Opponents plan rally for Milosevic's funeral

Opponents of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic are passing around a telephone text message calling for a protest rally today at the same time as his funeral.

The message urges people to gather at Republic Square, where opponents often gathered to protest during his 1990s regime, at 3pm, the exact time of his funeral in Pozarevac, 70km east of Belgrade.

"Spring is coming three days early," it reads.

"Come to join us to wish all together that Milosevic never happens again."

The message has been circulating in Belgrade since Thursday.

Former members of the anti-Milosevic student movement Otpor [Resistance], a major force behind the uprising that toppled the autocratic leader in October 2000, are believed to be behind the action.

Today's funeral comes a week after he was found dead in his cell while on trial at a UN court in The Hague on war crimes charges.

Meanwhile, a bitter obituary, hidden among otherwise glowing tributes, appeared in Serbia's oldest newspaper yesterday thanking former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic for the blood, horrors and ruined lives of his regime.

The notice recalled the Balkan wars, the massacre of thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica, tanks on the streets of Belgrade and the Kosovo conflict.

It appeared in Politika daily under the same photograph of Milosevic that has been used in obituary notices across the Serbian press this week after the death of the former strongman.

"Thank you for your cheating and theft, for every drop of blood thousands spilled because of you, for the fear and uncertainty, for failed lives and generations, dreams that never came true, for the horrors and wars you led on our behalf without asking us, for the entire burden you placed on our backs," the notice read.

It was signed off by "the citizens of Serbia who will remember" and listed six names.

Milosevic's coffin was on display for a second day yesterday as hundreds of his supporters continued to pay respects to their leader who died while on trial for genocide and war crimes.

Members of Milosevic's Socialist Party -- who were organizing the funeral and burial arrangements after authorities officially refused a state funeral for the ex-president -- kept a vigil overnight by his coffin, draped in a Serbian flag and covered with a wreath of red roses, the party's symbol.

On Thursday, Milosevic's body was brought from a morgue to a museum dedicated to the late communist dictator Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade's plush Dedinje district. Thousands of die-hard supporters converged through the day, to pass by the casket in front of which a large, framed color photograph of Milosevic was placed.

Milosevic's Socialist associates took turns standing next to it in groups of six as an honor guard.

The turnout was still lower than organizers' predictions of tens of thousands, and nowhere near the huge crowds Milosevic once commanded in his heyday.