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The opposition gambled too. The cautious Kostunica thought Milosevic's lust to retain his aura of legitimacy might force the President to give up if the legal bodies ruled the "official" vote count a fraud. So he refused to participate in the Milosevic-ordained runoff. Kostunica resolutely insisted he was already President-elect, and he was backed up by an international chorus of support, save only from Moscow. He risked losing again if the runoff took place without him on Oct. 8, leaving Milosevic to claim a technical victory. But Kostunica grew visibly in stature as he stuck to his sense of peaceful mission. We can have, he said, "a nonviolent, wise, civilized, democratic revolution."
That gave the opposition 12 days to beat Milosevic in the streets. Kostunica called for national civil disobedience: strikes and peaceful demonstrations to shut the country down until the outpolled President capitulated. The protest movement seemed to start slowly, barely sputtering to life in Belgrade, where garbage piled up, shops pinned up signs reading CLOSED FOR THEFT (of the election), and roving bands of protesters occasionally clashed with police. But out of sight, in the rural towns, resistance was surging. For the first time, the ordinary workers, who had made up the faithful bloc of Milosevic's supporters for years, turned out against him. These were the backbone of the nation, the weather-beaten farmers, the downtrodden shopkeepers and, most crucially, the stolid miners in the coal-black core of Serbia who kept the nation's electricity alight. When they spontaneously launched their local protests to drive out Milosevic, the balance of power shifted.
As the Kolubara diggers held firm on the strike, Milosevic was forced to test his control over the security forces by dispatching them to reopen the mine. At dawn on Tuesday, he sent his military chief, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, in a convoy of troops to talk to the miners "for the good of the nation." Pavkovic failed, only increasing their stubbornness.
The second attempt on Wednesday to crack the miners brought the revolt to ignition point when the three old men bulldozed aside the barricade. A few police swung their batons at the flood of protesters, but they had no hope--and no stomach to do much more. However loyal the upper levels of police might have remained, the rank and file had turned. We police, muttered one, are more democratic than you think. When Kostunica arrived that night to cheers of "President!" the police looked on as he declared, "Those who step on the people's will and try to steal their votes are the ones committing subversion." By morning, the cops at the mine were gone.
Emboldened, people power caught fire, and the police just let it burn. Few troops were willing to stand in the way when the toughs from Cacak, another heartland town that had taken an almost martial stance, mounted their "people's tanks"--excavators and bulldozers--and headed for Belgrade on Thursday. Led by their charismatic mayor, Velimir Ilic, the men of Cacak were coming to enforce Kostunica's demand that the President concede defeat by 3 p.m. The challenger had called on the entire populace to fill up the capital as a sign of its determination.