Europe's press hails uprising

Europe's press shared the celebratory spirit

LONDON (CNN) -- Images of flag-waving demonstrators and a Yugoslav parliament building billowing smoke graced the front pages of European newspapers on Friday -- the morning after the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic appeared to wilt in the face of a massive popular uprising.

The tone in Europe's leading dailies was reminiscent of the coverage that accompanied the insurgencies against Communist rule in 1989.

"He is finished," trumpeted the French daily Libération.

The headline echoed the main rallying cry of the hundreds of thousands of protesters -- many of them farmers and ordinary workers from provincial strongholds of the opposition -- who had converged on central Belgrade on Thursday in the biggest anti-Milosevic protests the capital had ever seen.

TIMELINE GALLERY Yugoslavia: a day of change     IMAGE GALLERY Protest in pictures    VIDEO CNN's David Ensor investigates what, if anything, outside countries can do to influence the situation (October 5) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica speaks to the Yugoslav public through Serbian Television (with CNN translation) First steps Recovery American influence (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) CNN's Alessio Vinci reports from Belgrade, where protesters are celebrating their apparent victory over Milosevic (October 5) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

A full-page picture in Libération showed a group of jubilant demonstrators brandishing the Yugoslav flag atop the steps of the federal parliament, which they had stormed earlier.

Britain's press shared the celebratory mood, hailing the protesters' apparent victory over a leader many dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans" for involving his country in four wars of ethnic cleansing over the past decade.

The Times, calling the apparent toppling of the Milosevic regime "a wonderful moment", said the opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica, had pulled off a double-barrelled victory against his archrival.

He did this, the paper wrote, "by outflanking a thoroughly corrupted electoral machine" and then "by his steady, courageous leadership since the day when he was cheated of victory" in the September 24 presidential ballot.

The Daily Telegraph hailed Kostunica's "huge and courageous gamble" in refusing to compromise with the discredited regime.

It called Milosevic's fall from grace a "long overdue" event after 13 years of iron-clad rule that "convulsed the Balkans, from Slovenia to Macedonia and, with Saddam Hussein, has presented the greatest challenge to Western leaders since the Cold War ended."

"A hated regime crumbles," ran the banner front-page headline in The Guardian.

In its lead commentary, the paper said the fear by which Milosevic had ruled for so long "was banished from the people's hearts …Eleven years after the watershed upheavals in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania, the communist era finally came to an end amid the exultation and release of a truly popular revolution."

The Munich-based Suddeutsche Zeitung said in an editorial "the Serbs are reaching for the stars."

The paper said that while many Serbs had fallen for Milosevic's vision of a Greater Serbia, the vast majority ultimately showed a change of heart amid the disenchantment caused by so many years of war, sanctions and falling standards of living.

Italy's Corriere della Sera said the people of Belgrade had made history on Thursday in a manner that echoed similar upheavals a decade ago in Germany and Romania.

The ABC daily in Madrid paid tribute to the Serbian people for "turning a page of history with their own hands."

"It seems that Milosevic, this time around, did not succeed in transforming public discontent to serve his own needs, which had effectively been his method of staying in power."

Reuters contributed to this report.

After the uprising, Yugoslavia's new dawn
October 6, 2000
Plane departures fuel speculation over Milosevic's whereabouts
October 5, 2000

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Free B92 - Internet radio station B2-92; breaking news from Yugoslavia
Democratic Opposition of Serbia

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