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YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT DECLARES BELGRADE-NIS MOTORWAY OPEN AGAIN
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic declared Monday after visiting the reconstructed bridge across the River Jasenica and the flyover at Veliko Orasje near Velika Plana, about 65 km south-east of Belgrade, that the E-75 motorway linking Yugoslavia's capital with Nis and Leskovac was open to traffic again.
The motorway, the shortest route between Europe's north and south-east, re-opened following the round-the-clock activity by Yugoslav builders who reconstructed in 45 days only three bridges and two flyovers destroyed during NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression.
Addressing citizens rallied at the Jasenica bridge, Milosevic said that the builders had made a major success by completing the reconstruction of the route two weeks before the deadline.
In addition to one of the bridge's two lanes, the builders have also reconstructed the bridge across the Velika Morava at Mijatovac, the junction and railway flyover at Trupalske Woods near Nis and the bridge across the Nisava at Popovac.
MARJANOVIC PUTS INTO OPERATION ANOTHER OBRENOVAC PLANT TRANSMISSION LINE
Serbian Premier Mirko Marjanovic on Saturday put into operation the third transmission line of the Nikola Tesla A thermal power plant in Obrenovac near Belgrade.
The re-activating of the transmission line has made possible the resumption of operation of the power distribution network between Obrenovac and Novi Sad, chief city of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Vojvodina province, following NATO's March 24-June 10 bombing of the country.
Of the plant's five transmission lines that were destroyed during the bombing, two have been put into operation earlier, while the remaining two are to be put into operation by the end of the month.
Accompanied by his aides and top officials of the Serbian Power Industry, Marjanovic also visited the plant's transformer station that NATO aircraft had attacked twice with missiles and twice with short-circuiting graphite bombs.
The re-activating of the transformer station and the transmission line has made it possible to link the plant again with Belgrade's and Novi Sad's power distribution systems.
Dragan Jovanovic, the plant's director, said that the plant was being reconstructed exclusively with domestic digital equipment made at the Mihailo Pupin Institute.
Miodrag Milosevic, director of the Elektroistok company, said that Serbia's entire power distribution system would be restored to its condition before the NATO aggression by the end of the month.
YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER RECEIVES UN HUMAN RIGHTS RAPPORTEUR
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic received Friday the UN Special Human Rights Rapporteur Jiri Dienstbier at the end of his several-day working visit to Yugoslavia.
They discussed the humanitarian situation following the 78-day NATO aggression on Yugoslavia last spring and the mass human rights violations and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated against Serbs and other non ethnic Albanians in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province since the deployment of international KFOR peacekeepers and UN civilian mission UNMIK.
They pointed to the accountability of the UN mission for the continuing systematic violations of human rights in the province.
Some UN representatives in Kosovo-Metohija are through their unacceptable activities and decisions working against the Security Council resolution, encouraging separatism and terrorism and violating the principles of Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is contrary to the goals of peace and stability in the region, it was noted during the meeting.
Jovanovic and Dienstbier agreed that the respect of fundamental human rights was dependent on the lifting of anti-Yugoslav sanctions, and pointed to the need for consistent implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1244.
The meeting was attended also by the head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office in Belgrade Barbara Davies, the Yugoslav foreign ministry said in a statement.
DIENSTBIER - WORLD COMMUNITY FAILS TO ENSURE SECURITY IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
The UN Human Rigths Commission's special rapporteur Jiri Dienstbier said late Friday that the world community had failed to ensure the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 providing for security of all living in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province.
Speaking in connection with a report he is soon to submit to the U.N. General Assembly, at a news conference held in Belgrade at the close of his seven-day visit to Yugoslavia, Dienstbier said that the international community was not yet capable of implementing the segment of the resolution providing for security of all living in the province.
He said that a new ethnic cleansing campaign in the province must be prevented at all costs.
If the international community fails to do so, then its mission will be unsuccessful, he said.
Asked to comment on whether he had met in Kosovo and Metohija with Serbs who were victims of the ethnic Albanians' reign of terror, Dienstbier said that he had visited the Serb community in Gnjilane that had had good relations with ethnic Albanians until the deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR to the province but that was now in a difficult position.
