Tensions grow in run-up to Serbian elections

The Serbian cartoonist Corax is famous for a caricature that he drew before the NATO bombing. It shows Slobodan Milosevic and his wife desperately hanging on to the minute-hand of a clock, trying to hold back time as the midnight hour approaches.

Amid all the sound and fury of recent weeks in Serbia, the hands of that clock have continued to move. The clock kept ticking when Serbia's government silenced and crippled leading non-government media. It kept ticking when armed police fired tear gas at protesters and besieged hundreds in Belgrade City Hall. It continues ticking as the authorities threaten a stringent antiterrorism law.

In all the uncertainties of Serbia, as the regime and anti-Milosevic forces plan and strategise, the clock marks time towards one crucial event. According to the constitution, local and federal elections have to be held by the end of this month. That deadline has triggered the escalation in tension across Serbia.

The media provide a crucial battleground prior to the local elections in which Milosevic needs to reclaim a swathe of town halls that the opposition now holds; most importantly, he needs to wrench back the capital. Control of information is a major asset in this political fight.

When police stormed the Studio B building in Belgrade, silencing the leading opposition voice in the capital, they did so with a formal approval signed by Serbia's two deputy prime ministers who gave a series of reasons for taking over the station. Studio B is still broadcasting, but content is controlled by the regime.

The Studio B building housed all Serbia's leading non-state media: both non-government radio and the most popular newspaper in Yugoslavia, Blic. These are now operating but in a much constrained form.

Blic, with a previous circulation of 200,000, is now unable to find presses to print more than 75,000 - the state owns presses and controls paper supply. The Belgrade radio station, Index, is again broadcasting news, but police are yards away from their offices.

The Milosevic regime now has a far tighter grip on information. It possesses the only two country-wide television stations: Radio Television Serbia (RTS), widely viewed as the mouthpiece of the regime, and TV Politika. Studio B had the potential to reach much of Serbia, but it has now been neutralised as an opposition voice.

Veran Matic, spokesman for the independent media organisation ANEM, fears the next move of the regime will be to shut down opposition radio and TV outlets outside of the capital, following the Belgrade clampdown.

The editor of Blic, Veselin Simonovic, is sharply critical of the political opposition in Serbia, who, he says, ratcheted down the protests against the storming of the Studio B building and left journalists and youth activists from the resistance movement Otpor in the front line.

"Those in the front line are journalists and members of the youth resistance movement. That's not a normal situation," he said. "We accepted a risk all these years when we put out the paper, but being in the front line is not the job of journalists, it's the job of opposition political parties."

Journalists are exposed because of the lack of leadership from the country's divided political opposition, says Simonovic. He admires citizens in Belgrade who were willing to risk their safety to protest against the media clampdown but says: "I condemn the behaviour of the opposition, who, perhaps because of fear, perhaps because they can't find a unified position, succeeded in virtually stopping the protests."

The most popular anti-Milosevic force to emerge over recent weeks has been the student group Otpor(meaning "resistance"). According to insiders in Otpor, polling from Milosevic's own party now shows that Otpor far outstrips the ruling Socialist party in popularity. They say Otpor has 28 per cent of popular support and Milosevic has just 14 per cent.

The regime has publicly branded Otpor activists as traitors, terrorists and NATO agents, and is now threatening to introduce a stringent anti-terrorism law. Analysts say this could give the government the same powers it had during the martial law of the NATO bombing. Power to arrest and hold suspects indefinitely; power to clamp down on the press; it might also include the power to disarm civilians who hold guns.

Radical activists within Otpor and in the ranks of the political opposition are urging a campaign of civil disobedience that would be enacted across Serbia. Those town halls controlled by the opposition could use their power, they argue, to shut down bus services, close facilities and bring their communities to a standstill.

Otpor is seeking to recruit supporters from its home base, the universities, and is actively courting students who were previously apathetic or disillusioned with political protest. "Our aim is to radicalise and mobilise students," said Otpor activist Branko Ilic.

The regime has responded by curtailing the university year in a bid to curb activism. Only examination students with identity cards can now pass into their faculty buildings. Many Otpor activists want to move towards an immediate campaign of civil disobedience.

Zarko Korac, a Belgrade academic and leader of one of the smaller opposition parties, would support such a move, but says the larger parties who control the town halls across Serbia are concerned about the risk.

But Otpor has a second, long-term strategy outlined by an activist and young lawyer, Slobodan Homen. The Milosevic regime has always sought to exist within the letter of the law. He has deployed security forces - police and army - in the cause of defending the country and upholding the constitution.

People in Serbia expect to have the right to vote, although an increasing number of them are disillusioned with both the government and opposition and almost half tell pollsters they don't know or won't vote in elections.

Homen claims potential voters who say they are undecided or are not going to vote are almost all opposition supporters. Otpor will use its youngsters in towns and cities across Serbia to get that electorate out - and plead with them to give the opposition a chance.

That way, he believes, a peaceful transfer of power can be achieved, and if a Hague indictment needs to be finessed to help further a bloodless transfer, he says he would accept that.

"We are fighting for demands like free and fair elections - and with those demands we can gain the support of the police and the army, because we are defending the constitution.

Why is he so certain that the forces of security will back off? "It's very hard to explain to a soldier in a tank that he has to shoot people who are demanding elections," he says.