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By then Ilic's 100-man inner core of former military men, bodybuilders and karate-club members had a bolder plan. "We were playing for all or nothing," says Ilic. "We wanted to get rid of Slobo once and for all, and we knew we could only achieve that by liberating the parliament and television." Ilic organized several thousand Cacak men and busted through six police roadblocks to lead his shock troops into the capital.
What helped bring others out by the hundreds of thousands was Milosevic's miscalculation. His handpicked constitutional court put out an inflammatory ruling Wednesday night. There had indeed been, they said, fraud in the Sept. 24 election, and some official results were annulled. That seemed to imply that a whole new election was required and Milosevic could happily stay in power until his term ended in July. Such a slap in the face of legitimacy--even the sham variety normal in Yugoslavia--practically invited voters to overthrow Milosevic.
To their own amazement, that is just what they did. "We did not plan any sort of violent takeover," said Zoran Djindjic, an opposition leader. "Our idea was to assemble a large crowd to sit down in front of the federal parliament and stay there until the election commission turned up with real results." Long before 3 p.m. on Thursday, 200,000 or 300,000 citizens--maybe half a million--had swarmed into the capital in no mood for sitting.
At almost exactly noon, a volley of tear gas touched off the final revolt. Police guarding the parliament thought they could face down the furious, swelling mob. The peppery gas started to bite, pushing back the crowd as many dragged out handkerchiefs ready in their pockets. But the police were unwilling to match the ferocity of the crowd as its show of strength escalated into a full-scale assault on the principal symbols of Milosevic's power.
The men of Cacak drove their excavator straight up to the front of the parliament and swarmed up the stairs wielding sticks, metal bars, a reaping saw, even a coat hanger in the fist of one elderly man. If they expected a fight, the other side was too half-hearted to give them one. By 2:30, reluctant policemen threw down their riot gear, went over to the demonstrators' side and ceded the building to the people. The mob caved in the bolted doors and set offices ablaze, turning Belgrade into a smoky spectacle.
Soon after, another pillar of Milosevic's authority fell away. The protesters moved on to the tower home of Radio Television Serbia. It was not only the regime's crucial mouthpiece--without it Milosevic could not counter the clamor in the streets--but also its most despised tool. A special antiterrorist unit had been set in place to confront any trouble. These troops resisted longer, firing tear gas and a few stray bullets. But when the protesters drew up their excavator and set the entry on fire, overwhelmed troops scooted out the back. The broadcast--the only one seen regularly throughout the country--of an orchestral concert blacked out, as smoke wreathed the tower. Total victory seemed assured when the notoriously tame state news agency, Tanjug, defected to the opposition, calling Kostunica the "elected President of Yugoslavia" in a dispatch signed "Journalists of liberated Tanjug."