Molly Ivins December 5

AUSTIN, Texas — What's wrong with this picture? The lead story every night on national network news is O.J. Simpson revisited, a case that wore out its welcome the first time around. Somewhere down the 28-minute quick read, we get maybe 30 seconds on this astonishing story out of Belgrade, ex-Yugoslavia.

Every day now, about 250,000 people come out into the streets of Serbia, demonstrating peacefully against their own government, which they know full well is capable of opening fire on crowds. These people are the heroes of the world right now, the best and bravest of all mankind, trying to bring down a hideous communist dictator who is guilty of genocide. And we're just sittin' here, suckin' our thumbs and sayin' "duh."

It's not as though we didn't have a stake in this; as you know, our military is there already, trying to keep a peace accord that dictator Slobodan Milosevic has already welshed on. We want the peace to work, so it's pretty obvious that we'd be better off with the opposition than with Milosevic, who started the ugly, stupid war in the first place. The latest bulletin is that Milosevic has cut off the last independent radio station in the country. All the papers are down, along with the television and now the radio; broadcasts from outside are jammed.

Now, there's one thing the U.S. of A. can do. We've got technology for unjamming broadcasts — we're aces at getting around that stuff. We don't have to send out any propaganda — just let the BBC and Radio Europe Number One and those guys do their regular job. Not so long ago, we pretty much started a war in Nicaragua because the government shut down one newspaper. This is ridiculous.

According to The New York Times, Milosevic appears to be getting ready to crack down hard. The opposition, led by two nice guys with beards and impossible names (Miodrag Perisic and Zoran Djindjic, who will go down in history with Sam Adams, Simon Bolivar, Miguel Hidalgo, etc.), is in favor of (A) democracy, (B) peace, (C) ending corruption and (D) getting rid of a genocidal dictator.

This movement started when Milosevic overturned a bunch of local elections in which the opposition had defeated his crumb-bums in honest voting. The opposition has only one card left to play, calling a general strike, but according to Perisic, they have serious communication problems — getting the word to the union guys in the factories is difficult.

Anybody have a spare walkie-talkie?

For five years now, what we like to call the Civilized World has been worrying itself bald over how such a horrible war could be taking place in a modern country.

The answer seems to be the most hideous case of bad leadership since Adolf Hitler. Now, Milosevic's own people are rising against him, and it's not just in Belgrade but in lots of little places, too. In fact, what's getting almost no publicity is that the people in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, are also marching against their horrible government.

The U.S. government is apparently stuck with bad options again. According to the policy wonks on the "Lehrer Newshour," if we put back the sanctions we've already lifted, the people it hurts most are the city folks like the ones leading the protests in Belgrade.

How about if we ask the opposition what they would like us to do? Our soldiers are there to help carry out the Dayton peace accords, which were signed by Milosevic, who has already broken the accords. To that end, is there any useful role our government can play in this?

And if not our government, how about the rest of us? During the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, some of the Chinese students were in touch with American students by computer. As individuals, at least we could send messages of moral support.

And how about some system for sending stuff, we being the World Capital of Stuff, like warm socks, dried beans, cell phones, whatever? InterAction, a coalition of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) concerned with international humanitarian aid, has a Web site at www.interaction.org. Doctors Without Borders, International Orthodox Christian Charities and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency have offices in Belgrade.

Obviously, we're not talking about sending guns or military stuff; this is a peaceful opposition movement. But given these people's incredible courage, why don't we Americans organize ourselves to send them some help? Why don't American Serbs, American Bosnians and American Croats get together and organize a day of NFL football fans contributing their cold-weather gear, the kind we get for a game in Green Bay or Buffalo? These courageous demonstrators may have to march all winter; how about Parkas for Peace or Hand Warmers for Humanity?

At the very least, we owe these folks attention and respect. They are the bravest of the brave, going against rifles and tanks with courage and hope. Personally, I think it's a much better story than O.J.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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