Protests in Serbia Archive
Odraz B92 Daily News Service

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    ODRAZ B92, Belgrade                             Daily News Service
    Odraz B92 vesti (by 5 PM), December 7, 1996

    e-mail: beograd@siicom.com      URL: http://www.siicom.com/odrazb/
            odrazb92@b92.opennet.org     http://www.siicom.com/b92/
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    All texts are Copyright 1996 Radio B92. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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    NEWS BY 5 PM
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    STUDENTS CROSS THE BRANKOV BRIDGE

    Around 20,000 student protesters crossed today the Brankov Bridge,
    connecting Belgrade with New Belgrade. In front of the building of
    the former Central Committee they planted a plum tree [Serbian
    national tree] they said would bear fruit when their demands have
    been met. Their march continued to the agency TANJUG building
    which they bombarded with old newspapers. ``TANJUG brings only
    yesterday's news,'' they said. Speaking to them in front of the
    Faculty of Philosophy, Sreten Vujovic, professor of sociology,
    said: ``Thanks to you, Belgrade has become a city of historical
    initiative.''


    ASSOCIATION OF PAINTERS OF SERBIA SUPPORTS STUDENTS

    The Executive Board of the Association of Painters of Serbia
    (ULUS) sent today a letter of support to the students of the
    Faculty of Arts of the Belgrade University. ``We join your protest
    and your endeavors to maintain your dignity, to keep our mutual
    right to fight for the truth and ultimate democratic values as
    politically independent individuals and institutions,'' said the
    letter.


    ``IZVESTIA:'' ``DEAD SYSTEM CANNOT HEAR LIVE PEOPLE IN THE
    STREETS''

    ``Massive anti-regime protests in Belgrade and other cities in
    Serbia show evidently that the authorities will not be able to
    avoid democratic changes for long,'' said the Russian daily
    ``Izvestia,'' stressing that ``the moribund system [in Serbia]
    cannot hear the live people in the streets.'' The authorities ``do
    not pay any attention to their citizens neither in their state-
    controlled TV nor in their radio programs,'' said the daily.
    Moscow press points especially to the incomprehensible attitude of
    the state-owned media. ``When you read the daily 'Politika', you
    can either laugh or weep, for this once most respected daily in
    Serbia as its front page news carries a report on bad weather in
    Italy at the time when the most massive demonstrations to date are
    in progress'' just a couple of city-blocks away from its editorial
    offices, said Izvestia.


    DEUTCH MARK LEAP IN MONTENEGRO

    ``Judging by the sudden and rapid leap in the buying and selling
    rate [of DM] on the black market, it seems that something serious
    is happening to the local currency,'' said the agency Montena Fax
    today. Since yesterday's sudden jump in the value of the Deutch
    Mark, the German currency has continued to go up, so that the
    street dealers in Podgorica are selling it at 3.8 and buying it at
    3.7 dinars. They have no definitive explanation for this, but they
    claim that no influx of freshly printed notes has been observed.


    ZILNIK'S FILM ON ``YELLOW REVOLUTION'' TODAY

    ``My documentary 'Do jaja' ['up to the balls, ' Serbian slang for
    'cool'; a political pun, as 'jaja' also means 'eggs' in Serbian]
    takes a stand against the straight-jacket the state-owned media
    are trying to put us in,'' said the director, Zelimir Zilnik. The
    documentary, which deals with the street demonstrations and the
    egg cannonades of the state-owned television and newspaper
    buildings, is to have its first screening tonight. Originally
    announced for yesterday, the premiere has been rescheduled for
    tonight.


    DEMONSTRATIONS OF SUPPORT IN NEW YORK TOMORROW

    ``At the initiative by Serbian students and other young
    intellectuals, permanently or temporarily living in the US and
    Canada, demonstrations will be staged in New York tomorrow, Dec 8,
    under the slogan 'Support for the Serbs in the Fatherland for the
    Liberation from a Dictatorial Regime','' said for FoNet Slobodan
    Pavlovic, foreign correspondent of the daily ``Nasa Borba.'' The
    demonstrations, to gather all democratically oriented Serbs in
    these countries, are to continue as long as there are protests
    going on in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia. Speeches are to
    be delivered in front of the building of the FRY Mission in New
    York, and the demonstrators will be invited to throw eggs and red
    paint on it.


    WASHINGTON STEPS UP ITS PRESSURE

    America continues to play a major role in stepping up
    international pressure on Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia.
    The United States government demands that, as a next step in
    opening of his closed system of government, Milosevic should start
    a dialogue with the opposition, reports Slobodan Pavlovic, US
    correspondent of the daily ``Nasa Borba.''  The White House and
    the State Department sent their message to Belgrade that
    opposition Zajedno must be allowed to take their seats in the
    municipal assemblies according to the results of the second round
    of local elections held on Nov 17. This must be done without any
    conditions being placed on the elected members of the opposition.
    However, messages from Washington also include a recommendation to
    the leaders of coalition Zajedno to ``cool down'' their
    ``inflammatory speeches'' about Milosevic as a man who must step
    down immediately. The United States and Western Europe agree that
    some kind of compromise must be obtained in order to pave the way
    to gradual change. The opposition wants official validation of its
    recent electoral victory and Milosevic wants to preserve absolute
    power. Compromise would be the first step towards the next level
    of republic-wide elections which are to be held in 1997, and which
    will give the opposition a chance to replace Milosevic by
    democratic means, i.e. by winning the next round of higher-level
    elections.


    PROPERTY AND BANK ACCOUNTS OF FR YUGOSLAVIA AND RS FROZEN FOR
    ANOTHER YEAR

    American President Bill Clinton sent a letter to both Senate and
    Congress stating that bank accounts and assets of FRY and RS
    should remain ``frozen'' for another year, reported AFP today. The
    decision, made public by the White House last night, is in fact an
    extension of the decision reached on May 30, 1992. At the time,
    the administration of President George Bush reached a similar
    decision relating to the property and funds belonging to the FRY
    in the USA. The UN Security Council's Resolution 1022 insisted on
    tentative lifting of the UN-imposed sanctions to FR Yugoslavia.
    The so-called ``outer wall'' of sanctions prevented FR Yugoslavia
    from re-joining the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank
    and other international institutions.


    COMMENT BY ``NOVOSTI DANA'' OF RADIO BELGRADE

    In its most recent comment on the demonstrations in Serbia, the
    state-controlled Radio Belgrade, among much else in the same vein,
    said this as well: ``Honest people cannot go home after work. The
    leaders [of Zajedno] keep orating, on and on, as if they'd sucked
    more eggs than has been thrown at the State Television by kids.
    That youngster who made a sign of the cross in front of the
    Presidential Building the other day is a clear example of the
    misuse of religion. And the kid obviously does not even know that
    he should take his cap off while making the sign. What is going on
    in the mind of that other boy, who keep throwing eggs just as
    Bosko Buha [a legendary hero from World War II] threw grenades at
    Nazi bunkers. What gives them [opposition leaders] the right to
    think that they are entitled to keep children away from school?
    They [the opposition] want to have their janissars [Serb boys who
    were abducted by Ottoman Turks during their occupation of Serbia
    and taken to Turkey to be brought up as crack-units of the Ottoman
    imperial army], because they love themselves more than anything
    else'' concludes the state radio in its comment.

    Prepared by: Aleksandra Scepanovic
    Edited by: Vaska Andjelkovic (Tumir)

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    ODRAZ B92, Belgrade                             Daily News Service
    e-mail: beograd@siicom.com      URL: http://www.siicom.com/odrazb/
            odrazb92@b92.opennet.org     http://www.siicom.com/b92/
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