Funeral Turns Into Protest Rally

Some 10,000 opponents of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic braved driving snow and a police ban on demonstrations to attend the funeral Saturday of the first person to die in a five-week-long protest movement against Eastern Europe’s last Communist government.

After the service, protesters marched through the center of Belgrade chanting “Slobo, murderer” and carrying a portrait of 39-year-old Predrag Starcevic, who was killed Tuesday during street clashes between rival groups of demonstrators. After initially permitting the demonstrators to march along streets Saturday, riot police pushed them toward sidewalks as they neared the center of the city.

Opposition leaders who spoke at the funeral accused Milosevic of seeking a pretext to crush the on-going protests, which began after the ruling Socialist Party challenged opposition victories in local elections Nov. 17 in Belgrade and 13 other towns. So far, however, despite the beating of demonstrators by plain-clothes policemen, there has been no sign of a full-scale crackdown by the regime.

Instead, the government seems to be playing a cat-and-mouse game with the opposition, hinting that it is prepared to compromise over the election results while mobilizing tens of thousands of riot police to regain control of the streets. Saturday, an election commission in Nis, Serbia’s second-largest city, ordered a new round of elections in 17 disputed districts.

The decision to hold new elections in Nis followed a ruling by an international fact-finding mission headed by former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez that calls on Milosevic to recognize the opposition victories. The government has given a noncommittal response to Gonzalez’s report.