Angered but Aimless, Young Serbs Protest War : Balkans: Although president has made his country a pariah, opposition seems unwilling to confront him.

Upset by the international scorn President Slobodan Milosevic has brought on their country, Serbs roamed the streets of the capital Sunday, gathering at potential targets for their anger and then dispersing as if unable to find the spark for revolution.

Part of the crowd of about 20,000 people who marched through central Belgrade at one point rushed to the locked entrance of the Serbian presidency, stirring a fleeting expectation that the shunned people of Serbia would storm the seat of the Milosevic regime.

But the youthful demonstrators halted at the imposing presidency building--empty on Sunday--only long enough to send up a weak chant, demanding that Milosevic resign.

Even the most popular opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement, passed up a chance to rouse the spiritless protest against the Yugoslav war, which has saddled Serbia with the harshest sanctions ever imposed on a European country.

When thousands followed Draskovic to state-controlled Belgrade Television and cheered as he ascended its broad staircase, he stood silent before the expectant masses and lit a cigarette.

The disappointment was palpable, and the opposition’s reticence to openly confront the leadership seemed destined to prolong a sense of resignation paralyzing many Serbs.

“There are not enough of us,” said Nebojsa Besirevic, a dispirited 24-year-old student, watching the directionless protest from his perch on a streetside planter. “This is the worst time our country has ever had. It’s sad to say, but the sanctions are justified. But I don’t think they are getting the response that was intended.”

On Saturday, the U.N. Security Council slapped wide-ranging economic sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, the only two republics still calling themselves Yugoslavia. An oil embargo, a trade ban, the suspension of airline landing rights and other measures were imposed to punish the Serbian leadership for its role in savage fighting that has devastated Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Serbian shelling of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo continued Sunday, as did an assault on the Croatian resort of Dubrovnik.

Bosnian media reported agreement between Serbian and Muslim forces for a cease-fire to take effect at 6 p.m. today. But many earlier truces failed even to slow the attacks that have turned much of scenic Sarajevo into rubble and choked off vital supplies to the city of 600,000.

Since Serbian guerrillas and the Serb-led federal army began a concerted assault on Bosnia three months ago to prevent its secession, at least 2,300 have been killed and more than 1 million--mostly Slavic Muslims--have been driven out of their homes.

Forces loyal to Milosevic are also blamed for sparking last year’s war in Croatia, in which an additional 10,000 died and 700,000 were made homeless.

The conflict and the refugee crisis are the worst seen in Europe since World War II.

Defiant and confident, Milosevic belittled the U.N. sanctions as “a price we have to pay because we are helping Serbs outside Serbia.”

Making a rare public appearance to vote in federal elections expected to bestow new legitimacy to his regime, Milosevic dismissed as “ridiculous” Western accusations that he is responsible for the bloodshed in Bosnia.

Other Serbian leaders showed equal disdain for the sanctions, which have made pariahs of the Serbs but are expected to have little immediate effect on the political situation.

“The oil embargo will not influence the mood of the Serbian people. If necessary, Serbs will walk,” Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sajinovic insisted.

But motorists belied his indifference, forming mile-long lines outside the few open gas stations. Hundreds of Serbs holding international airline tickets showed up at Belgrade’s airport Sunday, shocked that the sanctions were actually preventing them from going abroad.

The Serbian economy is already a shambles, with hyperinflation now estimated at a mind-boggling 100,000% annual rate. The government has repeatedly printed money to finance the war machine, and mass conscription has depleted manpower at most factories.

But Serbia produces abundant food and hydroelectricity. The media have also successfully cast Western countries as the villains in Serbia’s suffering, and the sanctions are likely to harden popular resolve to defeat what is widely considered an international conspiracy.

“Germany wants to cut the continent of Europe into small pieces so it can have greater influence,” insisted Dragan Aleksic, a 22-year-old soldier watching the anti-war rally. “Germany pulled the strings to get Western Europe to break up the Balkans so it can take our harbors on the Adriatic coast.”

Buoyed by the carefully constructed illusion that it is Serbia against a devious world, Milosevic and his Socialist Party were expected to capture a majority of votes in Sunday’s elections to seat a Parliament for the new two-republic Yugoslavia that Milosevic declared in late April.

No major countries have recognized the new Yugoslavia, which replaces the six-republic federation broken up by the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.