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Milosevic Loyalists Protest at Handover Moves
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By Gordana Kukic
BELGRADE (Reuters) - About 10,000 supporters of ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) took to the streets of Belgrade on Tuesday to protest against efforts to hand him over to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague (news - web sites).
After a rally in central Republic Square, the demonstrators marched through the capital to the Yugoslav government building, where dozens of police equipped with shields formed a cordon to prevent any protesters from entering.
The angry crowd chanted slogans such as ``Freedom for Slobodan!'' and ``Treason, treason!''
On the way to the government building, some of them picked up stones and hurled them at the headquarters of one of the leading parties now in government. There were several minor scuffles during the march.
Later in the evening, many demonstrators left, and about 2,000 remained outside the building at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT).
The demonstration took place as the transfer of Milosevic to face an international trial on Kosovo war crimes charges seemed to loom closer, with Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic predicting it would happen soon.
Milosevic's popular support has dwindled since he was ousted as Yugoslav president last October and since his arrest in April for alleged abuse of power. At the height of his popularity in 1989, as many as a million people gathered to hear him speak.
The protesters waved banners with messages such as: ``Serbia won't give you away, Slobodan'' and ``Selling out the Serbs,'' referring to charges that Yugoslavia's new reformist rulers have decided to hand the former authoritarian president over in exchange for crucial economic aid.
Some Milosevic backers wept openly at the rally, organized by Milosevic's once-ruling Socialist Party. Others demanded the resignation of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites), who defeated Milosevic in elections last year.
``They want to extradite the defenders of this country,'' Socialist Party official Branislav Ivkovic told the crowd.
``Once a Serb is put on trial, the whole of Serbia will stand accused. The decision is unconstitutional and it is a disgrace to all of Serbia,'' he said.
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The Yugoslav government, under pressure to step up cooperation with the U.N. war crimes court before a donors' conference in Brussels on Friday, adopted a decree on Saturday paving the way for transfers of war crimes suspects.
Half of Yugoslavs now say they favor Milosevic's handover to The Hague, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.
Miroslav Antic,
http://www.antic.org/
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