Protestors blocked main intersections in the Yugoslav capital Monday and brought economic activity to a stop in other towns as an opposition-led general strike to force President Slobodan Milosevic from power took hold.
In the capital, public transport workers were joined by garbage collectors as trams, buses and garbage trucks blocked key routes, forcing early morning commuters to walk to work in strong winds and pouring rain.
Hundreds of opposition supporters formed a human barricade on the main avenue leading to the city center at the start of a bid to force Milosevic to concede defeat in the September 24 presidential election. Belgrade students were planning to gather for a protest outside the main university at noon.
The country's main north-south railway line between Belgrade and Bar was also cut off by protestors at Pozega and coalmining ground to a halt at two key centers.
In the first reported signs of a crackdown, Milosevic dismissed the Serbian state security chief Rade Markovic as part of a purge of security officials ahead of the general strike, Montenegro's Vijesti newspaper reported.
Markovic was replaced at the weekend by Belgrade's ambassador to Macedonia, Zoran Janackovic, the daily reported Monday, quoting high-level Serbian police sources.
The report could not be independently confirmed.
Both Vijesti and the independent Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti reported that the commander of special police units, General Zivko Trajkovic, had also been sacked.
Vijesti said Milosevic launched a purge of police top brass ahead of possible confrontations between security forces and protestors who launched a general strike Monday.
There was no sign of an immediate police crackdown in the streets.
Meanwhile, several hundred miners early Monday joined some 200 colleagues who downed tools at the country's biggest coalmine at Kolubara last Friday.
The complex supplies Serbia's main coal-run power stations, including the Nikola Tesla plant, the source of Belgrade's electricity supply.
Serbia's state electricity company, EPS, has called on the strikers to resume work as their action would lead to power shortages.
The nearby town of Lazarevac has suffered a power blackout since Sunday evening, the independent news agency Beta reported Monday. A local daily has reported that some 4,500 miners at the Kostolac coalmine were also on strike.
Protests were reported in the country's third biggest city, Nis, with trouble brewing in Pozarevac, Milosevic' hometown. Police were on standby but there were no reports of any intervention early Monday.
The opposition has called on Serbians to bring the country to a standstill to force Milosevic to admit defeat in the poll to their candidate, 56-year-old lawyer Vojislav Kostunicac.
Kostunica has claimed an outright win of over 50 percent in the race, while the pro-government Federal Electoral Commission has called for a run-off round on October 8, on the grounds that neither man won more than half the vote.
Even the hometown of Milosevic and his wife Mira Markovic -- Pozarevac -- was affected, with traffic blocked at three main intersections and 300 students and their teachers gathering at a high school and refusing to attend class, Beta news agency said.
Police inspectors in Pozarevac, however, had ordered a halt to calls for a general strike being broadcast on a private TV station.
In the eastern town of Bor, dozens of vehicles blocked the main streets, Beta said, adding that police had arrested a man who refused to move his vehicle.
High school students in Bor were boycotting classes and marching towards the town center, the agency said. In western Uzice, 1,500 people gathered for a protest in the town center, the vegetable market was closed and shopkeepers had decided to close at 10:00 am (0800 GMT)— BELGRADE (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
