Slobodan Markovic on 6 Oct 2000 18:07:56 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Eruption of people's wrath! |
"Eruption of people's wrath" was the headline in today's issue of one of Belgrade's daily newspapers. After a lot of thinking about all that happened, I can only say that it is the most accurate description of what has happened in Belgrade. Around a MILLION people from all around Serbia gathered yesterday on a big protest rally in front of the Federal Parliament building in Belgrade. That protest was supposed to be the peak of a mass civil disobedience campaign started in Serbia after the elections for Yugoslav president, where opposition candidate - Dr Vojislav Kostunica beat Slobodan Milosevic, and Milosevic's regime refused to acknowledge the election results and back off. The rally was scheduled to begin at 3 PM, but the city's downtown was crowded with people and busses around 10 AM already. Citizens and workers successfully fought their way to Belgrade, breaking through a lot of police barricades that were set for them on almost all major roads in Serbia. The most radical ones were people from the city of Chachak, who came to Belgrade with a digger truck! :-) While people were still gathering, a group of the most radical protesters tried to enter the Federal Parliament building, but were pushed back by some 50 riot policeman, who used batons and tear gas. After that incident everything calmed down for a while and police forces backed off into interior of the Federal Parliament building. Around 2 PM the official program of the protest rally started and opposition leaders begin addressing the crowd. That lasted until around 3:30 PM. Soon after police helicopter flew over the crowd, a group of people tried to enter the Federal Parliament building again. This time they were backed by a much larger crowd and succeeded in breaking the front doors. Police than used a large quantity of tear gas and dispersed the crowd on the plateau in front of the Federal Parliament building. Small police forces situated in the building had no chance against the protesters, who quickly blocked all approaches to the plateau with trash cans, cars, busses, etc. After the plateau was blocked and tear gas dispersed a bit, the crowd returned to the building and kicked out all police forces. A few police trucks and cars parked behind the Parliament building were set on fire. After the Parliament building was liberated protesters turned to National TV building, which is situated only a block away. With a little help from that crazy digging truck, the protesters broke into the building, chasing some 200 riot police forces out. During the building's siege someone throw a Molotov cocktail into it, so three out of five floors burned out. It was 5:30 PM, when protesters finished with National TV and dispersed trough the city's downtown. Soon afterwards, police surrendered one of the neighboring stations to the protesters. Special police and army anti-terrorist forces went out from their armored vehicles and joined the protesters. A few hours later around 30 police and army trucks left the downtown area. Between 5:30 PM and 6 PM media houses in Belgrade started "switching frequencies". Studio B started broadcasting fresh news about the situation in Belgrade using all of their radio and TV channels. Around the same time, another group of protesters liberated Radio B92's premises and the old crew started broadcasting on 92,5 MHz FM again! Three out of six radio frequency jammers that were interfering with programme of Index Radio for more than a month, were also found and destroyed. Between 6 PM and 9:30 PM all major TV and radio stations in Belgrade changed their editorial policy! Even the strongest bastions of Milosevic's regime "flipped the vinyl" and stared broadcasting fresh news about the riots: "Politika" TV, radio and daily newspaper; "Novosti" daily newspaper, the national news agency TANJUG and all channels of Serbian National Radio and TV (RTS). Even the two most popular mass-entertainment trash-media in Belgrade - Pink TV and Koshava TV, both connected with Milosevic's regime, interrupted their programs. Only two days ago we had the situation where only two radio stations were transmitting uncensored news on FM waves and even that feed was heavily jammed. Suddenly, in only a few hours, the complete media landscape in Serbia changed! The so-called "regime controlled media" just disappeared. Simple as that! Around 9:30 PM, everything was over and people started celebrating. Belgrade's downtown was COMPLETELY free of any police forces. Army stayed in their barracks. The rage lasted for only a few hours and Milosevic's regime collapsed like it was made from sand. Epilogue of the riots: two injured policeman, about 90 injured protesters and two unfortunate deaths (not directly connected to confrontation with police forces). I'm SO PROUD of people in Serbia who did everything in such manner, after ten years of living under constant tension and fear. I have never heard or seen that an extremely oppressive regime was completely beaten on the streets in barely six hours, without any bloodshed. All the best from Belgrade, Slobodan Markovic (twiddle@eunet.yu) ==================================== >>> www.internodium.org.yu <<< _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold