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From	"nath" <nath@samizdat.net>
Date	Fri, 26 May 2000 22:31:14 +0200
Subject	globe_l: REGIME SHUTS DOWN UNIVERSITIES

REGIME SHUTS DOWN UNIVERSITIES

Students are first in the firing line as repression in Serbia reaches a new
level of brutality.

By Petar Lukovic in Belgrade

The Belgrade University Faculty of Agriculture witnessed a truly bloody
confrontation on Tuesday evening (May 23). Fifteen young men, sporting crew
cuts and surgical masks, set upon student protestors with baseball bats. The
students had gathered to protest against the earlier police beating of one
of their comrades. Around 10 students were injured.

The temperature in Belgrade is rising ahead of Otpor's (Resistance) rally
scheduled for Saturday, May 27. Every day and every hour a supporter of
Otpor or the opposition is dragged off for questioning or is beaten up. On
Thursday the Yugoslav Minister of Education, Jevrem Janic, ordered all
universities to close down within g 24 hours.

This constant intimidation though is only stoking up the fire. There is no
real news. All opposition media has been virtually silenced. Rumours spread
by word of mouth. After the rally on Saturday, people expect the regime to
carry out mass arrests to thwart the rebellion.

Since 1991, students protest movements, like the Serbian opposition in
general, have lacked the unity to seriously challenge the Milosevic
government. They have tended to be little more than extensions of
established political parties and have rarely put forward their own demands.

In 1992 tens of thousands of students marched on Milosevic's villa in
Dedinje to demand his resignation. But even then nothing changed. With wars
on-going in Croatia and Bosnia, the regime successfully exploited
nationalist euphoria to strangle student resistance and opposition protests
alike.

Only at the end of 1996 and in early 1997, when Milosevic really did look
vulnerable, did the students demonstrate their strength. Together with the
opposition, which was for once united, the students sealed off the Belgrade
University faculties and halted lectures throughout Serbia for several
months. The protests even forced the dean of Belgrade University to resign.

But Milosevic employed some tried and tested tactics to defuse the protests.
Just as time and again the regime has split the opposition by making timely
concessions to some of its leaders, overnight campuses were renovated,
scholarships were paid on time and students were granted additional study
time prior to exams. All that anti-regime energy dissipated.

Meanwhile, many students from urban centres - who've tended to be most
critical of Milosevic - have left the country, there places taken by
refugees and kids from the provinces for whom the Serbian president is a
role model
Over 10,000 students from the provinces live at the Studentski Grad
(Students' Town) in Novi Beograd. Regime ideologists regularly visit the
campus. Sessions start and finish with patriotic anthems and folk songs.

Studentski Grad delivers the majority of supportive telegrammes to Milosevic
in his battle against the New World Order. Scared, disinterested, bought for
three meals a day - these students are different to their colleagues from
urban centres.

Otpor, however, was founded last year, initially as an alternative student
organization. But it soon became a genuine resistance movement throughout
Serbia. The nucleus of Otpor, in Belgrade and other towns across the
country, is made up of young, educated and articulate people who have driven
the regime crazy with their unusual tactics.

Hence the hysterical response from the state. That the police are reduced to
roaming around the faculties beating up whomever they come across is
evidence enough that the authorities feel unable to halt the protests.

The student strikes at the Agricultural Faculty, the Civil Engineering
Faculty, the Medical Faculty and the Philosophy Faculty are only the tip of
the iceberg. Underneath the surface, rage and indignation are reaching
boiling point.

One has to admit that it is unlikely the students' actions will in
themselves prove decisive in the unrest that is bound to come. But such
protests can act as a catalyst.

Otpor's activities demonstrate that the citizens' spirit is not yet broken
and exposes the pro-Milosevic Studentski Grad as a mirage.

Police repression and attacks on students by paramilitary psychopaths only
stir up more unrest and uncertainty in Serbia, where any form of violence
and state terror seems possible.

The students' demands are more radical than those espoused by opposition
leaders. Calls from the likes of Vuk Draskovic for patience, non-violent
demonstrations, gradual retreat and silence, promise only that Milosevic
will remain where he is. Such mealy-mouthed protests only strengthen the
regime.

The student challenge is the only real test facing the regime. Over the next
days and weeks we will see whether the anticipated mass protests provoke
Milosevic into yet bloodier confrontation with his opponents or whether he
falls back on the trusty tactics of buying off greedy, power-hungry
opposition leaders.

The hope remains alive that Otpor will not repeat the failings of their
predecessors. These students, after all, come from a generation, which has
virtually grown up under the shadow of Slobodan Milosevic.

Serbia's students now face their most important exam and to pass it with
honours, the war criminal Milosevic must go.

Petar Lukovic is a regular IWPR contributor








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