A BOMB explosion added to tension in Belgrade last night as opponents of President Slobodan Milosevic brought the city centre to a standstill with their biggest pro democracy demonstration so far.
Hundreds of thousands of people thronged Belgrade's central square for Orthodox Christmas festivities and to demand that President Milosevic reinstate election gains that the opposition says were fraudulently annulled by the ruling Socialists.
The explosive device went off in the compound of the headquarters of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) party led by Mr Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic. The party itself said in a terse statement that the bomb had been thrown at the building. "Material damage was inflicted on the facilities. There were no casualties," the statement said.
Hours earlier, the Yugoslav army commander met students in the Serbian opposition movement and indirectly backed its campaign to reverse the local election fraud.
Demonstrators gathering yesterday evening in Republic Square planned to march to St Sava's cathedral for midnight Mass. The Serbian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7th, according to the old Julian calendar.
"We have decided to block the work of the state authorities - on Tuesday and Wednesday you will get lists of all telephone numbers of all state institutions - ministries, state TV and radio, Tarijug, and others," the opposition Zajedno coalition leader, Mr Zoran Djindjic, told the rally.
"Call them from dawn until dusk - block their phones for 24 hours - the less they work the less harm will be done to this country," he said.
Sympathy for the opposition's cause from Gen Momcilo Perisic, chief of the Yugoslav army general staff, was the latest crack in the 50 year old monolith of leftist rule in federal Yugoslavia, made up of Serbia and tiny Montenegro.
Gen Perisic told the student delegation that under the constitution the army stayed out of politics. But he said he favoured a democratic solution to the crisis that would help Yugoslavia to rejoin the international community.
"Gen Perisic underlined the Yugoslav army's ... special interest in seeing that all current problems are overcome within the legal institutions of the system in a manner deployed in democratic countries," an army statement released by the official news agency Tanjug said.
After seeing Gen Perisic, the five student leaders were received by the Serbian Interior Minister, Mr Zoran Sokolovic, but they said the meeting proved "completely unproductive".
They said that Mr Sokolovic refused to lift a ban on street marches imposed after a December 24th riot between Zajedno supporters and SPS loyalists. Police have since confined protesters to squares and pedestrian areas.
Serbia's government grudgingly admitted last week that Zajedno prevailed in the voting in a few of the smaller cities but insisted that in other districts no party gained a majority or the results were inconclusive and needed further study.
Last November, an inquiry by the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE) verified opposition claims to have won in 15 of Serbia's 18 largest cities, including Belgrade.