Forces opposing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic took to the streets to demand his resignation. After a background report and a discussion with New York Times journalist Steven Erlanger, two experts discuss the protest.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And joining me now are Daniel Serwer, Balkans Director at the U.S. Institute of Peace and Former Special U.S. Envoy to the Bosnian Federation. And Charles Ingrao, Professor of History at Purdue University. He just returned from spending the summer in Bosnia and Croatia. Daniel Serwer, would you agree that this was an important but not definitive demonstration just from what you've heard about it?

DANIEL SERWER: I agree completely with what Steve was saying. It seems to me they met the threshold for participation that they required, but this will not remove Slobodan Milosevic, and there are a lot of questions still open about the future of this movement.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We'll come back to those questions, but let me ask you also, what about the people who were there, just from what you heard, is there anything significant about the composition of this demonstration?

DANIEL SERWER: I don't know enough yet to be able to say about that. In the past, during this past summer, the demonstrations outside of Belgrade have included a very broad spectrum of people, including military reservists, retirees, pensioners people who aren't usually associated with the intellectual opposition in Belgrade. And that seems to me a sign of strength in the opposition.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Charles Ingrao, what did you hear today about this demonstration that taught you anything about the state of this opposition in Serbia generally?

CHARLES INGRAO: Well, the opposition is delighted to have had over 100,000 people at the demonstrations. At the same time, there is real apprehension within the alliance for change that they can trust Vuk Draskovic. There is a real fear he is really in cahoots with Milosevic to the extent he will support early elections, which will be controlled by the government, and will simply elongate his hold on power.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So Mr. Ingrao, the differences that Steve Erlanger talked about were quite evident in the demonstration today, and do you think these are still rather crippling for the opposition?

CHARLES INGRAO: First of all, there was hissing and booing and throwing of plastic bottles while Vuk Draskovic was speaking, I don't know if that showed on the feed. So this is not a good sign as far as that's concerned, but we have to keep in mind that the bottom line is Milosevic is unpopular, he has been for years. He is either distrusted, disliked or despised by virtually all the Serbs. And so whether or not the opposition can get together right now may be beside the point, because as we get towards October and November, that's when push comes to shove. The infrastructure has been destroyed, and only the West can rebuild it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you're saying things could get just that much hotter then.

CHARLES INGRAO: Yes. September - as was mentioned -- when the students come back, that will be the first test. And then, after that, as we get to winter and there's no heating oil, there's no gas, that's when I think everybody has to really smell the coffee and see whether or not they are ready to go through the winter without the ability to survive.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with that, Mr. Serwer?

DANIEL SERWER: Yes, I do. I think the winter is the big test. The question is can these opposition figures maintain this momentum? One demonstration won't do it. As Ginzic indicated today, they're going to have to put people out in the streets repeatedly day after day, as they have sometimes in the past to good effect. They're also going to have to develop more unity than they have today. It was quite apparent that there's a big difference in what Draskovic is asking for and what Jinjich is asking for. This group of economists that organized this demonstration is an extraordinary phenomenon, one that gives me a lot of hope about Serbia. They're a group that has been active for some time. And it's quite extraordinary to see a popular movement supporting an intellectual group advocating a transition government of experts.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what they're calling for. They don't want elections right away, they want a transition government.

DANIEL SERWER: That's right. And one of the big questions is whether this opposition can avoid the traps that Milosevic will lay. He's expert at traps, and snap elections under the current election laws and without international supervision would be a terrible trap.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ingrao, tell us the role of the church in all of this and how crucial you think it is.

CHARLES INGRAO: Well, historically the Orthodox Church has not gotten involved politically, and that's not just in Serbia but throughout the Orthodox world. It's much different than the western Christian world in a sense. What is really remarkable is that through the efforts and particularly Bishop Aremi, the bishop of Kosovo, who has seen everything develop for the last ten years, that they have stepped forward, largely because of Artemi's leadership and because of the advice he has gotten from Serbian opposition leaders within Kosovo and in Belgrade.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And do you have anything to add to that?

