If there was something that connected those who took to the streets on October 5 and those who stayed at home, it was the fear of civil war, and that fear was not without foundation. During the previous years, Slobodan Milošević showed on several occasions that he does not shy away from violence in order to preserve power, and some of his followers openly threatened bloodshed before the elections in the event of an unfavorable outcome for them. There were also those in the opposition who were ready to take up arms in the name of the fight for democracy.
In either scenario, much depended on the behavior of the Special Operations Unit, which operated under the umbrella of State Security and whose members themselves sometimes boasted that their hands were bloody up to the elbows. On the eve of October 5, Zoran Đinđić secretly met with the commander of the JSO, Milorad Ulemek Legija, and received from him a promise that his men would not shoot at the people without immediate need, that is, if the army and police were not attacked. That promise wasn't worth much.
On the 5th of October around noon, after tear gas was used in Terazije, JSO members were told that a mob broke into the Television building, that among the policemen who were securing the building there were dead, while several dozen protesters were holding them hostage; their task was to occupy the building and free their colleagues. A column of "Hummer" vehicles of the JSO rushed from Batajnica towards the RTS building, shooting into the air, but upon arriving at the scene, they found that their colleagues were alive and well, and that, although there were quite a few people around the building, no one yet he failed to get inside. After that, there was a small performance during which the members of the "berets" fraternized with the people, kissed the hands of the popes, and even, according to one of the leaders of the DOS, told the military and police leaders that anyone who tries to use weapons against the people will force to deal with them. It was a matinee, and in the evening in Košutnjak, around the studio from which the program was broadcast, the second act took place, where members of the JSO allegedly almost got into a skirmish with the army.
What happened next, with Djindjic and with JSO, is known, and these days we watch and read various versions of the participants of the event who, without false modesty, emphasize their key role in the fact that October 5 passed without blood. Few of them mention the key fact: if that day so many people had not overcome their fear and taken to the streets, creating a critical mass, the Legion's boys probably would not have hesitated to use weapons.
