Rallies in Yugoslavia Mark Anniversary of NATO Air War

Several thousand Serbs, many waving posters of President Slobodan Milosevic, rallied across Yugoslavia on Friday to mark the first anniversary of the start of the NATO air campaign.

Turnout, however, was far lower than the 100,000 expected by authorities, and for many, Milosevic’s claims of victory rang hollow in a country where conditions have only declined since the severe damage from the airstrikes.

“What are you celebrating?” a driver caught in a traffic jam shouted at the runners participating in a race held for the occasion. “You better run from this miserable country rather than for Milosevic!”

Opposition parties and many Belgrade residents said the celebrations, which included the marathon race past the ruins of buildings targeted in the bombings, were inappropriate--even bizarre.

“The defeats can be celebrated only by those who have not had enough of the death and misfortune of this poor nation,” said the leading opposition Serbian Renewal Party.

About 5,000 people, mostly government supporters, attended a state-sponsored rally in Belgrade, the capital, to mark March 24, 1999--the date the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began 78 days of airstrikes aimed at ending Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia.

Top government officials laid flowers and wreaths on the ruins, including the former Chinese Embassy hit by a bomb in what NATO said was an accident.

Similar rallies were held throughout the country.

In the northern city of Novi Sad, about 2,000 Serbs lighted candles in memory of those killed in the strikes and set them by the ruins of a bridge on the Danube that was destroyed by NATO.

About 2,000 Serbs in neighboring Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, also rallied against NATO and burned pictures of swastikas and U.S. flags.

In Greece, where resentment against NATO was high during the air campaign, 2,000 people marched to the U.S. Consulate in the northern city of Thessaloniki, chanting “NATO terrorists!” The march ended peacefully.