Sir, - Sean Steel (August 5th) should check his facts before putting pen to paper! I am not "The Irish representative (and chief propagandist)" for Mr Milosevic. The Serbian Information Bureau is an independent organisation which receives no financial backing from Belgrade, and my work is concerned with legitimate interests of the Serbian people and the country of Yugoslavia, not with interests of any individual politician or political party.
There is nothing "ironic" about my reference to "stability in the Balkans", which should be, surely the goal of any intelligent person; or is Mr Steel arguing that the deployment of NATO forces on the Albanian and Macedonian borders, something which NATO has "threatened", is not a desirable option?
I agree that all suspected war criminals, against whom there is sufficient evidence, should appear at the Hague Tribunal. But it is strange that the tribunal has so far ignored the evidence against dozens of suspected Muslim and Croat war criminals. I stress the word "suspected", since Mr Steel talks of Serbia harbouring "war criminals". Is he implying that the tribunal operates on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent"? The recent "suicide" and the death from a "heart attack" of two Serb suspects are worrying. Should residence in the tribunal jail carry a "government health warning", at least as far as Serbs are concerned?
As for the destruction of Yugoslavia, I would only remind Mr Steel that Franjo Trudjman, then a general in the Yugoslav police, served time for his Croat nationalist activities in 1972, and Alija Izetbegovic did the same for his fundamentalist publication The Islamic Declaration. It takes two, or maybe three or four, to tango! - Yours, etc., Zivko Jaksic
Serbian Information Bureau,
Grange Road,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.