The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is off tonight. On the NewsHour, rating prime time TV as seen by Jack Valenti and Congressman Ed Markey, a Lee Hochberg report on who gets liver transplants, and a look at the Serbian opposition movement, with one of its leaders and two close observers. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: President Clinton and Vice President Gore today announced that smoke detectors would be installed in the cargo holds of more than 3700 airplanes. A group of airline executives agreed to the $400 million safety initiative this morning at the White House. The agreement was a response to the ValuJet crash that killed 110 people in the Florida Everglades earlier this year. Flammable cargo is believed to be the cause of that crash. Also at the White House today, the President met with his drug policy council. The panel discussed ways the federal government could respond to recent drug legalization measures adopted by California and Arizona. Both states passed ballot measures in November legalizing some illicit drugs for medicinal uses. Afterward, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena announced that 8 million drivers, pilots, and railroad engineers subject to drug testing must comply with all federal laws.

FEDERICO PENA, Secretary of Transportation: Today, the Department of Transportation is issuing a national advisory to all of our industries making our position very clear. These propositions, which were recently passed, do not change a thing for transportation workers covered under our federal laws. It's a preemptive move to warn and advise all those transportation workers who may think in those two states that by going to a doctor and getting some kind of excuse that now they can drive a bus or fly a plane or whatever, and I want everyone to know right now that they are not defenses. They cannot be used. The federal law prevails.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The President also gave the states 14 months to come up with plans to drug test prisoners and parolees. States which fail to do so will lose federal funding for prisons. A Pentagon spokesman today said two published reports on the Khobar Towers bombing were premature. Nineteen U.S. airmen died in a bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, last June. The "New York Times" reported today the Air Force has concluded the general in charge of protecting the complex was not at fault and should not be punished.And the "Los Angeles Times" said the Pentagon is planning to retaliate against Iran if it is determined that that country was involved in the truck bombing. At the State Department, Spokesman Nicholas Burns had this to say.

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: The Saudi investigation is not final. As we receive information from the Saudis, we are evaluating that information. We've taken enormous interest in it, and we're using all of the assets of this government, which are considerable, to try to find out who did it, but we've made a decision with all of you that we're not going to be talking about this in any kind of detail at all until the results of that investigation are full and conclusive. We cannot base U.S. policy on press reports, with all due respect for those of you who write them. We have to base them on the facts that governments produce.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Iranian Foreign Minister Aliakh Bar- Valejadi today denied his country was involved in the bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia. Iraqi television reported today that Saddam Hussein's son was slightly wounded when attackers ambushed his car. The shooting took place in Baghdad. The news story said Odai Hussein is being treated in a hospital in that city. On the West Bank today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to strengthen government support for Jewish settlements there. He spoke at the funeral of a woman and her 12-year-old son killed in a drive-by shooting yesterday. The Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the shooting. The group opposes the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. A spokesman linked the killings to Israel's settlement policies. Tutsi rebels in Eastern Zaire declared a unilateral cease-fire today. The rebels had conducted a two-month offensive gaining control of three key towns: Goma, Bukavu, and Uvira. The political leader of the rebels called on the international community to exert pressure on the Zairean government to negotiate. And next door in Tanzania, an estimated 200,000 Hutu refugees en route to Rwanda began arriving at a transit camp on the Rwanda- Tanzania border. The Tanzanian government recently ordered them to leave, and United Nations officials said it was safe to return home. But an estimated 400,000 other refugees fled into the Tanzanian countryside. Aid workers said the Hutus feared going home to reprisals for the 1994 massacre of Rwandan Tutsis. In Washington today, children's advocacy groups and congressmen attacked the television industry's design for a new TV program rating system. Broadcasters will soon unveil their plan, which is reported to be similar to ratings for the movies. If approved by the Federal Communications Commission, the new system would go into effect next month. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Then it's on to deciding who gets liver transplants and inside the Serbian opposition. FOCUS - RATING PRIME TIME

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: First tonight, rating television programs. Margaret Warner has that.

