This report comes via e-mail from Yugoslavia.

Pancevo 4-19-99

Yet another sleepless night.  I followed the news and have been 
sending reports from Pancevo; stared at fires burning on our TV screens;
sniffed like a hunting dog in all rooms and next to the doors and windows; 
wrote to friends about what was going on - but this was the worst bombardment
so far.  The bombs hit all three factories [oil refinery, petrochemical
industry, artificial fertilizer plant] and damaged the most dangerous
facilities as far as toxicity and flammability is concerned.
As of this morning ATP is taking people for free to the Deliblatski sands
[a small wilderness north from the city].  It is almost touching how the
people from the [crisis] headquarters are full of ideas and prepared to help,
as if all of this was their fault and they are trying to apologize with their
actions.  However, it is dangerous to leave apartments, since this morning 
the city looks as if it has landed in the middle of an apocalypse.  
The wind has shifted and is now pushing 
a huge gray-black cloud of toxic gases towards the city.  The could is rolling,
like a heavy, demented cumulus.  It gets stuck around pylons, street lamps 
and buildings.  It slowly crawls on the ground.  While I am writing this,
I can see it slowly entering our courtyard.  I bet you're probably
a little disappointed that you cannot share with us these unique moments!

It sort of reminds me of a funny performance of Shakespeare's play when
the people sitting in the first 5-6 rows couldn't see a thing because of the
smoke which was billowing from under the stage.  Maybe NATO has the 
same strategy?  By the way, this whole thing still does not seem like a war
to me.  Who has declared war to whom here?  It seems to me the war was mostly
declared by us and to ourselves.  It is true that it is a tradition in this
region to have a war every 50 years and that every generation must live through
at least one war.  This generation has been honored with a war against the
whole world!  Still it seems to me that this is not a war and that someone
has tricked us into believing what HE wants us to believe.  
True, there is the state of emergency, war taxes,
military courts, bombs, destruction, fires, but I still cannot believe that
this is a real-real war.  It's easy to deal with the stench that is rolling
 through the city - there are winds, there is God, there is rain...  but what
am I going to do with the stench that remains behind?  It suffocates, makes one
dizzy, induces hallucinations,..., who is going to dispel the poisons?

This looks more like an introduction into the final madness.  If only this was
an ordinary, traditional war.  The sky is on our side, it's drizzling.

Love,
Cica