Re: Cops from Cacak play key role in Kostunica coup

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect quoted the LA Times:

> But the mayor of Cacak did what no one had managed to do during Milosevic's
> 13 years of Communist-style rule: bridge the opposition movement and a
> feared, combat-hardened police force whose ranks were growing steadily more
> uneasy with their role as political enforcers.

> "In the final days, our job had been reduced to guarding the headquarters
> of Milosevic's party and chasing student demonstrators," said Dejan
> Gavrilovic, a 24-year-old police sergeant who abandoned his post here to
> join in the storming of Belgrade. "Everyone here supported the opposition.
> I just couldn't stand facing the people I know."
>
> Policemen knew Milosevic was tolerating massive corruption, "and a Serb can
> forgive anything but theft," said Ivan Lazaravic, 25, who recently quit the
> force.

> After the war, townspeople beat back several police attempts to shut down
> their independent TV station.

> The policemen from Cacak flashed their badges and urged policemen on the
> other side to join them.
>
> Over the radios, Ilic said, his Belgrade police contacts kept telling him
> to keep up the attacks and eventually the parliament's defenders would
> dwindle, get tired and give up.

> The mayor returned to Cacak a hero, cheered by crowds in the street and
> telling them he expects better things from the new government.
>
> "I'm an ordinary citizen of Serbia," he said. "All this was caused not by
> me but by Slobodan Milosevic. An ordinary citizen of Serbia had had enough
> of hearing and seeing Slobodan Milosevic."
>
> But if the new government doesn't do any better, he warned with a smile,
> "we'll be back in Belgrade within 60 days."

Could you explain how this article supports your position?

Doug