MARGARET WARNER: A telecommunications law enacted earlier this year said TV sets in the future must include a so-called V-chip. The V-chip would enable parents to block out programs they consider too violent or other inappropriate for their children. Shortly afterwards, TV executives pledged in a meeting with President Clinton that they would come up with a ratings system to work with the new technology. The industry group charged with designing the ratings system is just days away from releasing it, but already, published reports of their deliberations have prompted heavy criticism from many quarters, including Congress. Tonight we hear from two men deeply involved in the controversy: Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, who heads the industry group that's been designing the rating system, and Democratic Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a leading sponsor of the original V-chip bill. First, Jack Valenti. Welcome, Mr. Valenti.

JACK VALENTI, Motion Picture Association of America: Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET WARNER: Give us the outlines of the rating system you've designed.

JACK VALENTI: The outline of this rating system are exactly as we said on February 29, when the whole television industry met with President Clinton and with Vice President Gore, conferred with Democratic and Republican leaders and members of both the House and Senate. We made five commitments, and we are ready next week to redeem each of those promises. We're going to come up with a television parental guidelines which are simple to use, easy to understand, and handy to find. They will be a mingling of age base and content base, and they will enable parents for the first time to be able to better monitor and supervise the TV watching of their young children. We are aiming this particularly at parents with children under 14, but for the first time, we're going to pay special attention, as child experts have urged us to, to very young children, age 2 to 6. And so we're going to have two categories that will certify to parents programs aimed solely at children. And there will be one category will say from two to six we think that parents would not be offended if their young children watched it. The second category will say this is not designed for children under seven years old, and parents are cautioned to be sure they understand this and act accordingly, as they see fit. All other programs will be rated in four categories: a TVG, which says we believe that all ages would be able to watch this, there's nothing in it we think would offend anybody. And then there's PG, TVPG, which says parents should be very careful; some material in this category might not be suitable for young children. And we will use words like that there will be in this program infrequent coarse language, limited violence, some suggested dialogue and situations. These are content-based. And then we escalate to the next level of category which will be TV 14. And we'll say this--these types of programs contain sophisticated themes, sexual content, strong language, and more intense violent, again ratcheting up the category so that parents can know this is a little bit more than others. And then finally TVM, where we say mature themes, profane language, graphic violence, and explicit sexual content.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you know that some of the critics say that they want even more information. And they say there's some parents, for instance, who don't object to their child seeing something with a little profane language, but they don't want gratuitous violence. Would your system let parents make those kinds of distinctions?

JACK VALENTI: Are you telling me that there are parents out there with six, seven, and eight-year-old children, that they don't mind them seeing violence but they don't want sex or visa versa? I can't believe that. I think we're talking about young children, very impressionable. So we're telling parents. If you say that a parent says I like my six, seven, or eight-year-old to see as much sex as they like, but I don't want them to see violence, asa parent of three children, I can't believe that any parent out there believes that. We're telling parents in an escalating range of severity we warn you in advance, Mr. and Mrs. Parent, we're not smart enough to tell parents what to do. I don't think any congressman or senator is or the President. Each parent must make his or her own decision about what they want to do. But it must be simple. If it's cumbersome, if you load it down with all sorts of permutations, you're going to dissuade parents from using it. We want parents to use this.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that the reason that you aren't going for a more complicated system, or a system that gives even more information?

JACK VALENTI: How much more information would you have and where would you communicate it? The Publishers Association said if you come up with a complicated system, we can't publish it. We don't have room in our TV Guides. TV Guide is going to have to add eight pages to its TV Guide to accommodate a very simple system at a cost of several millions of dollars. But there's no sense in having a cumbersome system out there. It won't be disseminated to the extent we would like, and parents won't use it.

MARGARET WARNER: And just to explain, it will also be, though, imbedded in the programming, itself, so parents, for instance, can just set their television to block out anything over TV 14.

JACK VALENTI: Correct. Now, keep in mind for the next year, year and a half, there will be no V-chips out there. The law says after January of 1998, all sets must have it. So for the next year or so, we will not have any V-chips. But what we "will" have is the ability of parents to be able to guide their children's habits. Now we're going to encode our broadcast signal, so that when a V-chip is there, it will marry up that data stream that's in the television set. And then with a parent with a little remote control, it can knock out three categories and only allow one to come in.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Does all this criticism, though, from members of Congress and from a lot of these children's advocacy groups, does this worry you?

