Sir, - Your editorial (June 3rd) rightly speaks of Mr Milosevic "stoking up the conflict in Kosovo." The long-predicted crisis in my country has now reached genocidal proportions.
Serb forces have already ethnically cleansed approximately 50,000 Kosovan Albanians from their homes (UNHCR figure June 4th). Villages are being heavily bombarded and set on fire to prevent the return of their populations. The death toll is rising rapidly and shows every sign of increasing hugely if effective intervention is not arranged immediately. (In one media report, a senior NATO official is quoted as saying: "If anything, the intelligence reports we are receiving from Kosovo are worse than the news agencies are saying, and the death toll may be higher.")
The pattern of the Bosnian war repeats itself ever more clearly. A report from Balkan Watch, Washington (June 3rd), speaks of 200 Kosovan Albanians being held as hostages in Decani and 70 in another location nearby. In this connection, one recalls the fate of such hostages held by Serbian forces in Srebrenica and other towns in Bosnia.
The principal aim of western policy now is to "contain" the conflict in Kosova by sealing off its borders. This policy, which characterised so much of the western response to the conflict in Bosnia, is an insult to the real needs of my people, who are risking their total destruction. Do my relatives and those of other Kosovans resident in Ireland have to await Bosnian levels of genocide before the West deems it worthy to intervene effectively on their behalf? - Yours, etc., Ismet Bajgora,
Lucan, Co Dublin.