The New York Times

Friday, July 9, 1999

Anti-Milosevic Rally Draws 3,000; Counterrally Is Barred

By CARLOTTA GALL

PROKUPLJE, Yugoslavia -- Protesters against President Slobodan Milosevic gathered in the main square of this small southern town Thursday night, while the government, which had planned to stage a rally of its own in response, failed to do so.

The Alliance for Change, a collection of pro-democracy parties, drew 3,000 to 4,000 people to its rally here.

Ratko Zecevic, the leading regional official of President Milosevic's Socialist Party and head of the Toplice regional administration, said he had called off his rally after the police denied his party the necessary permission.

"We don't want a civil war," Zecevic told reporters as crowds gathered early Thursday evening in the square. But he let off a burst of pistol shots into the air from the balcony of his party headquarters, perhaps to stop a scuffle that was going on below his balcony.

Zoran Zivkovic, the mayor of Nis and vice president of the Democratic Party, interpreted the action differently. "His aim is to frighten people so they leave the rally," he said.

Across the square, government supporters unfurled banners from the balcony of an apartment building with messages directed at the Democratic Party leader, Zoran Djindjic, and Vuk Obradovic of the Social Democracy Party, both local men. One read, "Traitors, get out of Toplice," repeating the criticism by the government news media and Milosevic supporters that Djindjic is a traitor for having left Belgrade during the war. The government has attacked Obradovic for his demands that Milosevic resign.

The crowd in the square -- a mixture of young and old, workers and members of the middle class -- hit back, pelting the men hanging the banners with stones and striking one in the head. The men retreated, and let the banners sag.

"Serbia, get up!" Goran Svilanovic, leader of the Civic Alliance party, urged the crowd. He then referred to anti-government protests in other cities. "Look at yourselves! Look at your friends in Cacak, Leskovac, Uzice and Novi Sad. Everyone is on there feet."

Djindjic said, "We should devote July and August to the salvation of Serbia and go out into the streets every day to show it." The crowd cheered and applauded.

The turnout, in a town of only 35,000 people in an area considered a bastion of Socialist control, was high. The people ignored the violence, and even a group of men who described themselves as "old Communists," said it was time for change.

The loudest cheers were for jokes about Milosevic and his wife, Mirjana Markovic, and frequent jeers and boos were directed at Zecevic.

Some in the crowd were Serbian refugees from Kosovo, while others said they had relatives or close ties to the province, which lies just an hour's drive from Prokuplje. "They brought shame upon us by committing war crimes," Svilanovic said at the rally. "Four wars are behind these people. Four wars that have been defeats. Only one victory is in front of us. That he leaves!"

That brought nods from Kristina Lula and her boyfriend, Jovan Tomic, who had fled Prizren, Kosovo, together. A small-time trader, he had been called up into the army as a reservist for the last months of the war.

"We are unhappy with everything," Tomic said of Kosovo. "We blame both the regime and everything that was happening there." He said the atrocities in Kosovo were committed not by the Yugoslav Army but by others. "We've got to have change," he said. "It's now or never."

Ms. Lula's grandmother, a retired music teacher, spoke up beside her. "For 10 years we have been drowning, going down deeper and deeper," she said. "Change would mean a lot for us."

Before the rally, Djindjic and his group spent the day in Kosovo, meeting with Serbian opposition leaders and representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and with U.N. and European officials.

As they emerged from a meeting on the grounds of the Gracanica monastery, they were set upon by an angry mob of Serbs, who landed a few punches and kicks before NATO soldiers arrived to break them up.