Novi Sad After the War

Dry Route Across the Water

The city in which the Danube is nowadays - and who knows for how long it will continue to do so - flowing over the bridges, when several thousand people went out into the city square, showed that they wanted changes, and with the slogan "Down with Milosevic" that they sought an answer to the questions: where was the money, the bridges, oil, electricity

AIM Podgorica, 8 July, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

With just two votes (of deputies of the Socialist Party of Serbia) against it, on Tuesday (6 July), city assembly of Novi Sad - the first among the opposition city authorities in Serbia - adopted a statement demanding resignation of the president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic. The demand for his resignation is explained by catastrophically bad foreign and internal policy pursued in the past ten years, total isolation of the country, absence of will to solve the problem of Kosovo in a peaceful and democratic way by exposing the country to nonsensical suffering of the people and material destruction... The councilmen agreed that "it was high time for Slobodan Milosevic to submit resignation and step down from power".

Just a few days before that, on Friday (2 July), at the central city square in front of the city hall, citizens of Novi Sad gathered at a protest asking questions: where was the money, where were the bridges, where was oil, where was electricity? The citizens came out to the square despite the fact that the national team was playing a basketball match carried live on TV that evening and that the protest started (at 20.00 h) a whole hour after the ferries cease sailing across the Danube and almost an hour after city buses return to depots according to the (post)war time table. Estimates about the number of participants vary as usual and the real number should be sought between the sceptical 5,000 and the high-strung 25,000, but there can be no doubt that this was the most massive protest gathering in Novi Sad.

The demand of the gathering organised by the autonomy-loving League of Social Democrats of Voivodina (LSV) and the Reform Democratic Party of Voivodina (RDSV) was narrowed down to the blunt: Down with Milosevic.

When during NATO bombing all three bridges over the Danube were destroyed, Novi Sad was cut in two, and Petrovaradin suddenly became very distant to it - almost 200 kilometres away by land although only about 400 metres separate the bank of Novi Sad from the foot of Petrovaradin fortress. Some forty thousand people from the right bank of the Danube were left with no drinking water, with no urgent medical assistance, with no maternity hospital, patients dependent on dialysis were endangered... Citizens of Novi Sad were cut off from Fruska Gora and the hospital complex in Sremska Kamenica where the clinics of oncology, lung diseases and world known hospital of cariology and cardiac surgery are located. Students from Novi Sad have additional problems in reaching the prestigious high school in Sremski Karlovci.

In Novi Sad bombing cut off the railway which connects Serbia with Central and Western Europe. The damaged bridge near Beska on the Belgrade-Subotica road and further on is being repaired, but the haste of president Milosevic to publicly announce the beginning of reconstruction of the country right there was commented in Voivodina bitterly as it has become customary for this part of the world and for harvest time - the bridge is being repaired in order to "take away the wheat" from Voivodina.

Crossing the river will, according to the latest promise, be provided by a pontoon bridge which should be laid by the end of August or the beginning of September. When in the executive council of Voivodina dominated by the Socialists he announced that "former offers are not realistic, from the very beginning the only realistic (possibility) has been construction of a pontoon bridge", vice president of the coordinating team for ferry transportation (!) Zoran Vapa explained that the pontoon would be made of barges linked by steel girders with two pedestrian and two traffic lanes and that specially appointed guards would take care that "everything that might endanger the bridge is observed in time", and that might be an ice-floe or a log. The project would be financed by the Republican reconstruction authority. The crossing will be very much like the one Novi Sad had in 1910.

Since the bombing ended Novi Sad has received a tide of promised bridges. President of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic spoke about a road and railway bridge when he stopped in Novi Sad after he had been at Beska; then the mayor of Moscow spoke about a bridge; newspapers published descriptions of certain projects; there was even a day-dream about a two-level bridge and then rejected as inadequate; from the circles around city authorities of Novi Sad arrived indications that the city might ask for ferry-boats for crossing the famous 400 metres of the river... Everything could be finished almost immediately, it was claimed, in just a few months. Now, the road and railway bridge is mentioned as a project which requires at least 19 months of work.

Oil was added to the fire by president of LSV Nenad Canak when he stated that the city of Vienna was willing to give Novi Sad a prefabricated bridge as a gift. The gift included removal of the remains of the destroyed bridges and 120 million schillings. This idea did not seem unrealistic to the citizens of Novi Sad. Austria is also a Danube-valley country and it is in its interest to make the Danube navigable again. When he announced the possibility of a "Viennese bridge" Canak warned that the authorities were making problems with issuing visas to Austrian engineers who were supposed to come and check the static quality of the pillars of the fourth bridge in Novi Sad which collapsed on the eve of the Second World War and remained that way. At the protest gathering he repeated that the Viennese had not been issued visas which was also confirmed at the Novi Sad municipality. Zoran Vapa also says that the remains of the oldest Novi Sad bridge would be used, but claims that the steel construction exists in Yugoslavia "so no gift from Vienna is necessary".

It is certain that the Socialists and their cronies who are in power at higher instances are by all possible means trying to present themselves as the only possible "bearers of reconstruction". The Republican and the Provincial authorities have already promised that they would bring drinkable water to the right bank of the Danube under the river. However, the city is in charge of the waterworks.

The view from the main city beach in summer heat is more than dismal: on the right-hand side there is the wreck of the newest bridge, on the left the wreck of the oldest bridge, and on the other bank of the Danube ruins of buildings where Television Novi Sad used to be. It is possible to reach the beach by bicycle, for those who who have one, and the city bus transporter has only announced certain normalisation of transportation. The possibility to buy fuel for city buses was won - after the rally. Before the war Novi Sad had an oil refinery. After the war all that remained of it is the new and beautiful administration building of the Serbian oil industry.

Milena Putnik

(AIM)

Entrefilet:

Citizens' Protest

The protest gathering at the square was convened in just a day. Novi Sad learnt about it on the waves of the private In-Radio, Radio Free Europe and "from mouth to mouth". In the beginning of the war Radio 021 which is partly owned by the city was shut down by order of the authorities for channels. Local private television station Kanal 9 was warning the citizens of Novi Sad during the afternoon against the manifold damage the gathering could cause. State media ignored the event. Activists of the League of Social Democrats of Voivodina (LSV) who were disseminating leaflets with the invitation for the protest had to deal with the police. Two of them were arrested for interrogation, a third was even smacked on the face a few times.

The protest in Novi Sad was organised by Voivodina autonomy lovers and they were joined by civil parties gathered around the League of Democratic Parties (SDP) - the Social Democreatic Union (SDU) and Sumadija Coalition from Kragujevac. Citizens were addressed by members of the city authorities from the ranks of branches of the Democratic Party (DS) and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). The local branch of the Serb Revival Movement (SPO), although it rules the city along with other opposition parties, did not participate at the gathering.

The gathering differed from similar and the already seen ones by marked absence of ethnic insignia and rhetoric. City officials (Gyorg Ozer /RDSV/ and Caslav Popovic /DS/) were greeted with approval when they saluted the citizens with "I wish you good evening" in Hungarian, too.