JACK VALENTI: It annoys me because none of these people who are criticizing us have ever seen the system. We haven't unveiled it yet. It's been leaked, parts of it, but nobody has seen the system in its entirety. Nobody has seen how it's going to work, how it's going to function, nobody's going to see the honorable purpose that's inserted in this. There must be integrity.

MARGARET WARNER: But can the critics keep you from enacting this?

JACK VALENTI: Absolutely not. I think you'll hear from Congressman Markey, who was one of the authors of the telecommunications bill, he will tell you there is absolutely no compulsion of any kind in that bill. We cannot be forced to do anything that the government or the Federal Communications Commission would inflict on us. What we are doing is voluntary. Keep in mind, Margaret, we don't have to do this. There's no way that we can be compelled by the Congress. But I believe it is an obligation we have to parents to try to give them some more information finally. We will be the only country in the world that is giving this kind of advanced cautionary warnings to parents.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Valenti, we have to leave it there. Thank you very much.

JACK VALENTI: Oh, can't we go on?

MARGARET WARNER: Now, a different perspective from Congressman Markey. Congressman Markey, your reaction to this, the design of the system.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY, [D] Massachusetts: Well, at one level, in fact, the Hollywood and broadcasting community is providing more information. The debate, however, is over how useful that information will be for parents. So, for example, there are categories which have been constructed, but into, for example, one category, a Seinfeld and Terminator III could be placed, so a parent that's more concerned about violence but not Seinfeld, let's say, has to block out Seinfeld and all programming like that as well, which they've already negotiated out with their child, and something which is appropriate for them. So all we're asking for from the Hollywood and broadcasting community is since they've already gone through the programming to determine whether it's offensive or not, why don't they pass on whether it's the violence or the sex, or the foul language, and break it out into different categories, so that at various ages the parents can determine just that one thing that may be of greatest concern to them, for "their" child, that they may want to block out of their home.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, now you heard Mr. Valenti. He said he doesn't find that credible. He thinks parents are equally concerned about all three categories, and furthermore, as I'm sure you heard him say, it's just way too complicated to include all of that information.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, let me say the parents of small children ten years from now are students in high school and college right now who are playing on the Internet with their computer for two and three hours a day. So it will be a relatively simple thing for them if a computer chip built into a TV set allows them to program for their small children ten years from now as to whether it's sex or violence or language at a particular age, and it will take that student of today ten years from now thirty seconds to be able to program the TV set. And so it really isn't that complicated. The information is already there, and all we're asking is for the mass media to pass this programming information along to parents so that they can deal with this four-alarm fire of teen- age pregnancy and crime amongst the teen-ager population, the rising drug rate, and allow for the parents to decide for themselves which type of programming they want their kids to see.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Congressman, if you don't think that the reasons Mr. Valenti gave are really credible, then why do you think the industry doesn't want to give all of this information that you think is important to have?

REP. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, I think that when they construct categories like TVPG that will be so broad that ultimately parents will take TVPG to mean "Too Vague, Parents Give Up." And it won't be as usable as they want. In addition, they don't want to put a V for violence, for example, on any program. They believe it'll be the scarlet letter. So, instead, they like to keep the whole issue in some form of terminological inexactitude. The parent won't know exactly what it is that they've identified, whether it's sex or violence or language, and as a result make it very difficult for a parent who's overwhelmed with too many responsibilities anyway to go through the entire TV Guide there holding a spot in the Ripley's Believe It Or Not for the first parent that's read every item in a 200-page TV Guide. So that's, I think, they don't want advertisers to feel that they shouldn't attach their product to a program and lose money. I mean, the bottom line here is it's not a debate over the First Amendment; it's a debate over the profits of the network, networks and the Hollywood community.

MARGARET WARNER: So where do you go from here? You heard Mr. Valenti say, after all, this legislation made it entirely involuntary on the part of the industry to come up with this system.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, I think what we are now doing is reaching the stage where pediatricians and primary schoolteachers and parents check into the debate. Now, they have something that they can analyze, and I think what we're hearing is that parents want the additional information. They know that it's possible, they know that it's available. They want to control the information, themselves, and they don't want Big Brother in Hollywood deciding what's good for their kids. They want to be able to do it in their own living room. And I think as this debate plays out, that it's going to be very healthy for our country, because we'll be able to properly center the role that television plays in our society.

