Sir, - Once again the Irish left, with a few honourable exceptions, have disgraced themselves when faced with the horror of genocide in the Balkans. Just as they minimised and excused the atrocities carried out by Serb extremists during the Bosnian war, now the propaganda of the Milosevic regime is parroted by them at every turn. As a socialist, I am heartily sick of this hypocrisy. Call me naive, but I thought socialism was founded on the principle of solidarity with the oppressed.
How many thousands of Kosovars have to be murdered by the forces of the Milosevic regime before they qualify as deserving of solidarity? The awful truth is that these same groups and individuals have been urging a policy of appeasement towards the Milosevic regime since the collapse of Yugoslavia began in the late 1980s. Only now they can conveniently hide behind the anti-war banner.
Their ritual preamble of "We don't support Milosevic but .. . " is entirely devoid of credibility. Why were there no protests or vigils to support the Kosovar people in their 10-year campaign of passive resistance against the system of apartheid imposed by the Milosevic regime? Why did these so-called "socialists" fail to respond to the constant appeals for assistance from the trade union representing thousands of Kosovar miners sacked from their jobs solely on the basis of their ethnicity? If they are so concerned for the Serbian people, why the deafening silence from them when the ordinary people of Serbia attempted to oust the Milosevic regime not so long ago?
The sad fact is that from certain elements in the Labour Party right across the board to the alphabet soup of ultra-left micro-factions, they all share a phoney "anti-imperialism", where the only criterion for judging a brutal and corrupt regime is its current relationship with the United States. Selectivity is the name of the game and those unfortunate enough to be victims of tyranny in a country ruled by an anti-American regime are ignored.
Such thinking bears an uncanny resemblance to the Reagan/ Thatcher school of human rights which deemed that only victims of Communist regimes were worthy of support and assistance while victims of right-wing regimes, such as the East Timorese who were slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands, were expendable. Whether it is articulated by left or right this viewpoint is in total contrast to the belief in universal values of human liberty and equality which constitutes the very core of socialism. Surely it is incumbent on those who call themselves socialists to support the rights of all those who are downtrodden regardless of the ideology of their oppressors?
There are, of course, many who have genuine concerns about the current NATO bombing campaign. It has been argued, not least by the Kosovars themselves, that intervention should have occurred long ago and that the West deliberately ignored their plight for many years, thereby facilitating Milosevic's stranglehold on Kosovo. Yet to contend that because the West failed to act in the past it should not do so now is entirely illogical. Others have rightly pointed out that NATO has failed to intervene on behalf of victims of genocide such as the Kurdish people in Turkey. Surely this is not an argument against intervention in Kosovo but simply highlights the inconsistency of American policy on human rights which, in a rather ironic way, mirrors the inconsistency of the Irish left.
I urge all those who regard themselves as socialists to support the people of Kosovo in their struggle for independence and democracy rather than lining up with those who would appease fascism and excuse genocide. - Yours, etc., Colm Breathnach,
Woodlands Park, Cabinteely, Co Dublin.