Wednesday, May 27st, 1999

BELGRADE IN FLAMES!

    What a night! I thought that after two months of heavy bombing nothing can surprise me any more. I was wrong, certainly. The intensity of bombing that NATO poured on Belgrade last night, once more unmistakably just before a visit by Russian diplomats who try to solve the conflict with peaceful political means, was, in mildest of words, astonishing. Some spheres of interest in the West, influential to the command levels of NATO, which find this war as perfectly suitable as Milosevic does, seem to be very keen on never stopping the whole thing.

    It began just as it always did, so far. The sirens were already playing, but one who still gets upset by that sound may only go slowly insane. So, the sirens were already playing and we tried to simulate normal life. I was walking my dog, which gradually turns into a tempered veteran of war, and only sometimes raises one ear when a there's a detonation, and talking with V. about problems with one UPS on one important NT server, which suddenly decided it had enough of this electricity situation, and simply started refusing to broadcast the signal to shut the server down. And then we stopped in mid-word, because from the south we heard a weak, then stronger and stronger sound of a plane arriving for some routine night killing.

    Just it was not routine this time. So, the first one came and rocked two missiles on Makis. Huge detonations! Comparable only with those when, early this war, Sremcica was a testing ground for examining the new American strategic bomber B2. Incredible scene - you see thick black smoke in the black night. Matter-of-factly, the smoke was more black than the night - suppose that's why we saw it. Right after that, 4 more planes come by, this time from northeast. One, another, third, fourth, fifth, sixth detonation. Everything's shaking, balls of fire scrape the sky. Dog howls - it seems to be he's not such a tempered veteran. During the whole fuss I can't avoid noticing, with curiosity, that a part of a missile explodes into the usual fireball, and another part flashes like a lightning or rather a camera flash. V. points excitedly to the sky. Frighteningly clear. And then, for the first time after 2 months, I really see the airplanes. The mentioned four, lashing out of the zone on an afterburner, having dumped their load of missiles.

    All the time the AAA screams from the ground. Another unusual thing - they have never fired so many rockets against the attackers in such a short time. That's only those from vicinity, more than 10 that I counted. The experienced eye doesn't fail to notice that these were all Strela (Arrow), shoulder-launched rockets. They were proven great for downing the missiles. They can hurt planes rarely, only very rarely. AAA cannons do less, they just make a fire curtain and down the missiles, and deflect the planes from flying too low. It's still good to know that someone's shooting at those who are shooting at you. I'm tracking a rocket as it zigzags, following a heat source. I hear myself wishing in half voice it found it. Some neighbourhood kids cheer the rockets loudly, just like they did for their football team once. A thought crosses my mind - the West can't understand how can the anti-Milosevic Belgrade give cheers to AAA.

    Trying the cell phone. Net works! Telling my brother what's up and as I talk, third wave of airplanes comes by. From west, this time. One, two, three, four huge flashes. Sound comes later. Makis again! Belgrade's factory of potable water for the public net is in Makis. I contemplate it's destiny and do live reporting on the phone.

    Then one cowboy from the sky misses his target! The missile falls more than 500m away from the place where others were hitting Makis. I pray for those at the end of its way. I don't have the time to consider their destiny much, because waves of planes swarm from the west. Detonations again. This time Rakovica and somewhere beyond, behind Avala. Stopped counting - it's over 40. Look into the sky. Incredible scene. The sky is clearly seen as striped by trails of the planes' nozzles. Looks like gigantic weaving. I've had enough. The traumatized dog deserves to go home.

    There were two more bombing waves to the morning. They hit some civilian houses. Three people died. The doctors are fighting for the fourth. Another error, probably. It must be far easier to the dead, for they were killed by error.

    Email arrives where a American acquaintance wonders why I wonder at civilians getting killed. It's a war - he says. It was to be expected. The guy is OK otherwise, but I can't but feel irony in the words of the man from a country which never felt bombs on its territory. And which is killing, just like Milosevic does, the completely innocent. And justifies that, just like Milosevic does, with errors and just causes.

    Some 15 years ago a movie was made, whose title comes often to my mind nowadays. It was called "In the jaws of life". That's how we live - in the jaws of life, between Milosevic and NATO. They complement each other great in exterminating us.

Severian, age 26