PRESIDENT Slobodan Milosevic is in no mood to reinstate the results of local elections whose annulment has brought tens of thousands of protesters on to the streets of Belgrade, according to the Italian Foreign Minister, Mr Lamberto Dini.
After meeting Mr Milosevic, Mr Dini told a press conference in Belgrade that reinstating the results was "too much to ask for at this point in time". Mr Milosevic, he said, promised that the protests would not be put down by force. Dialogue was, he said, the only way forward and there were some indications that both sides were open to finding a solution through talks.
Mr Dini is understood to have impressed upon Mr Milosevic that trade preferences, which are badly needed to start the Yugoslav economy on the road to recovery, depended upon respect for democratic principles.
But Mr Milosevic is, apparently, not yet ready to hand over power at local level to the Zajedno (Together) coalition, whose leaders Mr Dini later met in the Italian embassy. Zajedno claimed victory in 15 out of 18 of Serbian cities in the elections on November 17th.
Since then demonstrations have brought vast numbers of people reaching 200,000 on occasions onto the streets of Belgrade. In recent days the numbers of students, who march at 1.30 pm., and supporters of Zajedno, who set out at 3 p.m., have decreased although the demonstrations are still extremely large by international standards.
Yesterday the student marchers decided to depart from their usual city centre route to the leafy suburb of Dedinje where Mr Milosevic lives. But police blocking the approach roads turned back students without incident.
A new effigy of Mr Milosevic in prison garb appeared at the Zajedno protest march yesterday. Mr Dejan Bulatovic (21), who had carried a similar effigy last week was arrested and, according to the opposition, brutally beaten in prison. One of the country's leading actors, Gojko Baletic, a participant in protest marches, was detained by police on Wednesday and suffered injuries to his head and body, according to a medical report produced by the opposition.
Mr Milosevic also came under pressure from Mr Momir Bulatovic, the President of Montenegro, which with Serbia makes up the remains of the Yugoslav federation. A spokesman for Mr Bulatovic said yesterday: "The Montenegrin leadership has demanded on several occasions that the Serbian leadership should sort out its internal problems at the earliest opportunity."
