I 111 1 :VI \ .t 't N.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2000
Opposition candidate declares victory over Milosevic
by R. Jeffrey Smith
The Washington Post
September 25, 2000
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA,
Yugoslavia - Moving to preempt
President Slobodan Milosevic, the
chief opposition candidate in
Sunday's Yugoslav presidential vote
declared victory Monday, and tens
of thousands of his supporters held
a huge party in Belgrade to cel
ebrate.
With his bold declaration, made
in the absence of official voting re
sults, Vojislav Kostunica appeared
to be trying to demonstrate enough
self-confidence and public support
to force Milosevic to concede defeat.
The opposition contends that de
spite widespread fraud and voter in
timidation by the government,
Kostunica carried the day on Sun
day.
Kostunica said at a news confer
ence Monday that if Milosevic chal
lenges his claim, the opposition
movement will "defend our victory
by peaceful means, and we will pro
test for as long as it takes.... We will
fight in democratic ways. The truth
is our strongest weapon. We don't
want to provoke internal tensions."
The European Union, the United
States and other Western nations -
including France and Italy, which
have traditionally been less hostile
to Milosevic's government - threw
their weight behind the opposition,
declaring that any claims of victory
by the government would not be
credible and calling on Milosevic to
step aside.
The Western powers view him as
ad pulled by NBC
by Deborah Lohse
Knight-Ridder Tribune
September 21, 2000
Just get over it.
That's the message Nike Inc. is
sending by saying that viewers of
fended by the slasher-movie ad NBC
yanked off the air this week don't
"get the joke."
But several marketing experts are
cringing, saying Nike is unnecessar
ily tarnishing its brand name with
such viewers by not denouncing the
perceived anti-woman message. A
better strategy, they say, would be to
pull the ad from all stations and do
nate to anti-violence causes to bol
ster the stance.
Some say the ad, construed by
some as an overly realistic portrayal
of violence toward women, couldn't
come at a worse time
"The Olympics are about sports
and worldwide peace," said Carol
Cone, chief executive of Cone Inc.,
a strategic-marketing consulting
firm. "And this year, women are do
ing exceedingly well" in the Olym
pics. "Their timing was really bad,"
she added.
The flap started last weekend,
when thousands of viewers objected
after NBC ran a Nike ad during the
Olympic games featuring a woman
outrunning a chainsaw-armed at
tacker. NBC yanked the ad off its
Olympics lineup, saying it had only
accepted the ad "subject to audience
complaint."
Euro stabilizes at 87 cents
by William Drozdiak
The Washington Post
September 25, 2000
PRAGUE - Finance ministers from
the world's leading industrial pow
ers were pleased as the ailing euro,
Europe's new single currency, stabi
lized Monday at around 87 cents af
ter Friday's massive rescue operation
by central banks.
Traders on foreign exchange mar
kets seemed reluctant to test the re
solve of the Group of Seven nations,
having directed a decade of ethnic
warfare in the Balkan region and say
he must leave if they are to lift eco
nomic and political sanctions they
have imposed on Yugoslavia.
Milosevic has been indicted as a war
criminal by an international tribunal
in the Hague.
Kostunica made his victory an
nouncement in a vacuum of reliable
information about the actual results.
Government election authorities
have so far released only early fig
ures, showing Milosevic in the lead.
In any case, the opposition has de
clared itself unwilling to believe any
official vote count, saying the num
bers will be manipulated by the gov
ernment to deny what they contend
was a clear win by Kostunica.
Two other opposition parties that
fielded presidential candidates, the
Serbian Radical Party and the
Serbian Renewal Movement, both
credited Kostunica with victory.
Milosevic, who has not appeared
in public since he visited a polling
station Sunday morning, gave no
sign Monday that he is prepared to
concede the election and resign. At
the same time, police and other se
curity forces under his control did
little to obstruct the opposition ral
lies.
Monday night in Belgrade - capi
tal of both Yugoslavia and its domi
nant republic, Serbia - Kostunica
supporters rallied in force, shouting
such slogans as "Save Serbia, kill
yourself, Slobodan!" Similar rallies
were reported in many cities around
Yugoslavia.
At the Belgrade gathering, famed
Yugoslav folk singer and dissident
"It's not funny to go after a woman
like a piece of meat," fumed Joan
Glang, a Burlingame mother of a 6-
year-old boy who said she flipped the
station in horror upon seeing the ad
with her son. "He asked me, 'what
happened, did he cut off her head?"
Glang said.
But Nike remained defiant, saying
it was "disappointed" by NBC's ac
tions and that it knew its loyal fans
would understand that the ad was in
tended as a slasher-movie parody in
which the so-called victim emerged
victorious, aided by her Nikes. The
ad featured U.S. Olympic track con
testant Suzy Hamilton.
