The first protest took place in Nis on 19 November, when the annulment of the electon was still an unconfirmed rumor. It attracted 20,000 people, 20% of the population. Local activists reported that there was a large police presence, including police from other parts of Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska.
The first protest in Belgrade took place on 21 November when it became clear that even the Belgrade election results were threatened. After gathering in the central square, the crowd of 50,000 marched past the City Council building to a planned rally near the Parliament. But because the police had confis- cated three sound systems, the rally was delayed, and the marchers moved through the streets in a large circle, return- ing to the center of town where they were addressed from a working sound system at Zajedno headquarters. This then has become a daily ritual, with the numbers growing larger with each passing day. Protesters gather at 3 every afternoon in front of the Zajedno office with whistles, horns, pipes, bells, pots and pans, and even empty beer cans, filled with beans to rattle. After one or two short speeches they start walking. The routes differ slightly each day, but usually they pass by the City Council, Milosevic's presidential office, the state television and the state-owned newspapers "Politika" or "Borba". At each of these places people whistle and shout against the institution, chanting "ne damo pobedu"(we won't give in), "bando crvena" (red gang), or "lopovi, lopovi" (thieves, thieves). A lot of anger and frustration gets especially directed against the state media. There are also sites which bring out great cheers of support and love from the crowd: the offices of independent Radio B-92, and the apartment of an elderly woman who is out every day on her balcony waving a flag and cheering them on. The crowd chants "Grandma," and everyone waves.
In the first few days, lots of eggs were thrown and also some stones at the buildings, so that now the TV-building and also "Politika" have broken windows and yellowish facades. Zajedno repeated its call for nonviolence and posted people standing at these places to discourage further attacks. In recent marches, people have been planting candles outside "Politika".
The crowd is very mixed. While the first few days of marchers attracted mostly young people, the participants seem to come from all age groups and social classes. The number of young people has grown less as the university student protests have begun (See StudUnt Protest section). At the beginning of the march, there are men with large SPO flags. In later marches, a truck moves slowly at the front carrying loudspeakers, used as a platform for Vuk Draskovic to make occasional speeches en route. Around this wagon there are a great number of people carrying nationalistic symbols: Yugoslavian tricolor flags, posters and banners with the Serbian cross and the four Cyrilic S's, some even wearing different kinds of "chetnik" (Serb nationalist) hats.
But in the middle and main body of the procession, the outspo- ken nationalistic symbols fade out, giving way to signs like "Snoopy against the Red Baron", " Watching too much State TV makes You loose Your sight", "A "handful" of 200.000 ...?" (referring to the state tv comment portraying the demonstra- tors as a "handful of people, incidentally passing by"). People in the march are quite friendly, there are lots of smiles, conversations and laughter. Whistle and noisemaker duets happen spontaneously. People tend to start up their own chants rather than following anything coming from the sound truck.
There is no sense of latent violence and the crowds are re- markably disciplined. There are virtually no monitors along the route, except at key buildings as mentioned above. A handful of traffic police keep the traffic lanes closed, but for a few days, police stopped doing this, creating small, frustrated traffic jams. Demonstrators spontaneously stepped in to keep the roads clear and tried to ward off those motor- ists angry by the delay. Both the bus drivers union and taxi drivers union are supporters of Zajedno, and thus their mem- bers have adapted willingly to the congestion.
At the end of every march, there is a rally with speeches from the Party leaders and messages of support from all over the world. After the first few days, these rallies got smaller in size while the marches grew. This is another sign that people are inspired to protest from their own personal motivations and not because of party politics.
The Students' Protest
Early in the protests, Belgrade's university students began their own protest efforts. All the faculties are on strike, there are daily student protest marches, and students have set up email communications with students around the world. They are very clear about keeping their protests independent of Zajedno and the political parties, setting their protest marches for 12 noon every day. The Student'Protest '96 commit- tees work day and night.