When members of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) arrived, there was no way of protecting the local Serbs because of which they are now living in one part of the town as if they were in a ghetto, he said.
He said that Serbs in Orahovac and a number of other localities also lived in such ghettos, saying that the international community was supposed to be protecting them.
Asked to comment on whether officials of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office and the International Committee of the Red Cross could visit Serbs held prisoner in the province by ethnic Albanians, Dienstbier said that the problem was that Serbs were not kept in prisons and that, consequently, international officials did not know where they were.
He said that not only Serbs but also other non-Albanians and all who did not speak Albanian were in a critical position.
He also said that Yugoslavia was a country with the highest number of refugees in Europe, saying that between 750,000 and 1 million refugees and displaced persons were sheltering in the country.
He called on the international community immediately to start speedy relief aid deliveries to Yugoslavia, urging the lifting of all sanctions against the country.
E.U. FOREIGN MINISTERS TO MEET IN LUXEMBOURG ON MONDAY
The foreign ministers of European Union states are due to meet for a regular conference in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the situation in Kosovo-Metohija and the work of the U.N. civilian and military missions to that Serbian province.
Sanctions against Yugoslavia will also be on the agenda, pursuant to a decision taken at their meeting in Brussels in July, when it was deemed necessary to ease or even lift some of the sanctions clamped on Yugoslavia over the Kosovo-Metohija crisis.
The European Union has acted on two matters in this connection, viz. rescinding a recommendation to ban Yugoslav athletes from international competitions, and exempting Kosovo-Metohija and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro from an oil embargo on Yugoslavia.
This last, which is a highly controversial and solely political decision, was taken by the E.U. justice and interior ministers in Luxembourg in September.
Earlier this year, the European Union clamped sanctions on Yugoslavia, including bans on oil imports and commercial flights, on a trumped-up charge of a deteriorated humanitarian situation in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province.
However, since the United Nations adopted its resolution on Kosovo, which Yugoslavia strictly and consistently honours, all reasons for keeping the sanctions in place have ceased.
The possibility of lifting the ban on E.U. airlines' commercial flights to Yugoslavia and flights to the E.U. states by Yugoslav Airlines JAT has been discussed on several occasions by E.U. working bodies in Brussels.
This will again be discussed at the ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.
A vast majority of the 15 E.U. states are still in favour of lifting the oil import and commercial flight bans, but Great Britain, which has been joined by Denmark, is sharply opposed to the move.
By keeping the sanctions in place, the E.U. ministers show that they do not care about the problem of providing fuel to heat homes in Yugoslavia during the winter, a problem caused by NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression.
In fact, they are using the problem as a lever for direct interference in Yugoslavia's internal affairs.
In this, the E.U. ministers are seeking the support of some opposition Serbian parties, whose representatives they have summoned to attend the Luxembourg meeting.
Many E.U. members, Italy among them, are however asking for an immediate easing of sanctions against Yugoslavia and aid for its people.
The Italian Parliament has recently passed a resolution instructing the government in Rome to urge the E.U. partners to ease the anti-Yugoslav sanctions in order to preclude a humanitarian disaster this winter.
SERBIAN MINISTER ON YUGOSLAV COMMITTEE'S COOPERATION WITH UNMIK
The activity by the Yugoslav committee on co-operation with the UN civilian mission to Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) through 11 different sub-committees has given certain results, Serbian Minister Slobodan Tomovic has said.
In an interview with the Kragujevac daily Lid, Tomovic said that textbooks and other necessary items had been distributed among primary school pupils in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province, saying that a similar action would be launched in the province's secondary schools by mid-October.
He said that pensioners in Kosovo and Metohija received their pensions and that other citizens received money they were entitled to, saying that the health care system covered all living in the province.
He said that residents of Orahovac, Gracanica and Kosovo Polje had received relief aid, saying that relief aid would be delivered also to other localities in the province in the next few days.
