Serbian Opposition Leader Shot

A gunman slightly wounded Serbia’s most powerful opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic, late Thursday with a burst of automatic weapons fire at a coastal vacation home in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, police and aides to the politician said today.

Members of Draskovic’s Serbian Renewal Movement called the 11:30 p.m. shooting an assassination attempt, the second in less than a year on the longtime foe of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Draskovic, 53, was hit by two bullets. According to conflicting accounts, he was either sitting inside or leaving the house, which is owned by his wife’s family in the Adriatic resort of Budva. He was rushed to a hospital in nearby Kotor.

Yugoslavia’s official Tanjug news agency quoted a hospital official, Nebojsa Bjelica, as saying that Draskovic was treated for a bullet wound through his left ear and a 3-inch-long gash caused by another bullet across his right temple.

The house was “riddled with bullets,” said Ognjen Pribicevic, an aide to the politician.

Ranko Kuljaca, a police official in Budva, said the shooting was under investigation. He offered no details.

Draskovic was placed under the protection of Montenegro’s police early today. Montenegro is Serbia’s smaller, sister republic in the Yugoslav federation.

Montenegro’s 20,000-member police force is independent of Milosevic and loyal to Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, who is trying to move his republic away from the Yugoslav strongman’s control and align it with the West.

That effort has been fraught with conflict. Djukanovic’s top security advisor, Goran Zugic, was shot to death May 31 in what Montenegrin officials described as an assassination carried out by Milosevic’s secret service.

Draskovic, whose party runs many of Serbia’s city governments, was slightly injured in October in a car crash in Serbia that killed three aides and his brother-in-law.

Draskovic accused the Milosevic regime of being behind the crash, in which a truck loaded with sand veered into three cars carrying Draskovic and his entourage.

The government denied the accusation, and police say they have not been able to find the driver or the owner of the truck.

Draskovic, a charismatic politician and former journalist, has repeatedly challenged Milosevic without success in presidential elections in Serbia and Yugoslavia.

In 1991, more than three years after Milosevic came to power, Draskovic led the first street protests against him. Those demonstrations were violently crushed by the police and the army.

In 1993, Draskovic and his wife, Danica, were severely beaten and later arrested after a policeman was killed following street protests organized by his party.

In late 1996 and early 1997, Draskovic, along with fellow opposition leaders Zoran Djindjic and Vesna Pesic, led almost three months of street protests against the regime, forcing Milosevic to recognize opposition victories in local elections.

In January 1999, Draskovic abandoned the opposition and joined Milosevic’s Yugoslav government as deputy prime minister, saying the country needed unity in the face of North Atlantic Treaty Organization threats to drive its army from Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

But soon after NATO launched its bombing attacks in the spring of 1999, Draskovic accused Milosevic of mishandling the conflict and resigned from the government.

Since then, Milosevic’s allies have launched a fierce campaign against Draskovic, accusing his supporters of being behind the slaying of a senior government official in May.

Also in May, the government took over the television station in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, that Draskovic controls through his party’s leadership of the city council.

Draskovic has insisted in recent weeks that his party cannot participate in Yugoslav parliamentary elections this autumn because of growing repression and “state terrorism.”