Serb leaders flinch in face of protests

VIOLENT CLASHES between Milosevic loyalists and supporters of the democratic Serb opposition were narrowly averted last night when the ruling Serb Socialist party apparently lost its nerve.

Party bosses had scheduled a demonstration at the same time and place as the anti-Milosevic opposition. Many expected violence - on the last occasion of such a deliberate double-booking, one man was killed. Yesterday however, in the face of growing anger, the Socialists backed down.

They started to erect a stage for their rival meeting yesterday afternoon. But the hostility of the crowd was so strong that they finally gave up and left the pieces lying uselessly on the ground just a few metres from the stage that the opposition successfully erected.

During the demonstration, a local Socialist Party boss fired gun shots from his office balcony, causing brief panic among the thousands who had gathered in the central square. However, the meeting went off peacefully. Supporters of Slobodan Milosevic unfurled a banner from a balcony demanding "Traitors Leave Toplica" (the region surrounding Prokuplje) but they were booed off the balcony.

It was the usually self-confident Milosevic supporters who seemed frightened. An old man inside the locked Socialist Party Headquarters told The Independent that the demonstration was "absolute barbarism".

There were scuffles between supporters and opponents of the regime, but there were no injuries.

Zoran Djindjic, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, received a much warmer welcome in Prokuplje than he had at the hands of the Kosovo Serbs in Gracanica earlier in the day. He called for a peaceful solution to Serbia's problems, saying: "There are not so many Serbs that we can fight and kill each other".

All over the country, signs of resistance are multiplying - though the protests have not yet reached critical mass.

Resistance to the regime is taking different forms. In the industrial town of Nis down the road from Prokuplje, people lined up at trestle tables to sign demands for Mr Milosevic's resignation.

The campaign is organised under the slogan, "Many Reasons - But One Demand: Resignation". Each signatory gives not just their name but address and ID number. These serve not just to show that the signatories are real, but also that people are not afraid. Most of the planned signing points in Nis were dismantled after the police threatened arrests. But outside a shopping mall in the city centre, organisers stayed put, daring the police to do their worst. In other towns, the gathering of signatures was banned.

Vuk Draskovic's Serb Renewal Movement (SPO) - formerly a pillar of the opposition - has hesitated between supporting the protests and remaining loyal to Mr Milosevic. Mr Draskovic has conspicuously avoided calling for the resignation of the Yugoslav leader.

But in Leskovac, the local SPO leadership tried on Wednesday to take charge of protests against the regime. Interestingly, the protests dwindled after the SPO became involved. Scepticism of politicians of all stripes runs deep in Serbia today. And tension remains high in the only other remaining Yugoslav republic, Montenegro.

The pro-western Montenegrin government fears proposals by Belgrade to form a federal police force, which could overrule Montenegro's own force. The Montenegrin interior ministry said such preparations were "yet another bid to destabilise the general situation in the republic".

During the Nato bombing, government buildings in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, were protected by armed police against a threatened coup by army units loyal to Belgrade. Belgrade was publicly furious at Montenegro's refusal to offer support to Serbia.

The Serb media are split in their reporting of the current situation. The independent tabloid Blic devoted most of yesterday's front page to news about the opposition protest. The pro government Politika by contrast remained silent.