The storming of the parliament

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

More details have emerged about the not so spontaneous storming of the
Yugoslav federal parliament last Thursday. It was planned by the security
police!

On Sept 29, 5 days after the election, Kostunica visited Cacak, stronghold
of anti-Milosevic sentiment, led by the mahor, Velje Ilic, who had formed
his own political party some time ago. Kostunica claimed outright victory
and that the electoral commission was denying this to him. He was
enthusiastically received.

What Ilic did not tell Kostunica was that 2 weeks previously he had been
approached by a member of the special police, who expressed admiration for
his position and said that he and his friends were available to help and if
necessary to lay down their lives.

Ilic prepared for a large contingent to travel from Cacak to Belgrade on
the Thursday for the climax of the opposition protests. Local truck drivers
and even the local parachute brigade were mobilised. A lot of the convoy
took arms, though there was an agreement not to use them.

On the Thursday morning 25 km along the road up from Cacak to Belgrade,
there was a road block manned by police. The police were polite and asked
for calm and said "we have our orders". The convoy listened to them,
respected their orders, and manhandled the lorries over the edge of the road.

60km from Belgrade they ran into another blockade of lorries. The vanguard
drivers of the convoy physically confronted the blockaders, slapped them
round the face, smashed some windscreens and pushed the lorries off the
road. The police did not intervene.

By 10 am the convoy arrived in the capital, and found the police not
unfriendly. Ilic was in mobile phone contact with 3 members of the security
police who gave details of the force protecting the parliament building.
They remained on duty to be able to inform the demonstrators whether the
police would fire on them.  They would not.

At noon the first push by demonstrators up the steps of the parliament
building was repulsed with little violence. Ilic donned a suit and
addressed the crowd in a relaxed and confident manner, urging repeatedly
"We have to go on to the end." The next push, the police lines broke
immediately and a number of police fraternised with the demonstrators.

Comment

Although the seizing of the television headquarters was probably more
decisive, the storming of the parliament building was more symbolic. This
account even if only 50% true, is one of forces coming together in a
critical mass to create qualitative change: in particular the storming of
the parliament building seems to have been planned by members of the secret
police, who wished to dump the old regime and be on the winning side. They
chose the best organised body of people capable of acting as shock troops.
They did the equivalent of opening the city gates to the other side in the
middle ages. The conspirators avoided embarrassing Kostunica by informing
him openly of their intentions. But certain members of his entourage must
have picked up hints. Interestingly the flow of information appears to have
been going from the personnel of the authorities, while perhaps SPS
sympathisers were unable to mingle with the activists in Cacak to relay
crucial information back to the authorities.

It is just possible the key security policeman, at present anonymous, may
have been a direct CIA agent. But I would have thought that the CIA would
concentrate on gathering information, spreading false information and
facilitating alliances rather than master-minding the key action in a
revolution.

It seems more likely that the security police, like the KGB in Russia
before the fall of Brezhnev, were deeply disillusioned with the viability
of the regime, and were instrumental in promoting a Gorbachov figure as an
alternative. Thus massive interference by western powers would have
affected the conditions and the climate preceding the revolution, rather
than directly plotting the revolution.

But we shall see.

At least the SPS and its supporters did not behave like the Securitate in
Romania. Although they are likely to lose many votes in the forthcoming
Serbian election, they  may retain much more honour and potential for
resistance to neo-liberalism over the coming ten years than western
media  at present imply.



Chris Burford

London