Tomovic, one of the committee's three vice-chairmen, listed as the committee's two top priorities the direct resolution of problems the population had been faced with following the pullout of Yugoslav army troops and Serbian police from the province, and activities within the strict implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, specifically its section guaranteeing Serbia's and Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity in Kosovo and Metohija.
YUGOSLAV MINISTER: KOUCHNER IS WORSE THAN OTTOMAN OCCUPIERS
Yugoslavia's justice minister said on Sunday that the situation in Kosovo-Metohija had never been worse and that Bernard Kouchner had done more evil to the Serbs than Ottoman occupiers for the 500 years of their rule.
Minister Petar Jojic, who chairs the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Board for the South Banat District, was speaking at a news conference in the northern Serbian (Yugoslav) town of Pancevo.
Jojic said that Kouchner respects no laws, either international or local, and that, acting without authority, he has set up an allegedly humanitarian "protection corps" which is nothing but an army of ethnic Albanian terrorists armed to the teeth.
Jojic went on to say that the time would soon come when NATO criminals and ethnic Albanian terrorists would be brought to book before Yugoslav courts.
He said he was certain that Kosovo-Metohija would remain Serbia's province, in which there would be no place for the thousands of Albanian terrorists without Yugoslav citizenship.
SERBS TARGETTED AGAIN IN KOSOVO POLJE
A hand grenade was lobbed into the courtyard of a Serb, one Slobodan Vucinic, in Kosovo Polje during the Saturday-to-Sunday night, but the blast caused no casualties, the local Centre for Peace and Tolerance said on Sunday.
Also during the night, the house of a married couple, Rade and Jelka Vulic, in Kosovo Polje was stoned for the third time. Meanwhile, many ethnic Albanian shop-keepers continue to refuse to do business with non-Albanian customers, according to the Centre.
Aid in food, fuel and medicine is urgently needed, especially for the old and frail, the Centre said.
Serb official in Kosovo-Polje Sveto Grujic has filed a written request with the local commands of the international KFOR force and the UN police for an explanation for his arrest on Oct. 5.
Grujic said KFOR and UN police troops physically assaulted and then arrested him as he was endeavouring to calm passions which were running high as KFOR and UN police were forcibly dismantling Serb roadblocks on the Pristina-Pec road at Bresje at 5 a.m. on Oct. 5.
KFOR ARRESTS THREE MEMBERS OF KOSOVO PROTECTION CORPS
Three ethnic Albanians, members of the so-called Kosovo Protection Corps, were arrested by KFOR in the German sector in Orahovac, because they beat up another ethnic Albanian who bought a tractor from a Serb, the Associated Press (AP) agency quoted the KFOR command as saying.
AP said that about 1,500 ethnic Albanians protested over the arrest on Thursday. The three members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, formed from the members of the allegedly demilitarized KLA, were later released until the completion of the investigation, AP said.
AP added that Russian peacekeepers had detained four ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovska Kamenica and seized three army guns in their possession, two pistols and a hunting rifle.
UN UNCONCERNED ABOUT FATE OF MISSING SERBS IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
The fate of about 500 Serbs abducted or listed as missing in Kosovo and Metohija, of whom over 300 have disappeared after the pullout of Yugoslav security forces and the deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR and the U.N. civilian mission to the province (UNMIK) four months ago, is still not UNMIK's concern, let alone its priority.
The Yugoslav Red Cross service for tracking down missing persons came into posession as far back as late July of reports that more than 400 Serbs had been abducted or listed as missing in the province up to that point, of whom over 300 had disappeared after the end of NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression on the country.
All requests to track down missing persons and lists with their names have been submitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that has so far failed to make any kind of response.
The lists were there when UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner took up his office in the province, but they have also been submitted to KFOR and the ICRC.
The fact that Yugoslavia's border with Albania and Macedonia was left unprotected after the pullout has led to the uncontrolled return of ethnic Albanian refugees to and the arrival of a large number of Albanian gangs of robbers in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as to the terrorising of Serbs, Montenegrins, Romanies and other non-Albanians and, subsequently, their exodus from the province.
The ICRC has received more than 500 messages which displaced persons sheltering in other parts of Serbia and in Montenegro have tried to send to members of their families in Kosovo and Metohija but has done nothing about it.
