Belgrade under fire
Sonja and Milan Prodanovic
[Belgrade, 5 April 1999]
The twelfth night of bombing smashed buildings in central Belgrade, the headquarters of security forces, some barracks, factory plants, fuel stores, and some bridges nearby etc. We have heard that the TV pictures of the Kosovo civilian exodus are horrible, encouraging people abroad to support NATO intervention "to stop ethnic cleansing".
As people in Yugoslavia do not see these pictures, conditions are very hostile for those of us who consider ourselves the "democratic forces" of Serbia. We are exposed to various dangers and threats. The nationalistic, xenophobic homogenisation of street life is increasing. It has reached an early stage of militancy, with "spontaneous masses" smashing the windows of foreign cultural centres, embassies, offices of western airlines, and Macdonalds restaurants.
Suspicious neighbours are looking for "spies" - a wartime psychology is at work. Anyone who tries to develop an alternative scenario has no chance to say even a word against the leader and the clique who actually produced all this.
This morning the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commenting last night bombing, said "In Serbia now, we have 11 million Milosevics!" Frustration and desperation are increasing.
A state of war has been proclaimed. All free media are censored and harassed. The rest are engaged in vulgar propaganda. A growing number of people are consulting Internet news sites and short wave radio stations like the Serbian and English broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and the BBC. But this is just a drop of information in a sea of ignorance, irrationality and disorientation.
Rationing has reinforced the non-market food distribution system, at the expense of small private shopkeepers.
When citizens seize the chance for a walk and some fresh air, they discover "patriotic" pop-folk concerts on the main squares.
The casual stroller is suddenly caught up in a homogenised mass of people roaring against the western powers. Russian pop-groups are a novelty, and today even some Russian MPs exercising their singing abilities with Serbian patriotic songs.
Meanwhile, Russian monks carry icons of Mother Mary over the Danube bridge, in a parody of religious symbolism.
If it was just a video-game one could laugh. But it is an increasingly sad and dangerous reality. The human suffering in Kosovo is coupled with a growing frustration of the democratic forces in Belgrade. We are helpless. Any meaningful sign of resistance would place us in great danger.
The opposition newspaper 'Republika' has just been printed. This "newspaper for civic self-liberation" cannot be sold in the streets or kiosks. If we are lucky, the postal service will agree to deliver it to subscribers. Only a few people have Internet access to the electronic version of Republika.
The only way out is an immediate ceasefire on all sides, followed by an international conference hosted by the European Union or the United Nations. To prepare this conference, we need a thorough international discussion and analysis and debate about the last ten years of war in ex-Yugoslavia.
But the sad thing is that much of this analysis was already available in the early 1990s. The "Kosovo knot" and its possible solutions were discussed, and a range of proposals were made...
Hypocrisy after 12 days of bombing is expressed on BBC, trying to justify bombing by saying that it was in the name of solving the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, while the parliaments of the NATO countries are quarrelling who should take the refugees and very slowly giving the money (negligible comparing to cost of planes and rockets) to humanitarian organisations.
Sonia Prodanovic is an elected member of the Belgrade municipal council from the anti-Milosovic Civic Alliance. Milan Prodanovic is a co-editor of Republika, one of the main opposition magazines. They can be contacted at [email protected]
This article is circulated without the authors' knowledge.