MARGARET WARNER: So you are holding out hope, you're saying then, that pressure from parents and advocates and people like yourselves will still cause Mr. Valenti's group to refine this further?

REP. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, I hope that that's really the ultimate result of the entire debate. I consider now this to have been a good faith effort by the Hollywood community and putting something out on the table, but I would hope that they wouldn't allow parents and teachers and physicians and others to now comment upon whether or not it does the job because I think that they can do better. You know, we've left the era of "Leave it to Beaver," and we've entered the era of Beavis and Butthead. It's no longer three channels; it's a hundred channels. Parents need all the help they can get. And right now, you know, President Roosevelt used to say that if a man was out at sea ten feet and you threw him a five-foot rope, you wouldn't do him any good. And here, that's what they're doing with this system. Yeah, they're throwing five feet of rope, but the parents are drowning ten feet offshore, and with the additional information they can protect their own kids in their own living rooms.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay, Congressman. We're out of time, but thank you very much. FOCUS - LIFE CHOICES

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Next, liver transplants and who should get them. Federal health officials are considering a new policy that would change the way those decisions are made. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports.

KAREN KAMISAR, Chronic Liver Patient: I know where it is. It probably--

LEE HOCHBERG: Karen Kamisar heard last month that it could soon be harder to get the liver transplant she needs to save her life.

KAREN KAMISAR: I was driving in the car when I first heard about it. And it was devastating. [talking to child] Good. That's right.

LEE HOCHBERG: The 41-year-old mother, a Seattle attorney, has an autoimmune disease that causes blockages of her bile duct. There's no cure, and she's likely to face liver failure after a few years.

KAREN KAMISAR: For me, a transplant is my only opportunity to survive and to live and to see my son grow up. There is nothing else out there for me but a transplant. Without it, I will die.

LEE HOCHBERG: Seven thousand patients now await live transplants, but only four thousand livers are donated each year. In the past, the sickest patients, those expected to die in a week, had first claim on the organs. The new liver policy would give status one or top priority only to those dying people believed to have the best chance of long-term survival after a transplant, those suffering acute liver failure. These are people whose livers suddenly shut down after an infection or ingestion of poisonous mushrooms. People like Kamisar, with chronic conditions, long and developing, or those with hepatitis, cirrhosis, or tumors could go no higher than status two, a lower priority, even if death appears imminent.

KAREN KAMISAR: It is extremely frightening. For all of us it's just about surviving and living and watching our kids grow up. And you feel like that's been taken away from you. It's cruel. It's very cruel.

LEE HOCHBERG: The United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, says it's trying to more efficiently utilize donor livers. UNOS, a group of transplant experts who control organ distribution for the federal government, issued the new transplant rules last month. Its president, James Burdick, says it doesn't make sense to use scarce livers on chronically ill people who might be too sick to use them for long.

JAMES BURDICK, United Network for Organ Sharing: How can you take a chronic patient who has a 25 percent less chance of surviving if they get that liver and give the liver to that patient, rather than to me, the acute liver failure patient? This is a way of providing the best use for this scarce precious resource that we have stewardship of.

SPOKESMAN: If you were in the hospital in a coma and then somebody comes in as a status one, they would get that liver.

LEE HOCHBERG: In transplant clinics, chronic patients who've waited for a liver want to know what the new policy means for them. The University of Washington's transplant chief, James Perkins, says typically three to four patients a year come into his program with acute illness. So on the new plan, three to four chronic patients would be skipped over. A sudden spate of acute patients, as in a few years ago, when five people in Oregon were poisoned by mushrooms, would further hurt his chronic patient's chances.

DR. JAMES PERKINS, Transplant Surgeon: If we've got four or five status one patients in today, all our status two's would be disadvantaged because all those little livers that we get in this week and next week, would all go to the status one patients, and those status twos might deteriorate and then go into a coma and then die and not get the liver.

LEE HOCHBERG: In the past, chronic patients near death waited about 13 days in ICU before a liver was found. That wait could be tripled under the new plan, and more of them could die as livers go to acute patients. University of Washington bioethicist Dr. Thomas McCormick says it's a needed tradeoff.

DR. THOMAS McCORMICK, Bioethicist: We're making a shift from attempting to rescue anyone who is near death, almost without regard for the possibility of success, to a more careful assessment of success, so that when we do intervene, it's more likely to provide a benefit.

LEE HOCHBERG: McCormick says the new policy could shepherd in a new era of rationing.

DR. THOMAS McCORMICK: Rather than sort of having a blind duty to resuscitate everyone, we're now saying some people have a far greater chance of living than others, and we have a duty to maximize life for those in those cases.

LEE HOCHBERG: But Karen Kamisar is not ready to accept that perspective.

KAREN KAMISAR: People are sick, and when we have sick people, we treat them, and we make them better. That's what medicine is all about. And we don't let someone die because someone else may--may do better.

LEE HOCHBERG: Those who specialize in treating alcoholics say there's another large issue raised by the new policy, the issue of stigmatizing illnesses. The medical director of Oregon's Springbrook Treatment Program, Dr. Greg Skipper, says a quarter of the adults who get liver transplants have alcoholic cirrhosis. He questions why they are grouped status two when their post- transplant survival rate is similar to other transplant recipients.

DR. GREG SKIPPER, Alcoholism Specialist: This could well represent stigma against people with chronic illness, particularly people with alcoholism. There is a stigma in the public about alcoholism, and this may be a manifestation of that.

LEE HOCHBERG: Skipper says basing access to care on survival rates is the start of the slippery slope. DR. GREG SKIPPER: Would they set a standard that women get preference, you know, with transplants because they tend to do better, or age, or race, to look at outcomes with race? We could be moving toward a time when we're going to exclude care for a lot of chronically ill people, saying that the payoff is not as great.

LEE HOCHBERG: And some experts say the rationing policy shouldn't even be necessary. They say UNOS makes the liver shortage worse by distributing livers in the local areas in which they're donated, rather than sending them to where the sickest patients are. A liver donated in Seattle, for example, usually is transplanted in Seattle, even if sicker patients are elsewhere. That doesn't seem fair to Dr. John Roberts, who has more than 700 patients on his waiting list at the University of California in San Francisco.

DR. JOHN ROBERTS, Transplant Surgeon: The current system does not allow wide enough sharing to provide livers even to those patients who are at the most urgent need.

LEE HOCHBERG: Craig Irwin, the head of an advocacy group for patients, agrees. The son of two transplant patients, Irwin says that UNOS distributes livers locally because it's good business for local transplant programs that need livers, not because it makes any medical sense.

CRAIG IRWIN, Transplant Patient Advocate: You have the smaller transplant centers who do fewer transplants but make up the bulk of the UNOS membership that are concerned about their existence. So as an organization, UNOS has decided to protect their interest, instead of looking out for the public's interest and the interest of the patients out there.

LEE HOCHBERG: UNOS says shipping more organs across state lines would drain smaller programs of livers they need to survive. The University of Washington, for example, says its program could fold if donor livers in Seattle were sent elsewhere. UNOS says that would hurt Seattle area patients who can't travel and discourage Washington State residents from donating organs.

JAMES BURDICK: I think the interests of the small centers, if you will, need to be maintained. Those really represent the local areas where local patients, the more disadvantaged patients, are able to receive their care and their transplant. And they also represent the place where the local impetus for organ donation originates.

LEE HOCHBERG: With debates raging over the proposed priority plan and the larger question of how livers are distributed, San Francisco's Dr. Roberts argues federal officials should re-examine transplant policy.

DR. JOHN ROBERTS: The government will probably have to step in and tell UNOS that they need--that this is an important priority for Americans, is to have the system fair.

LEE HOCHBERG: The Department of Health & Human Services convened public hearings this week amidst rumors that it may usurp UNOS's authority to control liver allocation. UNOS's Dr. Burdick says that would be short-sighted.

JAMES BURDICK: UNOS should continue to make the policy. I think it would cause terrible problems with the allocation system and with organ donation in this country if the Department went against that.

