WE KNOW WHAT WE WANT

'96 Students' Protest

AIM Belgrade, 3 December, 1996

For ten days already, students are sending word to the regime that they really mean it and that they will not give up their demands for respect of the Constitution and the laws of this country. They consider stealing of votes a disgrace unfit for a country with any self-respect. To threats by police they quote the famous sentence of the President Milosevic: "Nobody shall beat you!"

Chairman of the Assembly of Serbia, Dragan Tomic, on the eve of the state holiday, 29 November, put an equation mark between the almost fortnight's protests of the citizens of Serbia due to "reshaping" of the results of local elections with the scenario which brought Hitler to power, and called the demonstrators and the opposition - fascists who are abusing children, that is, students.

Supporters of the coalition "Together" responded to this with new massive gathering in the streets of Belgrade (this time those who had never been at the protest also came), and the students made it clear that they were neither children nor fascists: "It is wonderful that you are concerned about us, Mr Tomic, but where have you been when persons of our age, by order of the regime you belong to, were killed in battlefields around Vukovar and various other scenes of the war. While you were spilling our blood, you were not concerned about our age", the Steering Committee of the '96 Students' Protest sent word to the mentioned gentleman. Reminding that they are not chidlren, but voters "who are with full legal and moral responsibility going out into the streets every day and demanding from serious and responsible people like Tomic to respect the law". "You are children because you do not even have sufficient seriousness to respect the rules of the game you yourself have made..." They are sending word to the authorities that they are not afraid of application of force, and remind Tomic of the President's words uttered in '87: "Nobody shall beat you!" hoping that this especially refers to children. For the time being, for already ten days they peacefully demonstrate in the streets and they are having the only close contact with the police mostly in front of the American Embassy where the girls from the column offered flowers to the policemen. Since men on duty would not budge, they left flowers at their feet.

This is the third time in the course of the ten-year rule of President Milosevic that the students have come out into the streets to protest. Nobody is indifferent to this act. The citizens are greeting them, and the authorities are shuddering.

For the first time, they came out into the streets in March 1991. The authorities welcomed them with tanks, tear-gas and brutal intervention of the police nar the bridge on the Sava. Thanks to them, the demonstrations lasted longer, and the then minister of police, Radmilo Bogdanovic was forced to resign. At the time, under pressure, director of Radio-Television Serbia, Dusan Mitevic alos had to leave his post. Milosevic, of course, survived, and the "plush revolution" came to an end. In later developments, it will be remembered that the students at the time hissed off the then highly popular among the authorities and a part of the opposition, Radovan Karadzic. The Serb Patriarch Pavle fared equally badly, when he called them to disperse and give up on their first revolution in multiparty Serbia.

Probably for the first and the last time, Slobodan Milosevic agreed to talk to the students. He was literally defeated, humuliated and had no answer for a single students' question. The humiliation of the big leader had to be paid for by the students who in the hall of the Administration Building of the Belgrade University dared ask anything. They were taken to police stations for interrogation, taken into custody, maltreated in various ways. At that time of war, nationalistic euphoria and hysteria, had no time for students any more. They were slowly and silently leaving the country. According to the generally known data, about 200 thousand highly educated young people have already left.

They reacted again in June 1992. They shut themselves at their faculties, protesting against the authorities who have led the country into war, the sanctions and misery, against unequal conditions in the elections. They demanded replacement of the entire administration and Slobodan Milosevic, scheduling of elections, and liberation of television. The unprecedented force and high level of organization was manifested by them in walks around the streets when within two hours they completely blocked traffic in the city. They tried to go to number 33 Tolstojeva street to have coffee with family Milosevic. They were close to their home when instead of with coffee they were welcomed with cordons of police forces. Helpless to change things on their own, they withdrew and went abroad. War cries overpowered the young anti-war wisdom of Serbia. Forcible mibilization followed for the war in which "Serbia did not participate". This battle was founght individually by the students: running for their lives, the hid in other people's homes and other people's countries. Serbia was not interested in students at the time, but in war cries and Slobodan Milosevic.

The Belgrade University disappeared from the political and the social scene of Serbia. The head of the University who expressed support for the students was discharged, the Council of the University was dissolved and a new one, to the liking and by measure of the authorities, was elected. The University completely and finally lost its autonomy, and the best students and professors left the country.

