by Seattle Times news services
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Hundreds of angry parents rallied in two Serbian towns yesterday to demand an end to fighting and the return of their sons from combat duty in Kosovo - the first signs of collective resistance by Yugoslav citizens to the conflict since NATO began is air campaign eight weeks ago.
Police arrested five people in Krusevac after rock-throwing demonstrators smashed windows in the town hall, civil-defense headquarters and a state television office, witnesses said.
Local media said protests in several Serbian towns had called for democracy and condemned President Slobodan Milosevic's policies.
Piecemeal reports by news organizations outside government control painted a picture of simmering unrest in some areas, fed by the fears of families for the safety of young men sent to Kosovo as conscript soldiers.
Milosevic acknowledged last week that his forces have suffered significant losses during the NATO bombing.
Residents of Krusevac, a town of 60,000 people, said it was the return of six local conscripts and reservists in coffins on a single day last week that set off protests.
Parents of soldiers killed in the conflict reportedly carried pictures of their sons, and protesters chanted, "We want sons, not coffins." They tried to block the departure of about 1,000 local reservists to the front line, the sources said.
The television channel of the Western-leaning Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, hostile to Milosevic's rule, said 1,500 protesters took part in the demonstrations in Krusevac.
"Kosovo is No Use to the Dead" one of their banners said.
Serbian opposition leader Zoran Djindjic confirmed the demonstrations in Krusevac. People do "not want to die blindly," he told Austrian state radio.
The government does not release military casualty figures, but informed analysts here believe the figure exceeds 3,000.
The local army command in Krusevac issued an unusual statement yesterday evening acknowledging the protest there. It promised that a partial withdrawal of troops from Kosovo - which was announced last week by the army but derided by NATO as too small - would continue, adding that the pullout is being slowed by NATO's bombardment.
However, the army accused the protest leaders of "direct cooperation with the enemy" and said those arrested would be tried under martial law. Future protests will be banned, it said.
Pancevo Radio, a local station near Belgrade, said the Yugoslav army command in Krusevac was bringing charges including treason against the "organizers and instigators" of the unrest.
An anti-war rally in the central Serbian town of Cacak was reported to have heard demands that NATO halt the bombing - but also calls for "an end to Milosevic's adventurist policies."
Montenegrin television said mothers of soldiers also gathered in the town of Alexandrovac to demand peace and the return of their sons. It said the protests would continue today.
The television station said Monday that a local official had been lynched by a crowd in a protest in Alexandrovac earlier this week triggered by the departure of local soldiers back to war-torn Kosovo as their leave ended.
In the capital, Belgrade, there is still a lot of surface bravado. People are angry at NATO and there is no talk of surrender, but there is a strengthening undercurrent of anti-regime feeling.
"Nobody is pro-NATO, but that doesn't mean you are supporting the leadership that brought us to this situation," said Vesna Pesic, a prominent opposition leader.