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Serbs prepare to bury Milosevic

Die-hard loyalists of Slobodan Milosevic stood solemnly in line, waiting in drizzling rain to pay respects to the man they saw as a savior of the Serbian nation.

In stark contrast, meanwhile, his opponents were masterminding an "anti-funeral" to coincide with yesterday's burial of the man, or nightmare, they just want to forget.

Suspicious of journalists and TV cameras, but proudly showing Milosevic's image, many among the mourners defiantly brushed off any criticism of the late Yugoslav president, blaming the "big world powers" for his death and accusing the West of being biased against Serbs.

The husband in a couple with a four-year-old daughter, all wearing T-shirts with images of Europe's two most wanted men, Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, said "the injustice against the Serbs must stop."

"We do not support Milosevic, but his death has proved that the tribunal is only against Serbs," said the man in his 30s who refused to give his name, referring to the UN war crimes court in The Hague.

"If they cannot convict them, they kill them," he charged.

In front of the Revolution Museum where Milosevic's body lay on a slate for two days, a message left at a marble sculpture turned into a provisional chandlery read: "To our president, the Serbian people."

"You gave your life defending your homeland and your nation," read the notice signed by "Milka and Mira."

But a growing number of those angered with the attention given to Milosevic's death by the authorities and his loyalists have decided to show they will not simply stand aside amid the nationalist fervor.

"These are not only two different Serbias, but two civilizations so far apart from each other," copywriter Janja Trajkovic said.

Trajkovic was among hundreds of people who have received a telephone text message calling for a rally in central Belgrade, where opponents often gathered to protest during Milosevic's 1990s regime, at the exact moment his send-off starts in Pozarevac, 70km east of the capital.

It all started on the Internet, when about two dozen members of radio B92 forum at www.b92.net, decided to pay for an obituary in Politika, Serbia's oldest newspaper on Friday, sardonically thanking Milosevic for his legacy of blood, horrors and ruined lives.

The notice recalled the Balkan wars, the massacre of thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica, tanks on the streets of Belgrade and the Kosovo conflict, signed by fake names that in Serbian emote words of hope, happiness, freedom, life and fortune.

"They did not want to accept our signature, `Victims of Milosevic's Regime', so these names were a compromise," one of the forum members involved in the action said.

This spontaneous meeting also inspired the idea for a gathering in Belgrade yesterday, later backed by a number of Milosevic's traditional opponents from various non-governmental groups.

"This will not be a political gathering, we do not want any political party involved," said a forum member who refused to be named.

"It should be a message to the world that there are people in Serbia who do remember the crimes Milosevic's regime committed," he said.

The initiative to "make the voices of Milosevic's victims heard among the floods of words by his loyalists" was inspired by "flash-mob" actions for not-so-random crowds that appear and dissipate within a matter of minutes, invited by forms of electronic messaging.

And, judging from the Internet responses, it will succeed.

"Let us all go to the streets for the last time to show what we think of them. There is no need for organization, it is just a gathering of citizens embittered with whitewashing the biography of this monster," one message read.
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