Dismayed by their security forces' retreat from Kosovo under NATO pressure, local Serbs said yesterday only the world could protect them from revenge attacks by majority ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province.
"The result of such policies will put the Serbs in a very difficult situation and they will have to, whether they like it or not, ask the international community for protection," the Serb opposition leader, Mr Randjel Nojkic, said.
His opinion was shared by others in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, a day after NATO resolved to maintain its air-strike threat, leaving the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, under heavy pressure not to renege on demilitarisation.
"NATO helped them [Kosovo Albanians], but they haven't seen anything yet. When the Albanians start taking revenge, the world will have a lot of problems to protect us," said a Serb student who was afraid to give his name because of Albanian neighbours.
"I think the world will continue to threaten the Serbs as long as the Kosovo crisis remains unresolved," said Mr Nojkic, the Serbian Renewal Movement leader in Kosovo.
Kosovo Serbs were trying to recover from the shock of seeing army troops and security police pull out en masse to meet a NATO deadline that required ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas to respect a ceasefire but not to disarm. The initial reaction of some Serbs was to think about leaving Kosovo. Then some started to consider their defence.
"I would like to leave. But where to go? Milosevic wouldn't have us like he didn't want to see Serbs who had to leave from other parts of ex-Yugoslavia," the student said, referring to war refugees from Croatia and Bosnia in 19911995.
He said his friends and many other Kosovo Serbs he knew had turned away from Mr Milosevic and Belgrade, the Yugoslav federal and Serbian republic capital 375 km to the north. "We created him, and we may destroy him."
Mr Milosevic consolidated his rule in Kosovo a decade ago when, embracing Serb nationalism, he revoked ethnic Albanians' governing autonomy and later drove Croatia and Bosnia to secede violently from federal Yugoslavia.
"No one knew [Milosevic] then. We launched him into Serbian and world politics. If he has really sold Kosovo out, we could come to Belgrade and that might be his political end," a friend of the student said, giving only his first name as Stevan.
Mr Nojkic said Kosovo's Serb inhabitants were now in danger with most security police and army troops confined to barracks or out of the province altogether. The separatist rebels had already started stopping cars and buses and checking people, he said.
International observers, about 100 of them so far with another 200 expected soon as part of an eventual 2,000-strong contingent, have seen Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas occupying some positions left behind by government forces.
But they said they had no reports of activities that would jeopardise freedom of movement around Kosovo.
In Belgrade, Serbs shrugged off NATO's decision to maintain the threat of air strikes and many said they were unaware that any deadline for military intervention had elapsed.
"Isn't all that over? Was there any deadline [on Tuesday]? I didn't hear anything on our television news," said Ms Vesna Dimkovic (28), a bank clerk.
Yugoslav state television and pro-government newspapers ignored the latest NATO threat, which was suspended but not lifted on Tuesday after Mr Milosevic obeyed UN demands to withdraw security forces from Kosovo.
Belgrade's intimidation of the independent media with the threat of draconian fines ensured that their reporting of the crisis was muted to avoid antagonising the government.
Milan (45) said he knew nothing about the NATO decision or about the existence of Tuesday's deadline. "They want to keep people ignorant so that they can do what they want. I do not trust these authorities any more," he said.