Serbs divided over Libya

Mar 20, 2011, 9:46 GMT

Belgrade - The first Western air strikes against Libya has drawn mixed reactions in Serbia, more than decade after the former Yugoslav republic came under NATO air attack over Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of terror in Kosovo.

Serbia, torn between the desire to be a part of the West and resentment over what it sees as unjust Western support for its foes, made no official statement on developments in Libya.

But the public appeared largely divided into one camp sharply critical of the intervention and another that regards Gaddafi as the greater evil.

'No-fly zone, a new name for old savagery. Maybe somebody will teach the Americans and Western Europeans to that sort of democracy,' one reader wrote in the leading internet news portals, B92 and Blic daily online.

'Another war for the oilfields. Only, this one will be led by the British and French - Americans taught them that war pays off,' another comment read.

Comments reflected the view the military campaign is aimed at protecting Western business interests rather than Gaddafi's opponents. But there were also those justifying the international air strikes against a 'deranged dictator,' who is 'mercilessly killing his own.'

'He (Gaddafi) fully deserves it. The man treats the state as private property and if I was making decisions, our planes would also be there,' a reader wrote.

On March 24 1999 NATO forces attacked Serbia over its persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, then a province of Serbia. The air strikes lasted 78 days.

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