In the first ten days since KFOR's arrival alone, dozens renowned Serbs in Pristina, Kosovo and Metohija's chief city, and Pec, in the west of the province, were abducted by ethnic Albanian terrorists who wanted in this way to intimidate Serbs and force them to flee their homes.
Dr Andrija Tomanovic, a renowned surgeon at Pristina's Clinical Centre, was among the first to be abducted.
U.N. envoy on Kosovo and Metohija Sergio Vieira de Mello, Kouchner and KFOR commander Gen. Michael Jackson have been informed about Tomanovic's abduction that occurred on June 24.
Tomanovic's family has asked help from the Yugoslav Red Cross, the ICRC, and the UN office in Belgrade that have all pledged to do all within their power to help find him but have not responded yet.
Tomanovic's disappearance has clearly shown that the problem does not lie in UNMIK's incompetence but in its collusion with the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its leader Hashim Thaqi allegedly in establishing democratic authorities based on multi-ethnic principles.
It is yet to be seen whether Ljuljeta Uka, an ethnic Albanian who, aged 17, was brought to the Centre in June 1993 after being clinically dead for 90 minutes due to a bullet wound in her heart and left lung and whose life Tomanovic saved, will condemn the surgeon's abduction.
Tomanovic's surgical feat made the headlines at the time.
It is yet to be seen also whether a KLA member from Drenica who was operated by Tomanovic after he had been wounded in clashes with Serbian police in early March, still remembers who saved his life on that occasion.
Kouchner and Jackson, who have shown what they can do if they want to, have even more clearly shown through their utter unconcern about the fate of the missing Serbs what they cannot do when they do not want to.
KOSOVO PROTECTION FORCE COMMANDER CEKU UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR WAR CRIMES
Commander of the newly-formed Kosovo Protection Force and the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Agim Ceku is under investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for war crimes committed against Serbs in Croatia, The Sunday Times of London reported in its latest issue.
Members of the team of the tribunal's newly-appointed chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte told London's leading weekly that an investigation might be launched against Ceku also for war crimes that KLA has committed against Serbs in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province.
Ceku is under investigation for his role in the massacre of Serbs in the villages of Medak, Citluk and Pocitelj near Gospic, Croatia, in 1993. He was at the time commander of the Croatian army's notorious Ninth Brigade that was mainly made up of mercenaries.
He was also one of the Croatian army officers who were promoted to the rank of brigadier general and trained by U.S. instructors for the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in the Knin Krajina area.
U.S. FAILS TO PLACE KLA ON LATEST LIST OF TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS
Washington has once again shown that it pursues a hypocritical policy of double standards even as regards terrorism because it has failed to place the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a major threat to stability in south-eastern Europe, on its latest list of terrorist organisations.
By failing to include KLA in the list of incriminated groups believed to be most dangerous, the United States has openly shown that it supports and protects this terrorist organisation.
Top U.S. officials use generally accepted criteria for defining terrorism extremely selectively, taking into account only the fact whether terrorists in question jeopardise U.S. interests or not. The entire activity by terrorist organisations is then considered from the political point of view to see whether they can contribute to U.S. interests in certain parts of the world.
The list, which has just been released by the State Department, includes 28 organisations described by Washington as 'terrorist' organisations. Among them are seven Islamic terrorist groups, six Palestinian, four Latin American, two Greek, two Japanese and two terrorist organisations operating from Turkey.
The list also includes the Basque separatist organisation ETA and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) operating in Sri Lanka, while slightly milder terms are used in referring to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that is to remain under surveillance for having rejected a cease-fire and a plan proposed by Washington.
D'ALEMA SAYS ITALY HAS ITS SHARE OF BLAME FOR SERBIAN TRAGEDY
Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema said in Bari, south Italy, on Saturday that Italy has its share of the blame for the tragedy of the Serbian people.
According to D'Alema, speaking at a round-table conference on Balkan economic recovery, Italy wishes to rebuild the damage and open new prospects.