Nike defended the ad again Tues
day. Critics "are missing the point,"
said Scott Reames, a Nike spokes
man, who said the company did
apologize to those who were of
fended, but stood by its ad.
"People are reading way too much
into these ads," Reames said. "We
felt like the message in our ads was
on where the woman was the victor,"
he added, noting that many viewers
called backing the ad.
In tackling the flap, Nike joins a
long roster of companies, many aim
ing to deliver cutting-edge ads to
teens, that had spots pulled after con
sumer backlash. Coca-Cola pulled a
supposedly humorous ad featuring a
teen corpse after outcry in 1998. Roy
Rogers pulled its lunch-lady ads af
ter cafeteria workers found them de
meaning.
The best strategy in such cases,
whose finance ministers vowed dur
ing meetings here that their central
banks were prepared to take further
action to support the euro if it fell to
levels that might jeopardize world
economic stability.
But some analysts said the euro,
which had fallen to a record low of
84 cents before the G-7 intervened
in currency markets by selling bil
lions of dollars to prop it up, could
face fresh downward pressure if
Danish voters decide Thursday to
reject a referendum calling on them
WORLD & NATION
Djordje Balasevic made his first ap
pearance in two years, having with
drawn from public performances to
protest Milosevic's policies. No ral
lies were organized by the govern
ment Monday, after only a few hun
dred Milosevic supporters attended a
Belgrade rock concert Sunday and
suffered the taunts of participants in
a larger Kostunica rally.
The government appeared to be
grappling through much of the day
for a credible accounting of the elec
tion results, which analysts here be
lieve Milosevic had expected to win
handily.
"We are encountering a wall of si
lence," said Sinisa Nikolic, an oppo
sition member of a federal election
commission. "We are sitting here and
asking what to do. We have no ac
cess to where computer results are
being calculated."
Given Milosevic's tight control of
the military and police, as well as his
frequent use of repression to silence
dissent, he retains the option of in
sisting that the vote was really in his
favor and then cracking down on op
ponents.
He also could claim that a second
round of balloting is needed because
no candidate attained a majority of
all votes cast Sunday. If he does, a
runoff between the two top vote-get
ters - presumably Milosevic and
Kostunica - would be held Oct. 8. But
such a vote would hold new risks for
Milosevic, because his opponents in
Montenegro - Serbia's Western-ori
ented partner in the Yugoslav federa
tion - who orchestrated a massive
boycott of the Sunday's vote within
the republic, have said they would
consultants say, is to "apologize pro
fusely, and begin implementing safe
guards to make sure it doesn't hap
pen again," said Robert Grede, a mar
keting professor at Marquette Univer
sity.
Nike's lighten-up stance is unduly
risking its brand, these experts say.
"There's the old Hollywood adage
that says any publicity is good pub
licity," Grede said. "I don't think that's
the same for corporations -- if they
continue in the same vein, they are
going to wind up shooting themselves
in the foot," he added.
"In a venue like the Olympics,
which is mostly about feel-good im
agery," where "Nike plays such a cen
tral role in the event, they didn't need
to go to this level of edginess to meet
their branding needs," said Allen
Adamson, managing director of
Landor Associates, a brand consult
ant.
"Their issue is not awareness. They
don't need the spin," he said.
But Nike, like many companies try
ing to stay current with a teen follow
ing, said it can't afford to drab down
its marketing. "Especially in the
younger consumer market, you need
to show you are continually pushing
the envelope," Reames said. "If you
go the plain-vanilla route, they will
quickly discard you."
While the consultants were sympa
thetic to Nike's bind, they said the glo
bal giant isn't like Benetton Group
Spa, whose controversial ads such as
those featuring profiles of death-row
to join 11 other nations that have al
ready embraced the currency.
Neil MacKinnon, senior currency
strategist at Merrill Lynch, said trad
ers had a "residual degree of skepti
cism" about whether the central banks
can reverse the euro's steep decline
against the dollar by repeated inter
ventions. "But the price action today
indicates that the market is wary
about taking on the G-7," he said.
Friday's action in support of the
euro marked the first time in five
years that the United States, Japan and
vote for Kostunica in a second
Legally speaking, Milosevic
could concede defeat but remain in
office until the middle of next year,
to finish his current term.
At a Belgrade news conference
"In essence, we won everywhere."
this afternoon, Gorica Gajevic, a se
nior official of the ruling Socialist
party, said that with more than a third
of the vote counted, Milosevic had
won at least 45 percent. She added
that she expected his vote tally to
surpass 50 percent, ensuring a first
round victory. Gajevic said further
that she expects the Socialists to cap
ture a majority of both houses of par
liament.