After four years during which it was ignored both by the "position" and the opposition, the new generation of students of Belgrade University is in the streets again. For ten days already, about twenty thousand young people saved from the war and mobilization only thanks to the fact that they were under age, are protesting in their own way. Warning the authorities that they exist, that they are discontented, poor, insulted by the theft of election results committed by the state. They are expressing their rebellion independently, gathering every day on the square in front of the Faculty of Philosophy from where they start on a walk around the city holding their matriculation books high above their heads and shouting "The students have risen".

On 1 December, the world day of struggle against AIDS, they showered the building of the Supreme Court of Serbia with condoms crying: "Thieves, give us our votes back". With ovations of discontent, and by turning their backs they manifest every day while passing by Republican and city institutions. In front of the building of the city electoral commission, a couple of days ago, rolls of toilet paper were thrown, on which it was written "We are fed up with shit", "Red gang of thieves, crawlers..."

Advised by the experience from previous unsuccessful protests, they are fighting the authorites in their own way, and they are keeping away from the opposition. They do not go in an organized manner to the rallies of the coalition "Together", and they formulated their demands in four items: repsect of the Constitution and laws, formation of a new independent parity republican commission, resignation of Dragutin Velickovic, the head of the Belgrade University, who is ignoring protest of the students and their demands, and the student Vice-Chancellor, Vojin Djurdevic, because, as they say, he has forgotten that he was a representative of the students and not the authorities.

One of the leadres of '96 students' protest, Dusan Vasiljevic, believes that this protest should be the initiative for creation of a broad front of civil disobedience. He says that the students are not afraid of the police "because if they should attack the academic citizens, it would mark the definite end of the regime." Comparing the protest in '68 and the present one, Vasiljevic says that there is an essential difference: "the protest then was not successful, and this one will surely succeed".

The twenty-year olds in the protesting march know exactly what they want: they are fed up with misery, poverty, war, dictatorship, primitivism and communism. These young people who have grown up under sanctions in the country rejected by the world, seem to have matured too soon. The wisdom of their protest is visible every step of the way. They summarized all the results of Milosevic's policy on a single banner. After the first election slogan of the ruling party: "With us, there is no uncertainty", they drew a line and wrote "war". To the second, even better known slogan of the Socialist Party of Serbia: "Serbia shall not bend", they also added - "sanctions and Dayton". And to the latest promise of the SPS: "We shall go on", they added - the Hague. Nobody has better and more clearly illustrated the effects of Milosevic's ten-year rule. Grown old before their time they actually made it clear to everyone that they wish to have a future, to change the authorities in the elections and that they will not give up. They organized themselves in such a manner that they can last as many days as necessary to realize their demands. They say, another day longer than that - in order to celebrate the victory. They do not suffer from the leadership syndrome, nor of lack of imagination. Representatives of all faculties sit on the Main Board, an they surprise the citizens of Belgrade every day with a new imaginative action at temperatures near zero Celsius. Yesterday they carried out rat poisoning and disintectization of the building of the Assembly of Serbia, showering it with white chalk against cockroaches. Their motto is that flowers are more effective than stones and words are better than broken eggs. They are quite aware that if blood is spilt on the streets now, it will cause a new bloodshed. They wish peacefully to drag themselves from the mire in which Serbia has fallen up to its neck.

In the past few days, one thousand professors of Belgrade University supported with their signatures students' demands at the initiative of the board for defence of democracy at the Belgrade University. Other university centres in Serbia are also offering support. Students of Nis and Pristina University are also on strike. Congratulations of solidarity arrived from the students of Podgorica. The authorities are planning new threats every day. It was announced that the minister of education of Serbia has announced that all professors who have expressed support for the students were sacked. The students smile and say: "The teaching process will be deprived of the best".

Current students' discontent and the manner in which they are fighting for respect of the Constitution and the laws, in the country in which they live without doubt is a big challenge for the authorities who do not seem to know what to do with them. After each unsuccessful protest, they got used to seeing rebels leaving the country. This generation of brains in Serbia, however, has no intention to do it. They know what they want and they will not give up. The regime has tried to underestimate and intimidate them. They called them misguided children and thereatened them with force. Academic citizens responded with even more massive participation in protesting walks around Belgrade, "armed" with toy trumpets, flowers, balloons, banners. With their protests, the students are "driving" citizens of Belgrade, even the oldest ones, out into the streets, too. Because, when they are outside every day in the snow and in the cold, one simply feels ashamed to sit at home. After a long interruption, civil solidarity is becoming evident in the streets of Belgrade again.

(AIM) Branka Kaljevic