BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Streets were unusually deserted, people went on last-minute panic shopping sprees and cars queued for gasoline in Belgrade Wednesday as gloom engulfed Serbs awaiting NATO strikes.
People showed a mixture of defiance and fear toward the Western military alliance, aware it could strike any moment against Serbian strategic targets for their leaders' rejection of a U.S.-sponsored peace plan for Kosovo."This waiting for strikes is killing me," said Jasmina Perunovic, a 26-year-old medical student in the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. "If they want to bomb us, they should do it now so we end this painful wait."
Graffiti scrawled on a wall on Belgrade's main street said, "Finish this bombing off so I can start painting my apartment."
Many residents who rely solely on state-run media, however, were not even aware of imminent strikes because the Tuesday night order by NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana for the attack to begin was ignored.
But Belgraders who watch foreign news broadcasts on satellite broadcasts went on last-minute shopping sprees for flour, cooking oil, sugar and other staples. They waited for hours in gasoline queues.
Many people stayed home with their families and did not send their children to schools, anticipating the strikes.
The Belgrade city council issued detailed instructions in case of bombing, including the sound and length of air-raid sirens, as well as telling people how to rescue someone from the basement of a collapsed building.
Bomb shelters, unused in emergency since World War II when both Germans and Americans bombed Belgrade, were cleaned up during the last NATO threat in October. Most have been turned into cafes or discos, as the Serbs never anticipated they would ever again face the possibility of strikes.
Despite the danger, supporters of hardline Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic were defiant.
"The American cowards will fire their missiles from a distance," said Milan Stanic, a worker. "If they are so brave, why don't they come here and fight us like real men."
Opponents of Milosevic think NATO strikes will actually help him cement his strongman rule.
"Now, he'll purge all the media, jail opposition leaders and impose total dictatorship, and there will be no West to help us," said student Zoran Dimitrijevic, 24. "If the Americans think they will bend Milosevic with the bombs, they are dead wrong."
Supporters of the ultranationalist Radicals, allied with Milosevic, have reportedly been preparing their gangs -- dreaded "troikas" -- to strike at well-known pro-Western Belgraders, foreigners and foreign journalists as soon as the first NATO bomb falls on Serbian soil.
"Darkness will cover Serbia for the decades to come and no one will be here to switch the light on," Dimitrijevic said.