ANTI-GOVERNMENT demonstrators and riot police clashed yesterday after an opposition protest rally in Belgrade as Europe's top security body backed Serbian opposition claims that it was robbed of local election victories.
Independent media reported that 29 people had been injured in skirmishes between baton-wielding police and people leaving the scene of the opposition demonstration in some of the worst violence in almost six weeks of daily protests.
At least one person was beaten unconscious and a man received an open head-wound, eyewitnesses said.
A mother and her 12-year-old daughter were caught in the skirmishes and slightly injured, and two foreign television crews were attacked and had their cameras smashed.
Former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, representing the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE), confirmed opposition victories over Slobodan Milosevic and his ruling Socialist party (SPS) in Belgrade and 14 other towns.
Soon after Gonzalez announced his verdict in Geneva, the news spread to Belgrade and supporters of the opposition Zajdno (Together) coalition who were participating in the 38th straight day of protest marches.
The crowd of about 80,000 danced and cheered Gonzalez's report, which added weight to mounting international demands that Milosevic respect democracy.
Gonzalez, who headed an OSCE fact-finding mission to Belgrade this month, called on the 53-nation grouping to issue an ``urgent appeal'' to authorities and political forces in Yugoslavia to ``comply with the will expressed at the polls by the citizens''.
He said authorities should accept opposition victories in 22 disputed municipalities, including the nine in Belgrade.
And Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti, chairman of the OSCE, which had sent Gonzalez to Belgrade, said he had asked the beleaguered Milosevic for a response by early next week.
Opposition leaders were sceptical that Milosevic would respond positively to the Gonzalez report.
``We do not expect him to accept the findings of this commission. We expect further escalation, aggravation of this political crisis,'' said Zoran Djindjic, leader of the opposition Democratic Party.
The official Tanjug news agency reported that Gonzalez confirmed that the SPS and its allies won a majority of the votes but made no reference to his endorsement of Zajedno victories.
Weeks of processions through the centre of Belgrade had come to an end on Thursday when riot police cleared the streets and forced demonstrators back into a pedestrian square.
Despite international warnings to allow the marches to continue, the authorities also curtailed yesterday's march.
The opposition is putting its faith in peaceful protest and international pressure on Milosevic, who needs access to lines of international credit to rescue Yugoslavia's economy, still foundering after years of war-time sanctions.
The United States welcomed the multilateral confirmation of opposition victories in the local elections.
``The US applauds the work of Former Prime Minister Gonzalez,'' the State Department said.
The State Department said the conclusions by Gonzalez, ``match our own - that the results of the Novemer 17 elections must be respected, that an open and constructive dialogue between the Milosevic government and the opposition must take place and that Serbia must honour its international commitments and move toward democracy before it can be accepted fully into the international community.
``We call on President Milosevic to heed the recommendations of the Gonzalez report, and we point out that President Milosevic did agree to the visit by the OSCE delegation,'' said a department spokesman, John Dinger.
``We believe that the best way possible to resolve this situation is for President Milosevic to now heed the delegation's recommendations ... that he respect the results of the November 17 elections, that he engage in an open and constructive dialogue with the opposition and that Serbia honour its international commitments to move toward democracy,'' Dinger added.
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