DATE=10/07/00
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=YUGOSLAVIA/STREET REACTION
NUMBER=5-47130
BYLINE=EVE CONANT
DATELINE=BELGRADE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica spent his first full day in office Sunday with the task of forming a new government and choosing a new Prime Minister. But for ordinary citizens, Sunday was a day for rest, ending a week that saw the swearing in of a new president, and the overthrow of the old. Correspondent Eve Conant in Belgrade reports on how the Yugoslav people are reflecting on the tumultuous days that brought down the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.
TEXT: There is a sense of relief in Belgrade as quiet settles over the city following days of protests, riots, and a popular uprising that paved the way for soft-spoken law professor Vojislav Kostunica to oust Slobodan Milosevic from the presidency, after more than a decade of authoritarian rule.
/// NAT SOUND CHURCH SERVICE UP AND UNDER ///
The Serbian Orthodox Church played a leading role in urging Slobodan Milosevic to step down peacefully. Priests were on the steps of parliament last Thursday, choking from tear gas when protesters broke down parliament's doors to set fire to it and other symbols of the Milosevic regime.
Twenty-eight-year-old Piedrag Stojkov came to Belgrade's main cathedral Sunday to baptize his three-month-old daughter and start a new life without Mr. Milosevic.
/// ACT PIEDRAG ///
It all seems like it was a dream, a long bad dream. Finally I hope we are waking right now and it will never happen again.
/// END ACT ///
The signs of revolution are still visible on the streets of Belgrade - overturned, burned out cars splayed with graffiti warning Mr. Milosevic that he is finished. Other writers were even harsher. Graffiti on the steps of parliament ('Ybi ce' - ED'S: transliteration from Cyrillic) calls for Mr. Milosevic to kill himself.
But even the people who describe the Milosevic regime as one of sanctions, inflation, and repression say they would not support extraditing him to the West on war crimes charges.
Radomir Rakic, archdeacon and editor-in-chief of the "Orthodoxy" newspaper, echoes President Kostunica when he says it is time for reconciliation, not punishment.
/// ACT RAKIC ///
Independently from what the West thinks - I think they should support us on our new road, that we could march along our new road without making extra obstacles. It is very easy now to condition, to precondition all the support that the West should give to this country.
/// END ACT ///
In the days following the uprising, Serbs came to the city center to survey the damage, and to shake their disbelief that a revolution had actually taken place. Those who supported Mr. Milosevic say he remains their hero and always will, other Milosevic supporters look at the damage from the uprising and describe Yugoslavia's new leaders as vandals and hooligans.
At the parliament building, a young girl peers into the broken first floor windows as a grim looking woman inside sifts through trash and burned files in what may have been her office. The disheartened worker would not turn around or speak with the onlookers as she collected her last items and left.
On the main steps of parliament, a woman in her eighties begins to cry as she studies the wreck of the government building and lets the reality of the end of the Milosevic era sink in. She says she supported Mr. Kostunica, and wanted change, but like many others says she did not want western involvement then and does not want it now.
/// ACT WOMAN IN SERBIAN IN FULL AND FADE UNDER ///
She says - it would not have happened like this if the West had not interfered, we should have taken care of this ourselves. Looking at the smashed windows and blackened façade she says - we can elect and oust our leaders without outside help. (SIGNED)
NEB/EC/RAE
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