Word: kostunica
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...prepared for this moment, and a part of him despaired of standing at the center of it. But as he stepped onto the balcony of Belgrade's city hall last Thursday night, with the parliament building smoldering nearby and thousands of supporters gathered in the darkness beneath him, Vojislav Kostunica surely felt the weight of history. He still had to say something, summon words that could calm the restive crowd in Belgrade as much as inspire them. How would he describe the revolution that had just unfolded? What could he say to assure them that after 13 years of repression...
...whole nation seemed to roar back. With that greeting, the 56-year-old former law professor did more than herald the regime's demise. He also won for the moment the hearts of the Serbian people who had given him their votes two weeks earlier. Kostunica's ability to unite the fractious Serbian opposition and defeat Slobodan Milosevic at the polls was an astonishing political feat, but even his allies wondered whether the taciturn scholar had it in him to lead a popular revolt. He did. Kostunica didn't want events to be settled in Belgrade's streets, but once...
After his well-photographed chat with Kostunica, Ivanov spent a very private hour with Milosevic. To tell him what? Assurances that no one would haul him to the Hague? We know for sure what Milosevic told him: I may be down, but I'm not out. The wily old manipulator said it again to the Serbs, vowing to lie low only for a while. He would be back, ready to help his party "gain force" and take up a "prominent" role in politics again...
...turned out to be too late for that. The opposition had enlisted former chief of staff Momcilo Perisic, fired by Milosevic two years ago, to cajole reluctant generals into accepting Kostunica as President. And Milosevic lost his last hope Friday morning when Moscow, after days of indecision, dispatched Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Belgrade to congratulate Kostunica...
...demand it--at the ballot box if they can, in the streets if they must. Serbs could be proud last week that they finally mustered the gumption to do that. But the lesson of people power is that it's harder the second day. Now the opposition must consolidate Kostunica's authority over those portions of the nation that remain mutinous. Reviving an economy wrecked by the vestiges of communist planning, 10 years of war, sanctions and the destructive bombs of NATO will tax the patience of Serbs burning to emerge from the Milosevic nightmare. Balkan turmoil will...