The storming of Belgrade

The day when the people of Serbia marched on parliament to sweep away the Milosevic regime

Belgrade was in the grip of revolutionary chaos last night, the Yugoslav parliament and state television headquarters ablaze after thousands of opposition supporters swept aside police to storm the citadels of President Slobodan Milosevic's power.

Belgrade was in the grip of revolutionary chaos last night, the Yugoslav parliament and state television headquarters ablaze after thousands of opposition supporters swept aside police to storm the citadels of President Slobodan Milosevic's power.

Police who had been firing tear-gas ran out of the back of the buildings, threw away their flak jackets and helmets and joined the protests. Later members of the regime's security forces used tear-gas on demonstrators, almost certainly unleashing the endgame of Mr Milosevic's decade in power. There were unconfirmed reports of two deaths in clashes.

The opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica, appeared before a rally to say Mr Milosevic had been defeated: "Good evening, liberated Serbia," he told the crowd. The entire country, it seemed, roared "Arrest Slobo" and "He's finished". Last night Tanjug, the official news agency, declared Mr Kostunica the newly elected president of Yugoslavia.

Mr Kostunica told the crowds: "Serbia hit the road of democracy and where there is democracy there is no place for Slobodan Milosevic."

Hundreds of thousands of Serbs - more than have been seen on the nation's streets - had earlier gathered for a peaceful rally in the capital to demand that the Serb leader should finally recognise his electoral defeat at the hands of Mr Kostunica.

The whereabouts of Mr Milosevic and his entourage, many of them with international arrest warrants for war crimes on their heads, was unknown.

In Washington a spokesman for the Pentagon was reporting "rumours" that Mr Mr Milosevic and his wife, Mira Markovic, may already have fled.

World leaders urged him to acknowledge his defeat. President Bill Clinton said: "I think the people are trying to get their country back and we support democracy and the will of the Serbian people."

Tony Blair said: "Your time is up. Go now. Don't wait until there has been more death and destruction."

By nightfall the transition to democracy in Yugoslavia seemed unstoppable as the opposition announced: "We have contacts with the army."

The teargassing on the street of Belgrade brought the possibility of a violent apocalypse for Mr Milosevic closer than before. The previously peaceful demonstrations turned ugly and violent as the protests gathered momentum. The building of RTS, Serb state television, hated by the opposition for its lies and propaganda, was soon ablaze, as was part of the federal parliament, where five police cars were also set alight.

All of Belgrade seemed to be caught up in the insurrection. Seventy five-year-old Olga Rodic, coughing into her handkerchief from the acrid smell of the tear-gas, said: "For him, it's the end. All this can change nothing."

In the midst of the tear-gas but before the worst violence had started, Vilja Pajevic, a 46-year-old lawyer, said: "People will just hit back with even greater force. I think he's finished. Tonight. There's no alternative."

Dalibor, a 19-year-old student of English, started by sounding pessimistic. "Milosevic is a very smart man. There's always a rabbit he can pull out of the hat." Then, he suddenly added a postscript: "But this time, no way."

Even amid the tear-gassing, which followed the familiar Milosevic pattern of "When in doubt, unleash violence", there were moments of disloyalty. Riot policemen emerged from the parliament and from the headquarters of Serb state television station and then sided with the demonstrators.

The police force has always been at the heart of Mr Milosevic's hold on power. This refusal by some of his own police to obey the master thus strikes a disastrous blow.

Studio B television channel, once independent, but now a government propaganda outlet, was seized by demonstrators. A message running across the top of the screen called for all former employees to return to work "at a free and independent Studio B". In scenes reminiscent of the Romanian revolution of 1989, demonstrators wandered into the studio waving their flags. Studio B called for "all Belgraders to stay at the barricades until Slobodan Milosevic goes".

Meanwhile, even though all three state television channels were off the air, the pro-government Politika TV continued to show pop videos as though nothing was in any way abnormal.

In the short term, the chaos could theoretically play into Mr Milosevic's hands. He could now seek to declare a state of emergency in a city where much of the disobedience was last night anything but civil. But his time for such games may already have run out. It seems more likely that he will be consumed - like the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, before him - by the violence which his regime, by refusing to contemplate any loss of power, has unleashed. There were also reports that demonstrators had occupied the main police station in the city centre.

Meanwhile, at the Kolubara mine, south of Belgrade, where miners have been on strike since last week and where thousands of local supporters forced police into a climbdown on Wednesday, police were reported yesterday evening to have withdrawn. There had been earlier fears of an armed assault on the miners.

The tear-gassing in Belgrade was intended to intimidate protesters, as it has successfully done before. Yesterday, however, there was a shared conviction that the officially unleashed violence could only make things worse, not just for Serbia, but for Mr Milosevic.

The anger on the streets last night contrasted sharply with the atmosphere of celebration that pervaded the city earlier in the day. The opposition had called for people to come to Belgrade from all across Serbia to demand recognition of the election results, which are based on return sheets signed and counter-signed by representatives of both government and opposition parties.

The rally began at 3pm yesterday, and looked set until the last moment to be more or less peaceful. The mood was so confident that the tone was much more celebratory than angry. The chants of "He's broken" and "He's finished" have become more and more joyous as people have finally started to believe in them in the past few days. There was enormous anger at the decision of the Constitutional Court on Wednesday night, and with details confirmed yesterday, whereby the elections of 24 September were simply annulled.

The opposition demanded a recount because it believed that the government-appointed electoral commission had deliberately added up wrong. In the words of one opposition poster: "It's no use: one plus one still make two." The opposition wanted to compare thousands of identical carbon copies of the results from polling stations across the country. The court refused, and ruled instead that the election should be held again from scratch. In effect: "The wrong side won; let's try again." Unsurprisingly, the opposition was not impressed.

None the less, popular confidence was so high that the atmosphere as thousands of cars and buses descended on Belgrade yesterday morning was jubilant. On the roads south of Belgrade, thousands lined the roadside - laughing, cheering, and waving victory signs - as the never-ending line of vehicles headed for Belgrade. The atmosphere might be compared to that of the world's largest wedding convoy. Serbs of all ages, including toothless old peasant women who had probably been careful to avoid the minefield of Serb politics for many years, stood smiling in the villages and in the fields as the packed buses and cars, plastered with stickers like "A better Serbia", sped past.

Passengers disembarking from the buses on the edge of Belgrade said it had not been possible for everybody to come who wanted to. A man from the town of Cacak said: "As many had to stay behind as were able to come with us today. There were not enough buses, and not enough petrol."