Rabbits, Rats, Hyenas and Poodles...

[Michael Pugliese]

Opposition rally overshadows Milosevic's defiant campaign speechThursday,
September 21 5:16 AM SGT
Opposition rally overshadows Milosevic's defiant campaign speech
BELGRADE, Sept 20 (AFP) -
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic gave a defiant speech Wednesday
staking his federation's very survival on the outcome of weekend elections,
but a massive opposition rally underlined how shaky his popular support has
become.
"These elections are a sort of referendum at which it will be decided
whether we continue to live as a free state and a free country," Milosevic
told an end-of-campaign rally of 15,000 supporters in a Belgrade sports hall
kept under tight police security.
The Yugoslav president slammed his opposition at home as "a group of
dissatisfied, unsuccessful blackmailed and bribed people who represent the
interests of certain western countries."
Many foreign observers and Serbs expect Milosevic is ready to do anything to
hold on to power -- including disregarding the results of Sunday's
legislative and presidential elections if they go against him.
Foes of his regime, Milosevic said, are "the real enemy of our people."
He also warned that Yugoslavia would not find freedom from western sanctions
through negotiations and resolutions -- "but only with arms."
But across the capital, in front of the parliament building, an opposition
rally many times the size of Milosevic's highlighted the president's ebbing
support, and reinforced the results of voter intention surveys showing
Milosevic trailing well behind the main opposition candidate, Vojislav
Kostunica.
An estimated 150,000 people -- 200,000 according to local media and the
organisers, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia which is backing Kostunica's
bid -- filled the place.
No estimate was available from police, who had closed many streets in the
capital to traffic, but who maintained a low-key presence around the rally.
"He is finished," members of the crowd yelled in reference to Milosevic as
they waved party and Serbian flags.
When Kostunica appeared, coming from an official presentation of his
candidacy on Serbian state television, it was to chants of ""Kostunica, save
Serbia from the madhouse!"
Addressing the crowd, Kostunica described Yugoslavia as being "a hostage of
a single man".
"If I were this man I would step down, but Slobodan Milosevic does not want
to do so," Kostunica said.
He added that Milosevic saw himself as a king whose credo was "power at all
costs, until the last Serb."
He said: "The last decade has brought us wars, refugees, isolation,
sanctions ... criminal NATO bombings ... a foreign army and administration
in Kosovo."
Kostunica said his aim was not to change the world, only Serbia. "We promise
no more bloodshed, no domestic or foreign rulers in our country ... a state
where the authorities will be afraid of the people, and the people will not
be afraid of the regime, poverty and violence.
"It is up to you to seal this offer on September 24.... Let God give us
enough courage and wisdom to win freedom for Serbia," he said.
Even as Milosevic and Kostunica wrapped up their campaigns, there were signs
from abroad of attempts to direct the outcome of the elections --
particularly from the countries that played a military role in kicking
Milosevic's security forces out of Kosovo.
The United States said Wednesday that it could lift sanctions on Yugoslavia
if Sunday's elections lead to a "democratic transition."
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher backed a European Union
statement earlier this week that urged Yugoslavs to vote Milosevic out of
office and which also held out the possibility of an end to sanctions in
case of a defeat for the incumbent leader.
While the comments were obviously designed to further isolate Milosevic, an
indicted war crimes suspect, many in Serbia from both sides of the political
fence saw them as blatant interference in internal Yugoslav affairs.
Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav federation, Montenegro, has become
increasingly critical of Milosevic's regime and has sought -- and
received -- limited support from the West, angering Belgrade. Montenegro's
government has said it will not stop the elections on its territory, but it
has urged a boycott and imposed a media blackout on them.
In an effort to hold on to the federation, Milosevic had made a brief foray
into Montenegro earlier Wednesday, during which he pushed the theme of
Yugoslav unity and insisted that Montenegrins' future lay alongside that of
Serbs.
"Serbs and Montenegrins are once again faced with a menagerie of rabbits,
rats and even hyenas hoping to turn their giant people into a poodle that a
foreign master can toy with in times of boredom," he said.
Without naming Montenegro's pro-Western President Milo Djukanovic, Milosevic
said the tiny republic was led by "a number of cowards and boot-lickers who
present themselves as new politicians."
The Djukanovic camp has given tacit support to Serbian opposition forces.
Yugoslav Information Minister Goran Matic has promised the September 24
election would take place across the federation "in calm and legality," but
warned that even if the opposition was beaten fair and square, it would
still squeal that it had been robbed.
Such an attitude, he said, had been dictated by the West.
More than 210 observers from 52 countries have arrived in Yugoslavia to
monitor Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections, the state news
agency Tanjug reported Wednesday.
Belgrade has refused access to election monitors from the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as to observers from NATO
countries, which bombed Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo last year.