Letter: Kosovo: heading for a new catastrophe

Sir: Have you gone quite bonkers? ("Nato cannot delay sending in troops to protect Kosovo", 30 March.) How many months will it take to plan the occupation? Kosovo is landlocked. How do you get there? If you fight your way across Kosovo to establish your protectorate, who and what will be left?

How many casualties will you then accept from Tito's heirs, whose terrorist murders of our troops will make the IRA look like lily-livered jelly-babies? How will you handle Russian and other "volunteers" who come to help them?

In any case, your excellent reporting from Kosovo shows that the atrocities are now led by Serb irregulars in ad hoc uniforms. Refugees talk of being driven out by knives, not tanks. Arkan is in Belgrade because the entire Serb population is determined to attack any Albanian they can find. They will delight in butchering our troops maintaining a protectorate. Nato has created a situation in which air power is useless.

Milosevic could not call off the Serb gangs even if he wanted to while Nato air attacks continue. He might or might not be able to do so if the attacks stop now. Nato has put him in a position of supreme authority.

Please engage your brain and think a little.

DEREK J COLE.

Jesus College

Cambridge