Foreign Agencies on December 27th, 1996

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A protest by Belgrade university students which began earlier in the day took place without police intervention. About 15,000 students paraded noisily through downtown, braving frigid temperatures, fierce winds and snow.

Some students wore garlands of garlic to protect themselves against "Communist vampires." A huge roar erupted when one speaker read a congratulatory telegram from the rock group REM. Bigger cheers followed when someone threw chocolate bars into the freezing throng.
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(c) Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company

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The demonstrations began after Mr. Milosevic annulled the electoral victories of an opposition coalition in several major cities last month. Accepting his manipulation of elections would have ended any pretense of democratic accountability in Serbia. In particular, it would have made next year's presidential contest, in which Mr. Milosevic himself will seek a new term, little more than a ritual coronation.

To avoid that result, students and supporters of a wide range of opposition parties, numbering at times as many as a quarter of a million people, have been staging peaceful nightly vigils, drawing diplomatic support from Washington. For a time, Mr. Milosevic seemed inclined to make at least limited concessions. But more repressive counsels now seem to have prevailed. Even so, a report due today from a European delegation investigating the election controversy could offer new openings to compromise.
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia
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Another protester, Branka Tomisovic, 26, an economics student at Belgrade University, who seemed to be enjoying the carnival atmosphere in the lightly falling snow, said she no longer saw Milosevic as a strongman.

"He doesn't know what to do," she said as she jauntily walked along with hundreds of others outside a police cordon that was preventing them from getting to the main square.
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Thousands of riot police armed with tear-gas rifles blockaded the central part of this capital Thursday, strangling an anti-government demonstration in a new show of force by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The police deployment was seen as an attempt by Milosevic to break the back of the most sustained opposition to his nine-year regime. Students, politicians and ordinary Serbian citizens have parlayed protest over election fraud into a demand for profound political change in what they regard as one of Europe's last Communist governments.
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