Anti-Milosevic Protests Launched

Thousands of students walked out of classes Friday in the first wave of a planned nationwide blitz of strikes and civil disobedience aimed at forcing President Slobodan Milosevic to accept election defeat.

The school boycotts came ahead of a large demonstration planned for central Belgrade intended to launch a protest movement echoing those that helped strangle hard-line regimes across Eastern Europe in the past decade.

More than 3,000 high school students gathered in a central square in the city of Nis, which is controlled politically by Milosevic's opponents. Many waved anti-Milosevic banners and chanted chanted: "He's finished" and "Slobodan, save Serbia and kill yourself" -- anti-Milosevic slogans that have grown in popularity in recent months. The gathering paralyzed traffic in the city's downtown.

At the rally, the mayor of Nis, Zoran Zivkovic, urged parents to join their youngsters on the streets. "I know why you are not in school today," Zivkovic said. "You refuse to accept injustice."

Similar walkouts - joined by shopkeepers and others - were staged in several other cities, including the opposition strongholds of Cacak and Kragujevac. Both places were heavily targeted during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign last year.

In Cacak, another opposition town, teachers and pupils from two high-schools as well as most primary schools went on strike. Around 500 students blocked traffic in the city center before gathering in a town square.

"You are the youth and the brains of this country. You were the first to enter the strike in Serbia, you should be an example to the others," Cacak Mayor Velja Ilic, a vehement opponent of the government, told them.

Pupils at high schools in the towns of Sremski Karlovci, Gornji Milanovac, Sremska Mitrovica, Jagodina, Bor, Valjevo and Kreljevo also went on strike, the independent Beta news agency said.

Beta said a small airplane hovered above Valjevo with a banner saying: "Vojislav Kostunica - victory!"

In Belgrade, associations of film distributors and theatres decided to close down, in effect shutting theatres and cinemas in the Yugoslav capital.

The philosophy faculty at Belgrade university also announced a strike, as did pupils at two high schools in the city.

Beta said a surgeon department of the health center in Kraljevo, central Serbia, announced that it would also join the strike.

The opposition, saying its candidate Vojislav Kostunica won outright in Sunday's elections, said it would launch a five-day campaign of country-wide protests to force the Serbian strongman Milosevic to step down. Opposition leader Zoran Djindjic told protesters late Thursday that he has called the army and police to join in the general strike, as well as all cab and bus drivers.

"We in Serbia must show that we can peacefully replace an usurper from a position that no longer belongs to him," Djindjic said.

Defying such calls, Milosevic and his enior party officials on Thursday launched preparations for a second round of voting on October 8, saying none of the candidates won an absolute majority in the first round. Milosevic plans to run in the second round despite a certain boycott by opponents.

In another scenario, Milosevic may be looking for an escape, reports CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey. Russia and Belarus are possible refuges if he decides to go.

The more immediate worries were whether Milosevic would unleash the military and other security forces against his opponents - a move that could force the West into making hard decisions on whether to offer more than just words of support.

Responding to the possibility of violence, a senior NATO official, Klaus-Peter Klaiber, said NATO would stop any violence in Yugoslavia from spreading to Bosnia or Kosovo but would not intervene if civil war erupted in the aftermath of contested elections.

"NATO is not involved and does not intend to be involved in a possible civil war in Serbia, which we all hope will not take place," Klaiber told reporters Friday in Bucharest.

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen has praised the growing anti-Milosevic momentum, but noted, without giving specifics, that American forces were "prepared for contingencies." The U.S. contingent is the largest in the NATO-led coalition controlling the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has already recognized Kostunica's victory and addressed him as "president-elect." The church holds no direct political power, but has great influence.

Belgrade's Roman Catholic Archbishop France Perko urged a "just solution" to resolve the discrepancies between the opposition's election tally and the regime's count but expressed little faith in advantages of a general strike.

"At the moment, there is great danger of violence, widespread unrest, even civil war," the Archbishop said Friday in an interview with the Beta news agency.

In an effort to gain the support of Russia, opposition leaders said on Thursday they had sent proof by diplomatic mail that Vojislav Kostunica had won outright and that a decision to call run-off vote was illegal. Russia, which has said it will not interfere in Yugoslavia's presidential election outcome, said on Friday it had yet to receive the documents.

Greece, a NATO member with close cultural and religious ties to Serbia, has suggested the opposition consider the possibility of taking part in the runoff if international election observers are allowed.

But a Kostunica aide Friday rejected the Greek appeal. "They are a friendly country but I think that this interference in internal affairs has nothing to do with the truth," said Nebojsa Bakarec, an official of Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia. "We cannot accept a second round for the sake of some kind of trade off."

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