Student power swept over the Yugoslav capital yesterday as tens of thousands of young people walked out of exams, joining hands to form chains across major highways. Their weapons were whistles and baby rattles. "Save Serbia and kill yourself, Slobodan," they shouted over blaring horns of cars. "Let's go forward, let's attack," they chanted, beating home-made shakers, cola bottles with stones inside.
The anti-riot squad known by the initials PJP stood by as the students moved down the road toward Beli Dvor, the white palace of President Slobodan Milosevic.
Two coachloads of the intervention squads were guarding Mr Milosevic's home, but the students sought disruption not confrontation.
A car screeched up to the students massed in Autokomanda Square, snatched an anti-Milosevic poster, then drove off to cheers and clapping, while the anti-riot officers with their guns and truncheons shuffled their boots, smoked cigarettes and looked awkward. Serbian youth was calling for change.
In her Adidas baseball cap and black jeans, Jagoda Bliznakovic was among thousands who earlier went to university departments and took on Socialist Party professors, demanding a boycott of all university work.
"Two days ago we had exams, but everything is stopped today. We stopped the exams. Everything is postponed for a week. Tonight we will go to a rally. Tomorrow at 9 a.m. we will block exams at the university again. We will do this until Slobodan Milosevic goes," she said.
Another group of tens of thousands of students marched to Autokomanda Square, just below the leafy suburb of Dedinje, where Belgrade's rich live.
The embattled government issued a statement threatening to crack down on the opposition.
A Yugoslav prosecutor proposed that 11 striking miners and two Serbian opposition leaders be detained on suspicion of sabotage. The 11 miners are members of the strike committee at Serbia's largest coal mine, Kolubara, where 4,500 workers have been on strike since Friday as part of the campaign of civil disobedience.
But opposition leaders and supporters remain defiant and insist that Mr Milosevic accept his landslide election defeat. They claim their results show that his presidential challenger, Dr Vojislav Kostunica, won the election outright and that the regime committed massive voting fraud.
A computer diskette thrown through a window of the Yugoslav Statistics Office building has provided the opposition with solid evidence of the real results of the September 24th polls, according to the opposition. Across the country, particularly in towns that fell to the opposition, strikes and blockades are crippling all activity.
The campaign of civil disobedience is the most serious challenge yet to Mr Milosevic's 13-year rule.