DATE=09/28/00
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
NUMBER=5-47076
TITLE=YUGOSLAV ELECTION
BYLINE=EVE CONANT
DATELINE=KOSOVSKA MITROVICA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Yugoslavia's democratic opposition is rejecting the government's decision to hold a second round of voting between its candidate, Vojislav Kostunica, and President Slobodan Milosevic. The opposition says it won enough votes in the first round to declare victory and accuses the Yugoslav leader of trying to steal the vote. Correspondent Eve Conant in Kosovska Mitrovica looks at a city divided between those who say they will fight for Mr. Kostunica and those who say President Milosevic is the only choice for Yugoslavia.
TEXT: Democratic candidate Vojislav Kostunica is calling on his supporters to take to the streets to protest what the opposition says is a deliberate attempt by President Slobodan Milosevic to steal the Yugoslav presidential race. But on the streets of Kosovska Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, sentiment is divided between those who say President Milosevic must remain in power and those who say it is time for change. For many, the divide is one of generations, with older people favoring Mr. Milosevic and the younger generation fighting for an end to Yugoslavia's isolation.
On one busy downtown corner, an argument breaks out between an opposition supporter, 32-year-old Milan Ristic, and an old Serb man.
/// STREET ARGUMENT IN SERB, FADE UNDER ///
The old man tells the younger one to stop talking. It will be better for you, he warns, but the younger man says he will talk all he wants. All he cares about is that Slobo, as Slobodan Milosevic is referred to here, is removed from power after more than a decade of ethnic warfare and economic sanctions.
/// YOUNG MAN ACT ///
I have tried to tell him that Slobo is finished. He is over. We are through with him.
Would he listen to you?
No, because the voice of people in Serbia counts. There are too few people in Kosovo. All their votes collectively don't amount to anything significant. The people in Serbia have firmly declared that they want changes. They want democracy and want to be part of Europe and part of the civilized world.
/// END ACT ///
But as Mr. Ristic explains this, he is surrounded by an increasingly angry crowd of older Milosevic supporters, who say no matter what the younger people want, they don't want to be part of Europe.
/// OLDER MAN ACT IN SERBIAN, ESTABLISH AND FADE ///
This man yells, "We don't need the world. Yugoslavia is the world. There is no President Clinton. There is only the Yugoslav people."
No one in the crowd is able to leave this city, which is heavily guarded by international peacekeepers to protect them from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority who might be seeking revenge.
The younger man, Mr. Ristic, tells the older one to go away. He says, "Go and have a drink and leave the young people alone to make their choices."
But supporters of opposition candidate Kostunica fear that even if they do make their choice, they won't see it fulfilled. There is concern that President Milosevic, who is already accused by the opposition of rigging the first round of voting, will do anything to stay in power, from changing the constitution to starting a conflict in Serbia's sister republic of Montenegro.
Twenty-three-year-old Dragan Lazic from Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, says he followed his government's order to boycott the first round of elections, although he supports the opposition.
/// LAZIC ACT ESTABLISH AND FADE UNDER ///
He says "I think President Milosevic is prepared to fight to the end. He will fight for his victory without caring who his victims are."
Opposition leaders say they will not participate in a second round, scheduled for early October. They say they have already won. Vojislav Kostunica says he and his supporters will fight by all nonviolent means, but younger supporters of Mr. Kostunica here in Kosovo say they are prepared to fight Mr. Milosevic by any means necessary. (Signed)
NEB/EC/KL/JP
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