The committee born amid chaotic scenes starts to establish control

Behind The Scenes

The security man at the City Hall of Belgrade barely looked at my press accreditation before pointing above his head.

The security man at the City Hall of Belgrade barely looked at my press accreditation before pointing above his head.

"It's room 13, first floor," he added. I did not say that I wanted to visit the Crisis Committee of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). The committee was established on Thursday night, after victorious protesters blew away the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

It should be only a temporary body until the MPs of DOS and Montenegrin MPs elected on September 24 proclaim the new government of Yugoslavia. As the city of Belgrade was won by DOS in the elections, the committee will sit in Belgrade.

In the big hall on the left, a familiar voice was patiently explaining what was going to happen today. In front of several TV cameras, Dragoljub Micunovic, one of the DOS leaders, described the procedure for the establishment of the new Yugoslav parliament.

"DOS has 59 elected MPs, we're waiting for Montenegrins to show up tonight or early in the morning ... We have the majority and will strictly follow the legal procedure," Mr Micunovic said. Being the eldest MP, he is about to lead the session.

His assistant said: "This was a good place for an interview. Upstairs, it's a kind of controlled chaos."

On the first floor, room 13, calm, but tired assistants were having problems in finding the DOS leaders dispersed all over the place. "I know that some are attending the open air mass held by patriarch," one of them said. "Search there," she added, pointing to a nearby hall. Another assistant ran to answer the phone that rang constantly, and dropped her mobile. "God, I got home at six this morning. I was back here at eight," she said.

DOS leaders walked through the doors in all directions. The faxes were screaming, and the different sounds were ringing constantly. Preparations were under way for today's parliament session.

One DOS leader told me that "for the time being", they all pitch in wherever necessary. "[Goran] Svilanovic deals mostly with the media, I think, but that is not strictly observed."

Miroljub Labus, an economist and G17 expert, met the governor of the central bank yesterday, I was told. They were discussing the rapidly diminishing foreign reserves of the country. Rumours have been circling in Belgrade for weeks that the country's last hard currency reserves were being hastily transferred abroad.

A desperate assistant explained to someone over the phone that DOS was not able to do a thing for a group of foreign journalists who arrived at Belgrade airport without Yugoslav visas. "What can I do?" she asked all of us in the room. We had no answer.

Another phone on the big desk rang. A young DOS expert, Sinisa Nikolic, answered, and we heard a loud "Yes"! He was told by someone that theConstitutional Court had ruled that Vojislav Kostunica had been elected president of Yugoslavia.

It was the same court that threw the country into chaos only two days ago, with its Aesopian ruling that annulled the elections of September 24 and called for a rerun.

Two heavily set men entered the room, asking for General Momcilo Perisic, one of the DOS leaders. They were active colonels of the Yugoslav Army. The secretary took them to the nearby hall. "He was somewhere around, but wait, I'll find him" and they ran off to find the general.

It was time to go. More and more people were streaming in, another DOS meeting had been scheduled for last night.