Anti-War Protests in Serbia

AIM Podgorica, 31 May, 1999

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

Belgrade New Cemetery in the last days of May. Among members of the family, friends and a couple of comrades just arrived on three-day soldiers' leave, soldier D.J. is buried, a Belgrader, student of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Belgrade, doing his regular military service in Yugoslav Army (VJ). Pursuant the war laws, names of conscripts killed in Kosovo are not published. There are no obituaries in the newspapers. The family receives a tin coffin, unopened. The closest relatives are entitled only to tears and a silent adieu from the killed. There is no military honorary squad nor speeches.

Behind the coffin walked a young man, almost still beardless, too small for the uniform he was wearing... "It was raining cats and dogs. We slept outdoors. First the sack got wet, then the uniform, and finally the underwear. It seemed as if it would never dawn. When rain started filling my mouth I thought I would suffocate. Then the bombs began, screams and death. You have nowhere to hide. In the short pause from the sky we carried the dead and the wounded, again to places which were insecure... If this ever ends and I return home, with the money from soldiers' daily allowance (about 40 dinars a day) I will buy roller-skates and run on them down Belgrade streets for two days without stopping. Then I will leave the country, far away from this frantic war and death. I don't know how many of us will survive..."

The first unofficial stories about the situation and survival in Kosovo, soldiers' struggle to defend their bare lives and the number of killed soldiers and civilians, desertions from the front in Kosovo, have reached Belgrade in the past few days when some of the soldiers for the first time started coming for three-day or shorter leaves. They speak about the developments in Kosovo in low voices among family members or close friends. There are no official information except for denials of military authorities that there are deserters from Kosovo. A few days ago, those Belgraders who have electric power supply at least for a couple of hours a day and the privilege to watch programs of the increasingly invisible state television could hear the statement of Vladimir Lazarevic, general and commander of the Pristina corps on "lies of NATO about desertion of 13 thousand Yugoslav soldiers and members of reserve forces and destruction of 300 tanks". General Lazarevic called it propaganda and lies because, as he said "NATO has not accomplished its objectives in Kosovo". What NATO command in Brussels had actually stated, Belgraders could not hear. State media carry only commantaries about alleged statements of the military command of the Alliance.

Mostly thanks to family connections or tedious searches along scales of their transistor radios, along with much crackling and whizzing due primarily to bad Chinese batteries which flooded the Belgrade market, an insignificant number of Belgraders managed at least partly to hear news about anti-war protests all around Serbia, and demands that soldiers from Kosovo return home.

It was possible to learn that the biggest protest, which still continues, occurred in Krusevac, one of the major strongholds of the regime. According to the words of eye-witnesses, a family from Krusevac who have fled to Belgrade, the rebellion of the citizens started when the first tin coffins with the bodies of soldiers killed in Kosovo started to arrive. "They had been telling us that our lads were alright, that nobody was killed. Then coffins with the bodies arrived. They had lied. We gathered in front of the seat of the municipal authorities, demanding that they return our children back to us. Here is what they have done to us. Look at the bruises. They beat us, the police did", says a woman from Krusevac, transferred to a private hospital in Belgrade, mother of a soldier who had returned home with a large group of reservists of his own free will, contrary to all military rules. Her son testifies about bitterness of the reservsts when they heard that the authorities had attacked their parents: "We managed to get home. There were many problems along the way. They even used water hoses to prevent us from going home. They demanded that we lay down our arms. We refused to obey. It was not enough that we were killed by bombs, now they are beating our parents. I shall not go back there. This is not a war, this is frenzy in which it is both difficult to survive and to remain sane. I want to keep my senses. I don't want to kill anyone, nor do I want to be killed. I have a wife and a small child. I can't understand how can anyone be pushing us into all this..."

Local electronic media in Krusevac reported that the protest continues, because after promises of civilian and military authorities that the members of the reserve forces would not have to go back to Kosovo, they received new call-up papers. Military authorities denied this. Reservists participate in the protests, and as local media also report, the police is treating the gathered citizens of Krusevac and the surrounding places decently. Two demands are the predominant in the protest: that the soldiers who have returned not be sent back to Kosovo and that those reservists who are still in Kosovo come back home.

Also by unofficial channels, by telephone and from relatives, news have reached Belgrade about demands from Raska, Aleksandrovac, Vranje, Vrnjacka Banja that the members of the reserve forces be returned home and the the war stop. What was just suspected in the beginning, proved to be true - that the brunt of mobilization was bron by the south of Serbia. There are families up to four members of which have been called-up. A large group of reservists wilfully returned to Aleksandrovac, and according to unconfirmed information, the local municipal judge will have to answer to the judiciary of the Republic for having freed all those who had returned from the front of charges for desertion. According to the military laws now in force, refusal to respond to call-up is punishable with sentences of up to 15 years in prison. Court martial is also prescribed and that a sentence may be pronounced even without a trial.

The case of Cacak is also interesting when antiwar protests are concerned, where a civil parliament was established which advocates the end of the war and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Four organizers, citizens of Cacak, were sentenced by a magistrate to pay a fine of 28 thousand dinars because they held public gatherings that had not been approved of by the authorities. Citizens of Cacak took the floor at the meetings of the civil parliament to appeal on the authorities to do their best to end the war. They also demanded that reservists from Cacak return home.

Since 20 May, nobody knows the whereabouts of the mayor of Cacak, Velimir Ilic. After his public accusation that the army is in various ways endangering civilian buildings in Cacak and that due to such imprudence, according to his words, civilians were killed, Velimir Ilic was severely attacked by both the police and the military authorities. As we were informed in the civil parliament, there has been no trace of him ever since. Nobody knows whether he is even alive. The parliament addressed a letter to Republican authorities and Uzice corps demanding information about the destiny of the mayor.

Forced into a corner by war laws, Belgrade media report nothing about antiwar movements which are with more or less success spreading around Serbia. In statements issued by political parties there are only general appeals, with no specific examples, on the authorities not to square accounts with political opponents and to stop the tragic divisions into patriots and traitors. The vocabulary of the Serb Radical Party which not even after sixty days of bombing and dreadful destruction of the country and an increasing number of civilian victims does not lack war cries about invincibility of the Serb nation, directly accused the Serb Renewal Movement demanding that the authorities conduct an investigation whether the initiative for what was happening in Krusevac was directly launched from the Belgrade headquarters of SPO.

According to curt information arriving from inside Serbia, sporadic antiwar protests are increasingly predominated by social rebellion and complaints that only poor people were sent to the warfield, that sons of officials and rich people are sitting at home or abroad. As an increasing number of people are left without a roof above their heads due to the two-month NATO bombing, it is also possible to hear complaints that bombs are falling only on poor people's homes and workers' settlements and that the state is doing nothing to help them.

When Belgraders are concerned, they are more and more often queueing for bread and the basic food stuffs. They get very little electric power and water supply. Some parts of Belgrade are without electricity and water for more than forty hours. Since president Milosevic made it public through a statement that he was accepting conditions of G-8 and therefore gave up on the idea about winning the war with NATO and defending the world order from the Alliance, but primarily America, bombing of the capital has suddenly intensified and alarm sirens are in these last few days of May sounded every two hours.

Spomenka Lazic

(AIM)