Italy is determined to take full part in the reconstruction of the Balkans and so bear its responsibility in full, D'Alema told the assembled ranking officials from the Balkan Stability Pact nations.
The Bari conference is dominated by three topics: reconstruction and economic development, security, and democratisation of the Balkans.
The conference is in fact making an initial assessment of the necessary investments. Special stress will be laid on infrastructural projects, such as roads, which will involve several Balkan countries.
ITALY APPROVES 400 BILLION LIRE FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF BALKANS
Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema's government adopted on Friday a draft law approving 400 billion lire (about 400 million German marks) for the economic reconstruction of the Balkans, Rome has said.
Foreign Trade Minister Pier Fascino said that determined were two funds for the reconstruction of the neighboring region: one which will secure 280 billion lire during a three-year period from the year 2,000 to 2002, and the other containing 120 billion lire to be secured out of a number of financial sources.
According to Fascino, the money will be used to aid companies and institutions and to compensate damages, while a separate fund will be set up for earmarking loans to boost the activities of small firms.
MINISTER MARKOVIC - AGGRESSION CONTINUES IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS SPHERE
The aggression on Yugoslavia continues today in the telecommunications sphere through the jamming of Yugoslav electronic media programs, more powerful broadcasts of foreign programs and false reports carried by some local media, Yugoslav Minister of Telecommunications Ivan Markovic told a press conference Friday.
The aggression on Yugoslavia continues by different means, although the Security Council Resolution 1244 had confirmed the state sovereignty on Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province, Markovic said.
The international community is not the US and NATO member-states but the UN and its institutions, in which a majority of countries support Yugoslavia in its endeavors to preserve its sovereignty, Markovic said.
Markovic said that telecommunications ministry inspectors had determined on three occasions in September and on October 8 that programs of Yugoslav electronic media were being jammed from Belje (Croatia), Mts Majevica and Vlasic (Bosnia), Sofia, Vidin, Nikopol, Plovdiv and Vrac (Bulgaria), and from ships stationed in the Adriatic.
In addition, 18 foreign radio and TV programs are being broadcast on 21 frequencies from Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia and from ships and aircraft in Serbian, English, German, Bulgarian and Albanian, as well as a special TV Network program sponsored by 12 EU member-states, the US and the Soros Fundation, Markovic said.
The jamming is contrary to the regulations of the International Telecommunications Union, a specialised UN agency, Markovic said.
Following several protests filed by Yugoslavia, the ITU has rejected the illegal request of the international civilian mission for granting a separate international telephone code for Kosovo-Metohija, as if though it were a sovereign state, Markovic said and noted that the ITU had underlined that only relevant Yugoslav authorities can communicate with the ITU.
The Yugoslav telecommunications system is being revitalized through the reconstruction of facilities, transmitters and other installations, Markovic said.
The telecommunications ministry will propose to the Yugoslav government to adopt a decree on protecting state interests in the telecommunications sphere in order to protect state and private media, the post, Telecom and other institutions and their property, Markovic said.
WAR IS THE WORST FORM OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE
During the work of the Balkan Ecology Conference on the ecological effects of the recent war in Yugoslavia, currently held in Belgrade, Friday's speakers presented elements showing that war is one of the worst forms of consciously created ecological catastrophe.
The participants of the conference recalled that over 1,000 missiles had hit the summits of Mt. Fruska Gora in Vojvodina where radio and television relays were located, as well as the Brankovac hotel and numerous villages, with damages also recorded to the monasteries on this mountain - Sisatovac, Vrdnik, Staro and Novo Hopovo.
The constant bombardment of Mt. Ovcar, central Serbia, also damaged many monasteries, although the absolute record holder is Mt. Grmija - a picnic ground near Pristina.
A total of 1,200 missiles were dropped on Mt. Kopaonik, which is a national park bordering Kosovo and Metohija and northern and central Serbia. The blasts razed the mausoleum to famous botanist Josif Pancic and the nearby hotels.
One of the first targets of the aggressors was Mt. Jastrebac, central Serbia, while mountains in the vicinity of Belgrade - Avala, Kosmaj and Rudnik, were repeatedly bombed, as were those further south - Gucevo, Tara, Jadovnik, Sara, Pastrik, Prokletije and Goles.
