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From Ms
Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi.
Sir, With
reference to your editorial "Squeezing Belgrade" (March 10), how
much longer will we have to listen to the argument that the US and the
European Union must compromise with Belgrade to ensure the stability of
Serbia and the Balkans?
This
argument has driven the disastrous foreign policy that aided and abetted
Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian dictator, now indicted war criminal, as he
waged four wars of aggression in the Balkans, leaving more than 300,000
dead and 4m displaced. Since Nato ended Mr Milosevic's genocidal march
across Kosovo in 1999, this argument has prevented the west from using its
financial leverage to dismantle the Milosevic system. Foreign aid has
continued to flow into Belgrade's coffers, even though Serbia has flouted
democratic principles and the rule of law at every turn. The Belgrade government
has repeatedly refused to co-operate with the International War Crimes
Tribunal in The Hague, was caught selling weapons to Iraq and has been
exposed for its complicity in the March 2003 assassination of Zoran
Djindjic, the Serbian prime minister.
If the west
is serious about bringing stability to Serbia and the Balkans and
preventing the Serbs from remaining "isolated and resentful people,
prey to ultra-nationalism and crime", it must become serious about
helping Serbia to democratise. With the resurgence of the racist and
xenophobic political parties led by Mr Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj,
another indicted war criminal, in the recent parliamentary elections, the
time has come to intensify, not relax, international pressure on Serbia to
confront and transform its past.
Until the
west insists that Serbs shed the mythology that they are victims - a myth
that has allowed them to justify their acts of aggression against Bosnians
and Kosovar Albanians and shield themselves from the atrocities committed in
their name - Serbia will continue to be the greatest threat, not the key,
to stability in the region.
Shirley
Cloyes DioGuardi, Balkan Affairs Adviser, Albanian American Civic League,
Ossining, NY 10562, US
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