CHARLES INGRAO: Well, I think that when you look at the system that Milosevic has created and that sustains him, he's sustained by police, by the manipulation and control of public media and thirdly by a patronage system, the people who work for him, people who need access to scarce resources, people who need government contracts. He is staying in power like a typical fascist regime would, like Franco's Spain or Mussolini's Italy or the Latin dictatorships or the dictatorships of Latin America. He only controls those levers that are necessary to control to stay in power. The church is outside of that right now, but there are many pressure points, in Montenegro, in Kosovo, in the Voi Vodino, the former Hapsburg Province, which is very much more multi-ethnic and very much more tolerant, and then the church within Serbia itself.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Serwer, do you have anything to add to that about the church?

DANIEL SERWER: No, not really. The church has turned in a good direction under a lot of pressure from - actually from Kosovar Serbs in particular. And that's a very positive development that has happened, but it's not going to be decisive. I agree with Charlie about that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what's the role of the U.S. right now?

DANIEL SERWER: The role of the U.S. should be a fully supportive role of the Serb opposition and of the efforts to remove Milosevic. There's not that much we can do about it, but we should be putting the kind of money and effort into this that we put into the democratization of Eastern Europe more than ten years ago.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is that happening? There are meetings, I mean very high administration officials have met with various leaders of the opposition, most recently the Secretary of State.

DANIEL SERWER: There are clear indications that the administration is being supportive. I think it's been a little bit slow to get moving after the war but money is now starting to flow, support is now starting to flow, and that's a good thing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But Charles Ingrao, does that also give Milosevic a stick with which to hit the opposition?

CHARLES INGRAO: Well, I think if we go for elections in September, that's going to give him plenty of wiggle room. He can manipulate those elections, and he can find yet another way to survive. But, you know, I'd like to make one point, and that is, as we're looking at Serbia, we're looking at one of our - one of our diplomats calls the hole in the doughnut - we have a region around Serbia that is very much playing ball with the West. Everybody in the Balkans wants to be part of Western Europe. They want to be part of the new international community, and so when Romania, and Bulgaria, and Macedonia, and Slovakia, and Hungary, all of these countries are carrying out the evolution from communism to a civil society based on democracy and the rule of law, it's Serbia that is in the middle, and we need to focus on that. On the other hand, they are isolated, and I think the danger now that they have lost Kosovo and now that they no longer have the ability to project force beyond Serbia's borders, it's basically a question of time, because have the leverage and the momentum, and Milosevic has very little right now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ingrao, there's a lot of talk about civil war from opposition leaders. They warn of civil war if such and such isn't done or is done. Is that a real danger?

CHARLES INGRAO: Yes, as a matter of fact, that's one of the concerns that people in Belgrade have been telling me, that they don't want violence in the streets, they don't want the country to be split. I would suggest that the palliative for this is the army. The army has historically throughout this century not gotten involved in overthrowing the government with two exceptions: Before World War I and then on the eve of World War II. Otherwise the army has prided itself in its professionalism. But if it comes to civil war, I think we can see the army stepping in. Within the army middle-level officers, junior and mid-life officers are very much against Milosevic, there's a tremendous amount of opposition. The people at the top are part of the patronage system. They would have to be toppled. But the army I think will do what it sees as Serbia's best interest.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Serwer, what do you think about the civil war issue?

DANIEL SERWER: I think some of the talk about civil war is pumped up by Milosevic, to tell you the truth, in order to scare his opposition. But Charlie's right, that the army has a role to play here, and how willing it's going to be to play it, I'm not really sure. General Peresic, who is now out of the army, but has a lot of sympathies from inside, I understand was not at the demonstration today, and that's clearly a weakness of the opposition if it hasn't brought him fully into the picture.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I know he said he might not go, but I'm not sure he wasn't there. We don't have any information about that.

DANIEL SERWER: I'm not sure either, but I haven't seen any reports that he was there.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right, well, thank you both very much for helping us understand this.