LETTERS
Recipe for chaos
Sir: Sir Alfred Sherman (Letters, 31 August) accuses your leader-writer of 'prej- udice and insufficient knowledge' not only for recommending that the borders of Croatia be kept intact, but also for calling them 'borders' rather than 'boundaries'. He is being silly. They are republican borders now, and will probably become state bor- ders before long; to call them anything else is a quibble. His claim that the present bor- ders date back to 1871 is, by the way, false.
He accuses your correspondent Matt Frei of 'crippling ignorance' for having suggest- ed that the irregular Serbian forces call themselves 'Chetniks' after the forces of that name which fought during the second world war. This, he argues, is impossible, because the Serbian government and Fed- eral Army would not have permitted them to identify with such a non-communist tra- dition. His argument is a priori, silly, and factually wrong. The movement led today by Vojislav Scselj, which has claimed close involvement with the military action in Croatia, identifies openly with the second world war Chetnik movement. Other Serbs may indeed use the term in its older and more general sense; but Sir Alfred's a priori argument on this point is worthless.
He also tilts at Mr Frei for his presumed ignorance of Serbian; but what is one to presume of Sir Alfred, who seems to think that the plural of `zadruga' is `zadruga', and that the German for 'ethnic Germans' is `Folksdeutsche'?
His argument in favour of changing Croatia's borders displays insufficient knowledge. He is apparently unaware that the areas with Serbian populations do not join up on the map with Serbia. His solu- tion would involve either imposing Serbian rule on large swathes of Croat-populated territory, or creating new non-contiguous bits and pieces of Serbia — a sure recipe for further chaos and violence.
Noel Malcolm
6A Huntingdon Street, London N1
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