Steven Vrbaski of Novi Sad points out that his riverside city is a hotbed of opposition to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the authoritarian nationalist whom Western countries are trying to unseat. Yet the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's bombing campaign brought the city of 400,000 to its knees last year, and Western economic sanctions are keeping it down. Sanctions have put more than half the region's population out of work, he said, while Mr. Milosevic and his cronies have enriched themselves through smuggling and the black market. If Novi Sad is going to keep up its struggle against the Milosevic regime, he added, it needs Western help to rebuild.
Many residents say the same.
People here are still shaking their heads in angry disbelief at the pummelling they took during the conflict over Kosovo. An ethnically mixed city of Serbs, Croats, Hungarians and many others, Novi Sad has never been very sympathetic to Mr. Milosevic's stubborn Serb nationalism. The ugly ethnic struggle in Kosovo is at the opposite end of the country and a world away from the life of most people here. Voters have consistently elected opposition figures to represent them, and only six of the 70 representatives in the city assembly belong to Mr. Milosevic's Socialist party. Yet Novi Sad was bombed as heavily as any Serbian stronghold last spring.