15.12.1996.
Mr President,
As we do not want to have another civil war in Serbia, and as we
are determined not to have a dictatorship in the country we live,
we are appealing to you to turn back to the limitations of the
Law, the law which will also protect you against the arbitrariness
of others, when one day you yourself become just an ordinary
citizen. We are asking you to recieve our delegation at 13:30 on
Tuesday, December 17 1996. We want to give you this letter and
the copies of the minutes from seventeen electoral units in Nis,
which give evidence of the wins of the Zajedno coalition.
However, contrary to this evidence, the City Electoral
Commission announced the victory of the Socialist Party
candidates. We are leaving Nis at noon on Sunday, December l5,
and will be walking all the way to Belgrade. We hope that our
forty-eight hours of walking will be a reason enough for you to
dedicate fifteen minutes of your time to us.
To the attention of the students of Belgrade University
Dear collegues and friends,
Our existence, legally confirmed by our duties and rights
guaranteed by the Constitution of the country we live in, has
been shamefully and impudently annulled by the open violation of
the country's supreme legal and political document. We have
been boycotting classes, walking together through the city
streets, appealing, making statements and writing letters;
however, we have not managed to convince those who pull the
strings of our lives of the simple fact that we - students - ARE
citizens fully aware of our undeniable right of free choice.
Being persistent in doing this, we are trying to claim our
existence and our unwavering determination to protect our state
by protecting its supreme law. You cannot deny the existence of
the people who walk the distance from Nis to Belgrade in forty-
eight hours, nor can you deny their free will. Therefore,
we are inviting all the citizens of this country to follow their
consciousness and their honour and take part in the struggle for
this supreme goal. We are very grateful for two things: first, for
the support that you - citizens of Belgrade - gave to our protest
against the electoral fraud at its very beginning, and secondly, for
your determination to defend your basic civil right after having
faced the electoral fraud yourselves. May Nis and Belgrade stay
together in this struggle until the final, definite and glorious
victory is ours!
1) An expedition consisting of seventeen students from the
Students' Protest Board of Nis University is leaving Nis at noon
on Sunday to walk to Belgrade. They are taking the minutes
from the seventeen electoral units in which the City Electoral
Commission allotted the seats to the Socialist Party candidates,
despite the victory of the 'Zajedno' Coalition. They want to show
the minutes to the students in the square in front of the Belgrade
Faculty of Philosophy at noon, as well as to Slobodan Milosevic
- if the President of the Republic of Serbia is willing to meet
them.
2) We would like to inform the public of the unique, legal
innovation to the history of Parliamentary life. Not only did the
City Electoral Committee of Nis annul the electoral results, but it
also allotted the seats to the rivals who gained less votes.
3) We would like to build bridges between the free students'
territories in Serbia. We would also like to inform you that for
thirty days 30 000 citizens - including several thousand students -
have been gathering in the main city square protesting against the
electoral fraud.
4) In this way we, modern peripatetics, we who walk and think,
are also fighting against ignorance so that no one could say that
"Comrade Tito hasn't been informed".
5) Why have we walked to Belgrade?
a) Because we have to be ready for the impossible to get what
the people of our age in other countries get the moment they are
born;
b) Because we want to show that we are "more in need of
freedom and justice than of bread";
c) Because our heroes are Emil Zatopek, Phillipides, Abebe
Bekila and Dustin Hoffman;
d) Because we do not want to carry the relay baton any more;
e) If Bata Zivojinovic could walk 300 km carrying a photo of
Comrade Tito, so can we walk 250 km carrying the minutes in
order to prove the electoral theft and fraud in Nis done by those
who are supposed to do justice;
f) Because marathon-runners reach the finish-line, say "We've
won", and run one lap more;
g) Although the student has not set the wheat on fire, he has to
put it out.
The password which has to be known to everyone who wants to
speak to the members of the expedition is:
(To understand this Identity Card, one has to have a wide knowledge of the former - Yugoslavia partisan movies).
Events on 10.12.1996.
Article from Georgiatown Voice