Sir: Your diatribe against the Serbs and your clamour for
war are strong on emo- tion but weak on logic and history (`The West does not exist', 17 April). Your state- ment, 'If we let them [the Serbs] have Kosovo', ignores, the consideration that the Serbs' reacquisition of Kosovo was interna- tionally accepted at the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, when the Serbs were still the majority in the province, later to be eroded by ethnic cleansing in two world wars, occu- pations and Tito's anti-Serb drive. If you are willing to go back that far, what about Northern Ireland or states like California, New Mexico and Arizona?
Apparently, you believe that the best alternative to 'waiting for the war to spread' is to spread it.
In the late Thirties, when all the British media were busy demonising the Czechs as the main threat to European peace and brutal oppressors of the peace-loving Sude- ten Germans, while praising Germany's moderation and reasonableness, it was almost impossible for anyone to publish a word on the Czechs' behalf. Now that the Serbs are again a target for Germany's renewed Drang each Osten, the Serbs' case it outlawed as politically incorrect. Yet they have a case. Their refusal to submit to Croat quasi-fascism and Islamic fundamen- talism deserves to be accommodated.
As far back as the mid-Eighties, those of us who knew Yugoslavia warned that its precipitate break-up, particularly along the lines of Tito's provincial bdundaries and with Islam designated as nation rather than religion, would lead to bloodshed, which would then feed on itself. We were proved right. Carrington issued a similar warning, but was overruled by the EEC in what he was later to describe as the 11's 'supineness' in face of German insistence. He was eased out in favour of 'Bomb-the-Serbs' Owen.
But the Serbs will fight on — as they have been doing for centuries — because all alternatives would be worse. All partici- pants will become increasingly brutalised. The innocent will suffer, as they have always done, and their plight will be used to solicit support just as Middle Eastern beg- gars hold up their maimed children.
The only way out of the vicious spiral is to recognise that this most artificial of con- structions, a sovereign Bosnia, is a recipe for war, and retrace our steps.
Alfred Sherman
14 Malvern Court, Onslow Square, London SW7
Previous page
