Minutes later, thousands of enraged protesters attacked the Parliament, breaking through police barricades and pushing their way inside. Pro-opposition forces quickly seized control of the Parliament, forcing the police to surrender. The mobs trashed offices, set rooms on fire, and hurled pictures of the hated despot into the streets. Outside, police fought protesters amid clouds of tear gas.
Another mob set fire to Serbian state television headquarters, taking its broadcast off the air and driving out the 2,000 police officers who had been guarding the building. Just before being seized, the pro-Milosevic television station reported that “At this moment, terror rules in Belgrade. [Opposition forces] are attacking everyone they see on the streets and there is chaos.” After issuing its statement, the station switched briefly to music videos. Then it went dark.
As daylight faded over the smoke-filled streets of the capital, the government appeared to have totally lost its authority. The entire police force at Belgrade’s downtown police station surrendered to the crowds. Opposition supporters then stormed the building, seizing bullet proof vests, Kalashnikovs and pistols–and trashing what was left inside. One captured officer from the Serbian Special Unit–an elite force considered loyal to Milosevic–addressed the crowd over speakers in front of the Parliament building: “We are not doing this of our own will,” the man proclaimed. “Good luck. " At nightfall, hundreds of thousands of jubilant demonstrators were still thronging the streets of Belgrade, demolishing offices of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia and firing handguns in the air.
How did Milosevic lose control of the country so quickly? Until this afternoon, the despot and the opposition, led by putative president-elect Vojislav Kostunica, seemed locked in a stalemate. The Yugoslav leader’s latest gambit to cling to power–a decision announced this morning by Serbia’s loyalist Constitutional Court to annul the Sept. 24 election and hold a new vote–seemed likely to drag the electoral process out for several more months while Milosevic attempted to consolidate his support.
Opposition leaders, who had indirectly initiated the court decision after pressing claims of election fraud before the judges, were caught off guard by the ruling. But as the leadership dithered, rage in the streets was building. Everything came to a head at the Belgrade rally, which drew as many as 500,000 people from all corners of Yugoslavia. As the crowds mobbed downtown Belgrade, Milosevic made his biggest, perhaps fatal blunder: he opted for a massive, pre-emptive strike. Police helicopters swarmed above the crowd and riot squads unleashed thousands of canister of tear gas, a provocation that pushed the now-fearless mobs over the edge. “This was truly a people’s rebellion,” says one observer who was caught up in the melee. “It was the people, not their leaders, who displayed all the energy today.”
Many observers now believe that Milosevic may be gone by the weekend. The only question that remains is how violent his ouster will be. The mood on the streets is so volatile, and so many weapons have passed into civilian hands in the past few hours, that many fear a scenario resembling Albania in 1997, when panicking police and soldiers fled their stations and turned over thousands of weapons to rampaging mobs. An even darker parallel could be Romania in December 1989, when mobs captured the fleeing dictator Nicolae Ceacescu and his wife and executed them after a brief show trial.
Indeed, enraged opposition members erected gallows outside the Parliament Building this afternoon–which were clearly meant to be more than just a symbol of hatred for the now-tottering regime. As the hours go by, Milosevic may be regretting that he failed to step down voluntarily when he still had the chance.