LEE HOCHBERG: Karen Kamisar thinks change "is" needed. She and her husband are at the government hearings this week. At those hearings, UNOS announced a small change. It said, any chronic patient who's in the hospital on January 20th, the day its new policy takes effect, could be upgraded to status one priority if their condition deteriorates rapidly. That's not good enough for Kamisar, who hasn't yet been hospitalized. Like thousands of other chronic patients, she has less assurance than ever that a liver will be available when she needs it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a look at the Serbian opposition. FOCUS - UNDER PROTESTS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, the protests in the former Yugoslavia and to Charles Krause.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Thousands of protesters first took to the streets of Belgrade four weeks ago, shortly after President Slobodan Milosevic annulled municipal elections held November 17th. The results would have given Milosevic's political opponents control over 14 of Serbia's 19 largest cities, including Belgrade. The opposition appealed, but this week, Yugoslavia's supreme court upheld the government's decision nullifying the elections, setting off yet more anti-government protests. Frustrated students and intellectuals, members of Serbia's increasingly impoverished middle class, and some workers have joined the daily protests, the most serious challenge to Milosevic's rule since he came to power in 1986. But the various opposition groups have been weakened by their own failure to unite. Students protested mid-day, some for democracy and some for Serbian nationalism. Opposition political groups start their protests three hours later. Sporadic strikes have also erupted in factories, but organized labor has so far refused to throw its weight behind the mass demonstration.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Joining us now is Miodrag Perisic, vice president of Serbia's Democratic Party and the leader of the anti-government political coalition known as Together. Mr. Perisic, thank you for joining us. There have been conflicting reports from Belgrade this week about the size of the demonstrations and whether or not they're being reduced be because of fear of government reprisals. What can you tell us about the situation today?

MIODRAG PERISIC, Yugoslavia Opposition Party Leader: Today we have reports that there were more than one hundred thousand people in the streets and still I think it's a very strong determination of the people to confirm that they're ready to persist and to demand full recognition of their political will and the outcome of the elections.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Has the government, though, attempted to stop these demonstrations?

MIODRAG PERISIC: Not so far, but there were some sporadic examples of individual terrorism of the police forces, special police forces. There was one student terribly beaten and denied to go to the hospital. And there was also a young actor yesterday, he was also terribly beaten, but after two hours' detention, he was released.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Is this having any effect, do you think, on the general mood of your supporters, of people in your side?

MIODRAG PERISIC: I don't think so. It's counterproductive, and it's making completely the opposite feeling of people there now, showing that they will not give up.

CHARLES KRAUSE: How do you--are these spontaneous demonstrations, or do you organize them? How do you get the people out?

MIODRAG PERISIC: Well, you know, it was very interesting that after the announcement at coalition, Democratic Coalition won the local elections in 20 major Serbia cities, including Belgrade. There was a spontaneous gathering of the people on Central Belgrade Square, and it turned after the annulment of the victory, it turned to a protest, so it was first spontaneous, and then it was organized.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Why can't the different groups, particularly the students, come together in this protest movement?

MIODRAG PERISIC: I have to say maybe it's not widely known this protest is very broadly organized, and there are different professional groups in it. If you'll, for example, compare, there are grandparents and grandchildren there, some of them, for example, their grandchildren are concerned about their future, and grandparents, seniors, are concerned about their dignifying aging. So there are also retired officers, retired police officers. There are also peasants in the Small Serbia cities there also joining the protest. For example, I was traveling around East Pallinga--it was only the farmers' protest. So it is more like popular uprising because they were--they showed--very clearly showed their dissatisfaction with the ruler of Socialist Party and Mr. Milosevic, himself, in Serbia.

CHARLES KRAUSE: So, in other words, you're saying that we shouldn't read "too" much into the fact that there are all these separate demonstrations going on.

MIODRAG PERISIC: No. Students--what they really wanted there, they wanted to show that they were not manipulated, that it was independent movement among the students, and they wanted to show their collective strength against the regime.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Is the goal to overthrow President Milosevic?

MIODRAG PERISIC: Well, it was not our goal, if I may say. Mr. Milosevic started negotiations just a week before the elections with the European Union about the trade preference with European Union countries, and then there came elections, and when they lost the elections in major Serbian cities, it was a very clear choice between the Europe and reintegrating to Europe over Serbia and Montenegro, or to preserve socialist government in major Serbian cities. And he has chosen--I'm afraid he has chosen socialist rule, socialist government in these cities. I don't think that Mr. Milosevic really was fully aware of the fact that it was denial of Serbia to join the Europe.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But is this, in fact, now an effort to overthrow his government?

