Draskovic under suspicion as opposition completes rally plans

Belgrade, Friday -- Two of the leaders of Belgrade's 1996-97 mass street protests will again be together as speakers at the united opposition demonstration in Belgrade tomorrow. Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic and Democratic Party leader Zoran Djindjic, who have been notorious opponents since the break-up of the Zajedno Coalition in early 1997 will share the platform with Democratic Party of Serbia leader Vojislav Kostunica and a number of media, Otpor and university figures.

The third leader of the former Zajedno coalition, Vesna Pesic, the former president of the Civil Alliance of Serbia, today further fuelled growing speculation about the true loyalties of Draskovic. Pesic, who withdrew from politics last year has told media in the Bosnian Serb republic that she believes Draskovic and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic are in contact. She added that she had no personal knowledge of what that contact was but noted that it was strange that Draskovic had accused Deputy Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Seselj of masterminding the government seizure of Studio B rather than Milosevic himself.

The New York Times today wrote that Serbia's opposition leaders were destroying the credibility they had earned in the West with their failure to agree on how to respond to the Studio B takeover, adding that the opposition still had no clear plan for tomorrow's off-again on-again demonstration in Belgrade.

Further cracks in the opposition appeared today with a statement from Alliance for Change coordinator Vladan Batic. Batic predicted that the planned visit of opposition leaders to Moscow next week would be postponed because it had not been properly organised. One faction of the supposedly united opposition is still maintaining that the Moscow visit, designed to rally official Russian support, would go ahead, despite a statement from Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov in Florence yesterday that he did not plan to meet Yugoslav opposition representatives.

Source: B92

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