The students'main demand is for the forming of a commission, which will investigate any claimed election irregularity. They also want the replacement of both the University rector and the students' pro-rector because both have made public speeches which denied the protest and incriminated the demonstrators. Beyond these demands the students are hoping for a strong social impact together with the other demonstrations and they hope that their own protest marches act as a motivation for people on an overall level to take part in the demonstrations. One of their leaflets was specifically addressed to their parents, explaining that the students would stick it out alone but they would prefer to have their parents join them.
The students are well organized and have prepared themselves for possible violence from the police. Designated monitors walk in front and along the sides and in the case of a clash with police, participants are prepared to all sit down in the road en masse. The protests have been very creative. After the state media accused them of being destructive and fascist, they built a brick wall in front of the Federal Parlia- ment building and sprayed on it: We are not destructing but constructing.
Police
In Nis, in the first marches, there were high tensions from a strong police presence, including some with automatic weapons and riot control equipment. But the police have been largely absent from the protests in Belgrade, and there have been no police incidents. However, according to independent newspapers, 32 persons have been arrested and are accused of damaging public property. On Sunday, 1 December, state TV broadcast a speech by the presi- dent of the Federal Parliament, who called the demonstrators fascists and warned that police would no longer tolerate these demonstrations for reasons of security to both traffic and buildings. The warning had an opposite effect: An estimated 80.000 people were on the street the next day, in spite of heavy snow. Apart from a few policemen regulating the traffic there were no police to be seen, but we were told, that about 2.000 special police sealed off the way to Milosevic's villa.
There are sympathizers among the police. The independent newspaper, Nasa Borba, printed a letter of support from 65 po- lice to protesters in the city of Kraljevo, reassuring their fellow citizens, that they would not go against them but rather protect them from other police of a different mind, especially those from other towns.
Local Media
While there has been a great amount of international media coverage of the protests, the Belgrade media coverage has been small. This includes two indpendent daily newspapers, "Nasa Borba" and "Demokratija", and independent radio stations, Radio B92 and the student radio Index. The radio stations were jammed for several days and were finally shut down. Although their signals only reached a small geographical range, this elimination of independent radio brought out a new surge in demonstrators: the following day, there were 200.000 marchers. The government retracted from B92's cancellation the next day.
The two newspapers have been reporting widely on mass demon- strations in other towns of Yugoslavia as well as Belgrade. "Demokratija" is a new creation, published by journalists who left another independent daily "Blic", after its Austrian owner Peter Kolbl wrote a public letter stating that the demonstrators were not respecting democracy. Until that point "Blic" had been covering the demonstrations extensively, with an increase in circulation from 30.000 to 200.000, but Kolbl was apparently under pressure to protect his investments. "Demokratija" is being backed by the Democratic party and selling well.
Activists
Belgrade activists in local NGOs who Balkan Peace Team spoke with expect very little from Zajedno except for a change from the Milosevic regime. Many consider the coalition quite dubi- ous and unreliable, and with nationalistic tendencies in each of the member party leaders, either for real or out of tempo- rary strategic reasons.
Activists have a variety of assessments regarding the pro- tests. Members from Women in Black clearly say that they are not supporting Zajedno, but they take part in the demonstra- tion each and every day, because they see them as a hopeful sign that people have lost their fright of speaking out, particularly after the large demonstrations in 1991 and 1992 which were crushed by government tanks and ended in violence and death. They hope for a change. The Women in Black are worried about a lack of concept and strategy in the Zajedno's handling of the demonstrations. Women in Black have been creating and distributing leaflets at every march with sugges- tions what to do in a case of violence and how to apply nonvi- olent resistance. Each leaflet contains 5 suggestions derived from Gene Sharpe's list of 200+ forms of nonviolent action. WiB members have also offered their ideas to the striking students and Jelena Santic from Group 484 has been speaking at daily student forums.
Other activists have taken a more cynical perspective, choos- ing to stay away from something they see as a "walking Zajedno-rally" or attending only on those occasions when it seemed important to stand up to the police threats. Feminist activists have added to the critique, pointing out how strong- ly the demonstrations are characterized by nationalist male chauvinists. _________________________________________________________
If they can do it there, under communist control, why isn't possible to do it here?