MIODRAG PERISIC: Well, it was his choice. It was his choice that he put all the nation to choose between himself and Democratic Coalition.

CHARLES KRAUSE: There have been some reports that some of the leaders of the political parties and the students are extreme nationalists who if they came to power would attempt to reunite portions of Bosnia and Croatia with Serbia, is that true?

MIODRAG PERISIC: No, it's not true. I have read this piece in the "New York Times" in which they said that there was some nationalistic students among the 40,000 students there can always be one nationalists or several nationalists.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But you're saying this is democratic movement?

MIODRAG PERISIC: What I'm saying and what is the real substance, and I think that we have now, we are very grateful for excellent media coverage that we are getting because it's the new face of Serbia. This is--the substance of this protest is economic and political and democratic.

CHARLES KRAUSE: A last question. You've just come from the State Department. What are you asking the United States to do in this situation now?

MIODRAG PERISIC: We got excellent support from both House of Representatives and American administration. We were asking not to impose sanctions against the Serbian people but maybe to impose the sanctions, personal sanctions against Mr. Milosevic and the narrow group of his supporters, and a group of directors, managing directors, who are also, as well, in the same time ministers. So what we were asking is from the United States strong international support to give us strength to show that we have internal forces to do that.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Mr. Perisic, thank you very much.

MIODRAG PERISIC: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And now we get two perspectives. Dusko Doder is a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and a former "Washington Post" correspondent covering the Balkans, among other places. And Dragin Cicic is an international Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University and a reporter for the Belgrade magazine "Nin." Thank you both very much for being with us. You heard what Mr. Perisic just said about the opposition having only minimal nationalist influence in it. Is that the way you read it too?

DUSKO DODER, U.S. Institute of Peace: Well, I think that nationalism was a way of life in Yugoslavia and Serbia in particular in the last five years. But nationalist sentiments were far stronger among the broad segments of the population three or four years ago. I think that policy has failed. And I see what we see now is that many segments of the society are joining the intellectuals who have not been nationalists from the beginning, and the students who have been against nationalism.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what about--tell me how you would define when somebody says that some students are extreme nationalists? How is that defined in the Serbian context?

DUSKO DODER: Well to my mind, any kind of extreme nationalism borders on fascism when you combine nationalism plus sort of socialist heritage that they--you know, over the past 40 years, that there's a tinge of fascism. And it seems to me that you--both governments of Serbia and Croatia are run by hate mongers, who sparked this kind of nationalism and now try to present themselves as reasonable people.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But within the opposition, itself, you're not worried about that sort of thing?

DUSKO DODER: I think that there is an extreme nationalist element, but I think that the situation is so bad, economic situation is so bad, I think that the rhetoric is such that it does conform to European standards. And I think that we would have a different kind of government from the government that we have now, which is a tyrannical one.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Cicic, what about that? What do you think about the--there were these reports in the U.S. press, most notably in the "New York Times" on the 10th by Chris Hedges about some extreme nationalism within the student movement.

DRAGIN CICIC, Nin Magazine, Belgrade: [Boston] Well, when I read that report, I thought that the best thing for me to do was to call the students and ask them about their position on nationalism. And their reply was that they were sorry about what happened to Mr. Jacques Lang and--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's explain what that--former minister of culture visited the students, and they turned him away, former French minister of culture.

DRAGIN CICIC: Yes. So they said that they were sorry about what happened with Mr. Lang about that unfortunate episode, as they described it, and that they sent a letter of apology to Mr. Lang, and they said that basically they do not support any kind of extreme nationalism, however, Mr. Milosevic's secret police is present, and it permeates all the pores of the Serbian society. And therefore, it is quite possible that somebody posing as a student might express some extreme sentiments, and, therefore, they insisted that the only statements that should be taken into account are the statements issued by the committee which is in charge of the student protests. Otherwise, they believe that nothing else should be taken for granted.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Cicic, you heard what Mr. Presic said about the various groups in the opposition, students that-- the political parties, and that these divisions should not be taken too seriously. Do you agree with that?