But another official in the ruling
coalition, Ljubisa Ristic, conceded
the party had suffered a major de
feat in municipal elections that co
incided with the presidential vote.
Opposition leaders agreed, saying,
for example, that the opposition had
won 105 of 110 local assembly seats
in Belgrade and 68 of 70 seats in
Cacak, while in Novi Sad
inmates are part of the makeup of the
company. Nor are they in the posi
tion of smaller companies where
shock ads are needed to create brand
awareness
Nike has long been known for its
creative advertising, with widely
praised ads like its "If you let me play
sports" girl-empowerment ads, its
catchy "Just Do It" campaign and its
top athletes like Michael Jordan and
Tiger Woods.
But Nike does walk a fine line with
some of its ads. It pulled one last year
after some felt the ad encouraged kids
to race trains on roller blades, though
Nike said the race featured in the ad
was only imaginary. Nike angered
many in earlier years by spotlighting
in ads the racism that still afflicted
Tiger Woods, then an emerging star,
rather than focusing on his superior
skills. And some people complained
about its "beautiful" campaign. fea
turing athletes showing off their
scars.
Recently another Nike ad that aired
down under angered some aboriginal
Australians. The ad featured an ar
ray of athletes apologizing for miss
ing key events, like dinner, because
of their Olympic training. The ath
letes repeated "sorry" over and over.
Trouble was, the ad was perceived as
a trivialization of Australia's "Na
tional Sorry Day" aimed at reconcil
ing with native aboriginal Australians
for past atrocities.
Nike didn't apologize for that ad,
either.
Europe staged a joint intervention on
foreign exchange markets. Despite
lingering U.S. reluctance to take ally
steps that weaken the dollar - which
might run the risk of fueling infla
tion - analysts said the central banks
have engaged in a battle that they
cannot afford to lose.
"It's clear that the G-7 will come
in with further intervention if they
need to," said C. Fred Bergsten, head
of the International Institute for Eco
nomics, a Washington research orga
nization. " They have made a com
mitment now, and they must follow
through."
Milosevic's Socialists won 11 of 90
/omit Djindic, a leader of the 18-
t \ >alit ion that hacked Kostunica,
sditl 7\l , , !),la>. that results from 60 per
cc, !l!,• polling stations in
di i had won 55 per-
- Dragisa Djokovic, head of Kostunica's
Democratic Party offices in Mitrovica
cent of the presidential vote, com
pared to Milosevic's 35 to 37 percent.
The opposition's claims of victory
were based on tallies submitted by its
election monitors, who stood by as
government members of local elec
tion committees counted ballots
throughout the country after the polls
closed hue Sunday.
"In essence, we won everywhere,"
said a joyous Dragisa Djokovic, who
heads Kostunica's Democratic Party
offices here in Mitrovica, in the
Serbian province of Kosovo. He said
he expects "changes, and good
changes" in the wake of the vote,
which he said Milosevic would be
able to ignore for only a limited time
before public protests force his res
ignation.
In I9(k), Djokovic said, Milosevic
"I try to act as a social guide, teaching the new generation the
central tales of Arab culture," says storyteller Rasheed Hallack, in
a Damascus teahouse. Storytellers operated in Syria when Hallack
was a child, but disappeared in 1970 when Hafez Assad became
president and began to exert tight control over public discourse
andgatherings.
Arabian Tales
was able to block certification of op
position victories in major Serbian
cities for nearly three months. This
time, he said, "We will finish it much
faster."
Officials of both the opposition
and the ruling coalition here in
Mitrovica, which was occupied by
NATO troops following the Kosovo
war last year, agreed Milosevic had
outpolled Kostunica within the mu
nicipality. But the balloting in
Kosovo was boycotted by virtually
all of the province's ethnic Albanians
who make up 95 percent of the popu
lation, and, according to the indepcii
dence-minded Montenegrian gov
ernment, by three-quarters of the
population there.
In Mitrovica, an air of gloom per
vaded the offices of Socialist Party
officials Monday. A secretary at one
office told a visiting Serbian reporter
that "no one wants to say anything.
They are sad." And two officials be
rated a Serb standing near the en
trance to their office with a copy of
the Blic independent newspaper in
his hand.
"Why are you grinning!" one said
angrily, adding that he should he
reading one of Yugoslavia's pro-gov
ernment newspapers.
The headline on Blic, a leading
Belgrade daily, said "Kostunica, the
Winner of the Fair Election.-
Many independent experts had al
leged the polling process was cor
rupted by Socialist party officials
who maintaining a tight grip on vot
ing stations. But those criticisms
largely dissipated Monday in the
wake of signs that Kostunica made a
strong showing anyway.