One of the lecturers, Zorka Vukmirovic, spoke about the uncontrolled emmission of dangerous, toxic and carcinogenic substances into the atmosphere and their effects on the environment. She said that the oil refinery in Pancevo, close to Belgrade, was bombed seven times.
The shelling of the Utva plant in Pancevo released the compounds of sodium-hydroxide, while the razed Pancevo refinery leaked chlorine which creates acid compounds and causes acid rain in Europe.
The most frequently bombed triangle, made up of Obrenovac, Pancevo and Batajnica (all in the vicinity of Belgrade), is inhabited by nearly two million people.
The Balkan Ecology Conference, which closes on Oct. 11, is attended by 133 participants from Balkan countries and guests from Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Australia.
GERMAN TRAVEL AGENT: TRAIN TRAVEL THROUGH YUGOSLAVIA IS SAFE
Travel by train through Yugoslavia is safe and passengers from Western Europe and other parts of the world can have a safe and comfortable trip towards the south, the director of the German travel agency Optima Tours, Renata Menoni-Schwerko, said here on Friday.
Speaking on the final day of the seventh International Conference of Agency Passanger Car Trains which opened in Belgrade on Oct. 5, Schwerko set out that her customers did not have any difficultues or conflicts while travelling through Yugoslavia - from Sid, on the border with Croatia, to Dimitrovgrad, on the border with Bulgaria.
Next year, Optima Tours trains will pass through Yugoslavia on their way to Greece and Turkey from May to October.
Last season, Optima Tours transferred 35,000 passangers and 13,000 cars through Yugoslavia.
The conference was attended by the representatives of rail companies from a dozen European countries, including Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia and Slovenia.
BELGRADE'S MUSIC EVENT BEMUS OPENS
Belgrade's 31st music event BEMUS opened late on Saturday in a concert by the Serbian Radio and Television symphony orchestra conducted by Alexander Apolin of the Czech Republic.
The audience has shown great interest in the event's selection of pieces reflecting the spirit of the 20th century, because most of the concert programmes still give priority to classics of previous centuries.
Despite a soccer match played between Croatia and Yugoslavia in Zagreb, which was believed to be a major sports event, the concert hall of the building founded by Serbia's leading 19th century merchant Ilija Milosavljevic Kolarac was filled to capacity.
The orchestra and Apolin, who had been among the first to back Yugoslavia's resistance to NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression, received tumultuous ovations before and after the concert.
YUGOSLAV SOCCER TEAM'S SUCCESS CELEBRATED THROUGHOUT COUNTRY
The success of the Yugoslav team that qualified for the next year's European soccer championship finals after drawing with Croatia 2-2 in Zagreb late on Saturday was celebrated throughout the country.
Mainly young people marked the team's victory by throwing firecrackers, honking the horns of their cars, waving the Serbian and Yugoslav flags and singing.
Immediately after Garcia Aranda of Spain, the referee, sounded the end of the match, the streets of Belgrade were flooded with cars with Yugoslav flags.
Tens of thousands of Belgraders poured to the city's centre chanting 'Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia.' The names of Kralj, Mihajlovic, Mijatovic and other team members who ensured the 'desired' score were on everyone's lips. Some criticised Mirkovic for being shown a red card, while others backed his conduct.
Croatia's goalkeeper Ladic was praised for his performance, but many joked that he would not even like to see Mihajlovic in a picture again.
Many of those taking part in the celebration decided to go to Belgrade airport to welcome the team, due to arrive soon after midnight, the way Yugoslavia's basketball and volleyball teams had been welcomed after winning European and world championships.
The soccer team's success was celebrated also in Novi Sad, chief city of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina.
About 10,000 residents of Novi Sad celebrated the victory at the city's Freedom Square late Saturday, chanting to Serbia, Yugoslavia and team members.
Streams of cars with Yugoslav flags flooded the city's streets immediately after the match in Zagreb had ended.
The team's success was celebrated also in other parts of Yugoslavia and the (Bosnian Serb) Republika Srpska.