Belgrade, April 14, 2000
 

Dear Fellow Citizens and Friends,

Our messages from this rally, along with those conveyed before and those yet to be sent, are crystal clear. There is no democracy without democratic elections. However, a democratic vote cannot be expected in a country, which, groaning under Milosevic’s yoke, sinks into a sea of violence. Therefore, here and today, we are sending two messages. The first one is to voice our protest against the violence. The second is a call for a democratic ballot and the establishment of a democratic order in Serbia, for a free Serbia.

If only things were different. If only we never gathered here to send messages like these. If only we lived in a country without unchecked violence, at peace with ourselves first and then the world. If only we had a democratic state. Unfortunately we lack both democracy and state. Our forefathers had to restore their state at the beginning of last century and we have to do the same while this one is nearing its end. At the turn of the century, we had a free, democratic and internationally recognised state. At its end, we have to build it from scratch. Moreover, we must preserve Kosovo and make it possible for the Kosovo Serbs to return to their homes. Also, we must prevent further dismembering of Serbia. We must seek to uphold the union with Montenegro. We must fortify brotherhood with the Republika Srpska. It is also very important that we make our fellow citizens of other ethnicities experience Serbia as their own.

Violence in Serbia has assumed the greatest proportions in ten years. However, it was not sparked yesterday or ten years ago. It has existed for more than fifty years. We cannot counter it with violence, either physical or just verbal. There is no room for revanchism or extreme views. The only way to avoid any aspiration to revanchism is a democratic election.

There is one more thing Serbia desperately needs today – national reconciliation. First of all, the living Serbs are to bury the hatchet and allow the dead to make up and bring about that historic reconciliation. The first step to reconciliation is to abolish the existing division into patriots and traitors. After all, the present-day rulers of Serbia, who decreed themselves patriots, have demonstrated their patriotism to all but the Serbs. They have built other people’s countries and demolished their own. They did many a good turn, but caused their own people to grieve. Slobodan Milosevic has committed a mortal sin against his own people and his own state. Accordingly, he has to leave.

What is politically responsible and sound in Serbia is against violence and for a state, and democratic at that. Only a narrow circle of the ruling elite, a burden to all of us, thinks differently. Nonetheless, their ranks are thinning and their loneliness becoming increasingly obvious. Many of those who joined us today, at this very square, used to belong to Milosevic’s party. There will be more of them at the next rally. Slobodan Milosevic has betrayed all those who trusted him. You could see at the last “janissary” congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia that Milosevic had to drag out of obscurity, cobwebs and drawers his rejected and then unexpectedly pardoned cadres. Things are quite clear – he no longer trusts his old allies and has found no fresh loyalists. Moreover, the few enjoying his confidence do not trust each other.

It is my duty to say one more thing. There is another sort of violence that befell our misfortunate people – external violence spearheaded by power-wielders in Washington and Brussels. The forms of the external violence are the long-standing sanctions, last year’s bombs and support to Albanian terrorists in Kosovo. Whatever the source, violence is always violence, despite occasional attempts at presenting it as humane. It is hard to believe that people are killed, exhausted and starved by sanctions, and that their environment poisoned for their own benefit. First and foremost, we have to trample the domestic violence underfoot. In order to survive as a people, we have to normalise our relations with the world, but we must neither disregard nor forget the foreign violence conceived by the United States and NATO. More importantly, we must never elevate it in our esteem or present it as anything else but violence. Otherwise we will forget who and what we are.

One thing is absolutely certain. We cannot free ourselves from the external violence and chains until we get rid of the regime’s internal violence. And we have to do the latter by ourselves, without any assistance from the outside, lest we might replace one serfdom with another. And one disgrace with another.

We are here today to say and testify that our political differences are far less important than our bonds. What no doubt links us is our struggle against internal and external violence alike, and a fight for democratic elections and a democratic Serbia. And when we win this battle, we must remember that our mandate is strictly limited timewise and our authority restricted. Democratic power, after all, is relative rather than absolute. It is bound to be fleeting rather than permanent. The only thing bound to be permanent is Serbia. Free and upright. We are fighting for such a Serbia, and with God’s help, we will succeed.