c. 1999 Religion News Service

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ The head of Yugoslavia’s largest religious charity, Philanthropy, says the country is facing a crisis of”biblical proportions”as unemployment spirals with the bombing of factories and hunger looms as government wages and pensions go unpaid.”Right now people have no problem with clothing because it is warm, and everything is growing in the fields, but what will happen in December, January, February? This is a nightmare, a nightmare,”said Dragan M. Makojevic, who was named director of Philanthropy on the day before NATO’s bombing campaign started March 24.

Although life in Belgrade maintains a veneer of normalcy, in recent weeks residents are increasingly having to wait in long lines to get staples like sugar. The sight of elderly people rooting around in dumpsters for food, too, is more common.

While it has an extensive and well-organized distribution network operating in every parish throughout Yugoslavia, Philanthropy, which is part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, is almost entirely dependent on aid from foreign church organizations.

To date, Makojevic said, 90 percent of the 1,400 tons of food, clothing and medicine shipped to Yugoslavia since the beginning of the war has come from neighboring Greece, also an overwhelmingly Orthodox country.

With the Yugoslav government estimating the NATO bombing has caused about $100 billion in damage, Philanthropy and the Red Cross, the country’s two main aid agencies, face an immense task of supplying food, clothing and adequate shelter.

To meet the challenge, Makojevic expects the help of Western Christian groups like Action by Churches Together, the joint World Council of Churches-Lutheran World Federation agency, and the Baltimore-based International Orthodox Christian Charities. Such organizations, of course, often draw their support from the very countries which are now bombing Yugoslavia, an irony not lost on Makojevic.”Their tax dollars went to destroy my country and … therefore everyone is involved in this, even as a bystander. Everyone has to show their true colors,”said Makojevic, 34, adding he had no intention of fashioning a fund-raising campaign around the issue.”For us to go to someone and say `You have to help us now because it would be morally correct to do because your country did this to us,’ this would be really in bad taste and I would be against it.” The need for humanitarian assistance in Yugoslavia is all the more acute because, even before the war started, social service agencies in the country of 10 million were struggling to absorb and support ethnic Serbian refugees from previous Balkan conflicts.”Already we have 650,000 of what we call `old refugees’ from Croatia and Bosnia,”said Makojevic, a tall, lanky man with a close-cropped beard.”We have to take care of them. That is a huge number.” Under one program operated by Philanthropy, packages of food staples like condensed milk, sugar, beans and cooking oil weighing between 10 and 15 kilograms each are given out to 2,000 of the 240,000 refugees living in Belgrade.

On a recent visit to the central Belgrade distribution point, several dozen refugees waited calmly in line to pick up the Greek food aid packed in cardboard boxes bound with twine and tape. One recipient, Slobodan Stegnajic, 24, an ethnic Serb who fled the Croatian city of Bankovac with his parents in 1995, described how the NATO bombing had pushed him to the brink of survival.

For three years, Stegnajic supported his parents as a bus driver for the city of Belgrade, initially earning about $250 a month but later, on the eve of the NATO bombing campaign, getting paid $100 a month. Several weeks ago, Stegnajic, a wiry man with thick, straight brown hair, lost his job.”Since the bombing started, I stopped working because there are less and less buses running,”said Stegnajic, explaining that the number of city buses in operation has dropped from 1,200 to 200.”There is no gasoline and there are no spare parts.” The monthly rent for the apartment he shares with his parents is $100, a sum Stegnajic said he is only able to pay with help from a brother who emigrated to Australia. As he prepared to take away his food package, Stegnajic said he is grateful for the Greek assistance but pessimistic about the future.”I believe we can expect some help but only from the Orthodox Church and the Serbs abroad,”said Stegnajic, who described himself as an Orthodox believer.”What can I expect from those Christians who are bombing us?” According to Milivoj Randjic, who runs the program, demand for the food packages from Greece far outstrips supply. Ten days earlier, Randjic’s small storefront operation was overwhelmed when it distributed the numbers with which recipients are eligible to get a weekly package.”There was a line, like a long snake,”said Randjic, adding that some of the 10,000 people hoping to get one of the 2,000 numbers had been waiting since the pre-dawn hours.”When they found out there were not enough numbers, the line just broke down and they swarmed the office.” Randjic’s office is staffed by two paid workers and 100 local volunteers from SYNDESMOS, a world fellowship of Orthodox youth. He said refugees are served regardless of faith or nationality. While most are ethnic Serbs, Albanian and Gypsy refugees also receive help. For the majority of recipients the aid is vital.”I think maybe 10 (percent) or 20 percent come because they go wherever there is something free, but the rest have a real need,”said Randjic, during an interview in his office at the rear of the distribution point.”The refugees had jobs, many of them part-time factory jobs, and they were the first to lose their jobs. They can’t expect anything from the government.” The refugees often have little respect for the Milosevic government because they blame it for the fighting in Bosnia and Croatia that led to the widespread displacement of people. However, Randjic noted,”They may curse Milosevic but there is no desire to change him in this situation.” Across town from the feeding point in the offices of Philanthropy, Makojevic predicted that the West’s response to the humanitarian consequences to the NATO bombing will shape Yugoslavia’s future poltical landscape.”If a big portion of the population is left with a bitter taste in its mouth and fear in their hearts, then that is a very big problem,”Makojevic said.”People will look to the extremes.” For now, Makojevic said, he has little time for guessing the shape of things to come. All he can say with certainty is that Philanthropy’s budget this year will be many times last year’s $2.5 million.

Makojevic said the expanding crisis has made it easier to ignore Belgrade’s everyday inconveniences like electric and water shortages or, in his case, the tiles that fell off his bathroom wall when a bomb struck a water heating plant near his apartment.

Makojevic said his days are consumed with distributing food, expanding a fledgling network of free and discount pharmacies and establishing soup kitchens.”No one has died from starvation, yet. And, I pray to God that it won’t happen,”said Makojevic.”It would be a personal failure for me. But, as I said, winter is coming and this is my nightmare.” DEA END BROWN