces.

The bewildered government supporters, reportedly paid to attend and unaware of what they would be up against, fought with opposition hecklers until police separated the two sides. Police later fired tear gas and used batons to disperse opposition activists.

But the regime controlled by Milosevic for the last nine years, shaken by protests it cannot stop, was reportedly stunned by the low turnout of its supporters, a fraction of the crowd mustered by Zajedno and student groups.

Flanked by the elite of his leftist ruling coalition, including his powerful wife, Milosevic addressed his rally and attempted to portray his opponents as foreign lackeys who want to weaken Serbia, which with tiny Montenegro makes up the rump Yugoslavia.

As he did during his rise to power in the late 1980s, Milosevic drummed up support by creating an enemy within that must be resisted. The earlier performance played on festering nationalism and led to the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation and to savage civil war in neighboring republics.

On cue, Milosevic’s supporters Wednesday issued condemnations of the violence, blaming it exclusively on the opposition, and demanded punishment of the “peace-breakers.”

“Zajedno displayed its terrorist techniques by throwing stones and beating people,” one group said in a statement read on official radio. “They provoked many incidents, showing what kind of democracy they are. . . . We condemn the wild behavior of extreme and militant [members] of the Zajedno coalition.”

State television, which broadcast Milosevic’s speech live and has been repeating it regularly, included coverage Wednesday of the fights “provoked by leaders of Zajedno” and praised the police for restoring order.

Controlled by Milosevic, state television is the main source of news for all Serbia; it did not broadcast footage of a Socialist Party supporter shooting an opposition activist in the head, the most serious of Tuesday’s injuries.

In one sign of compromise, however, opposition leaders signaled their willingness to go to new elections if the Nov. 17 results are recognized. This would allow Zajedno to have its people in office overseeing preparation for the new round of voting.

Milosevic’s hard-line speech, declaring that Serbia will not be enslaved to a foreign power, may also have been a preemptory slap at the findings of an international commission examining the alleged election fraud that has sparked 38 days of protest. A delegation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will make recommendations by the end of this week and is expected to urge Milosevic to recognize the Nov. 17 results.

Already, officials of the regime are prepared to dismiss the OSCE findings, even though the delegation came to Belgrade at Milosevic’s invitation. “The commission can give its opinion, but it has no right to [enforce] conclusions,” Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic told the daily newspaper Nasa Borba.