Foreign Agencies on January XXth, 1997

Serbs Fight Police Over Media
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, January 23, 1997 6:27 am EST

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP)
...
Meanwhile in Belgrade, protesting students spent their fourth consecutive night facing a heavily armed police cordon that has been preventing their marches against Milosevic.

Despite freezing weather, students kept their spirits high by singing, dancing and staging an overnight party in the city center.

The protests are entering their 10th week since authorities annulled opposition victories in Nov. 17 local elections. No resolution to the dispute is in sight.
...

Reuter
Serb Police Clash with Protesters

(16:55 01/23/97) BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (Reuter)
...
In Belgrade, thousands of Serbian students kept up a non-stop protest rally into a fifth day while a delegation of German Green parliamentarians urged pro-democracy campaigners not to give up.

"We have arrived to show you that you are not alone, the democratic world is with you," said Marianne Birthler, a former East German activist who opposed the regime of Erich Honeker and became a member of Germany's Green party after communist East Germany collapsed in 1989.
...
A short distance away, thousands of students continued their own non-stop rally for a fifth day in a test of wills with police preventing them from marching around the city.

The students, who have turned a stretch of Kolarceva Street into a 24-hour block party, counted down the last seconds of the last hour of the fourth day just before 6 p.m.

The students are making mostly the same demands as the opposition that Zajedno victories be restored in Belgrade and 13 other cities. They were allowed to walk freely through the streets last week but have been blocked since Sunday.
...

Los Angeles Times
Thursday, January 23, 1997
Anti-Milosevic Rallies Persist in Yugoslavia
Associated Press

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia--Student protesters sang and danced Wednesday in a three-day standoff against a cordon of riot police blocking their march against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The protests against Milosevic, which are beginning their 10th week, started after authorities annulled opposition victories in Nov. 17 local elections.
...
The protests have shrunk recently, after Milosevic deployed heavily armed riot police.

Students also organized contests for the best-looking officer and protester. But the light mood wasn't pervasive: Officers beat up an older man who tried to join the students.

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