DRAGIN CICIC: Yes. I do. In Serbia, there's a very peculiar situation in that regard. Serbian television, all the television stations in Serbia, as a matter of fact, are under the firm control of Mr. Milosevic's government to the extent that it really deserves a sociological study. It's really an incredible propaganda machinery. And, therefore, any footage of these students meeting with the opposition leaders, or, for that matter, with any other politician, would be a montage in the public television students, and then presented to the nation as propaganda--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Would be edited, you mean, in a way that did not show them meeting?

DRAGIN CICIC: I wouldn't say edited. I would say that we are dealing with montage. It's a film montage.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay.

DRAGIN CICIC: Because, for example, when the public television shown--has shown footage of the demonstration, what it did was not to film what was really happening on the demonstration. They actually had six police arrests, several young men, and then those young men were given stones, and forced by secret police to throw stones at several public buildings, or for the benefit of the cameras of public television. So I wouldn't call that editing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: No, I guess not. Mr. Doder, the--although, as Mr. Presic said, some peasants are taking part in demonstrations, and some workers have come out in support of the demonstrators. There have been no strikes, no major strikes, no major factory shutdowns. Must that happen for these demonstrations to succeed?

DUSKO DODER: I think for Mr. Milosevic to leave the scene, there has to be a major demonstration which blue collar workers join the students and the intellectuals. This is not happening because there's a policy of intimidation throughout the country. I think the police is working full-time through unions, saying whoever does demonstrate will lose his or her job. And I think the other option for this situation to kind of come to fruition is a push from the outsider. Mr. Milosevic should be declared a tyrant, should be declared an unacceptable person to deal with western partners, but he is very shrewd, he is exploiting the divisions in the European Community and with the United States, and he knows the technology of power.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think that he has to go for these demonstrations to stop, or can there be a compromise of some sort, for example, that there would be new local elections at the first- -you know, right after the first of the year?

DUSKO DODER: I don't think it's possible for any kind of compromise. Mr. Milosevic is not a man of compromise. He compromises only when it's in his vital interest to survive. He's willing to do everything to survive politically but he's not willing to give up power. This is a challenge to his authority, to the basic of the Communist system that remains in Yugoslavia. It's maybe not socialism but it's basically the old Communist Party and the old apparat that's in power, and I think he's going to hang in there all the way.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think about that, Mr. Cicic?

DRAGIN CICIC: Well, I fully agree with Mr. Doder. I mean, his analysis is perfectly correct. Mr. Milosevic has full and total control of all the leverages of power in the Serbian society, and he's not going to let go unless he's forced to.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And must he leave for these demonstrations and protests to stop, or do you think a compromise is--you don't think a compromise is possible?

DRAGIN CICIC: I don't think that Mr. Milosevic is prepared for compromise. I mean, Mr. Milosevic said today that there will be no compromise basically, so I don't think that it's possible.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And on the issue of whether these demonstrations can succeed without a much, much larger percentage of workers participating and farmers, peasants, what do you think- -do you think they need many more people?

DRAGIN CICIC: Yes. I think that the demonstrations need more people, but I'm not sure that many more people will join because of the elements that we were talking about earlier, both Mr. Doder and I. So it is hard to say, hard to tell at this moment what is going to happen.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And just briefly, is the Clinton administration pursuing the right course?

DRAGIN CICIC: Yes, absolutely. While I would just suggest that the administration exercises more pressure on its allies because, for example, despite the unofficial boycott of Mr. Milosevic, diplomatic boycott, which was basically announced by Mr. Kornblum's refusal to go to Belgrade, the Italian minister of foreign affairs, Lombard Todini, visited Mr. Milosevic today and not only that, he said that it is unrealistic to expect that the opposition will be given back its victory.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you think that you'd like the Clinton administration to exert a little pressure so that that sort of thing isn't said?

DRAGIN CICIC: Well, I think that this is obviously an encouragement to Mr. Milosevic, and I think that the administration should be more firm with its allies on what's the course of the western democracy towards the processing Serbia's going to be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thank you both very much for being with us. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, airline executives agreed to install fire detectors in the cargo holds of their airplanes. The executives announced the new safety measure today at the White House. And an estimated 400,000 Rwandan refugees abandoned camps in Tanzania. They fled into the countryside, rather than comply with orders to return to their homeland. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot and more. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.