Letters: Voices of Serbia

Sir: Anthony Arblaster (letter, 10 April) asks if the Serbs in Britain, protesting against the Nato bombing, understand why their country is being attacked, and if they condemn the atrocities committed in Kosovo.

Here in Belgrade, each cry against the bombing is, unfortunately, scored by the regime as a voice of approval of its policy on Kosovo. But one should never equate these two things.

We are aware of the crimes committed in Kosovo, but we know that Milosevic has no ear for our voices. The bombing is good for him only, because it helps him to strengthen his regime. Nato refuses to recognise this, and continues the fruitless campaign that provokes only the suffering of innocent people in Serbia, without helping the Albanians in Kosovo.

I agree that the parallel with the Germans and the Second World War is striking. Hitler misled the German nation, turning it against the world and into the Holocaust. Milosevic does much the same with the Serbs. Neither the German nation, nor the Serbs, should be seen as genocidal by nature; they have only been unlucky to spend a part of their histories under the dictatorship of ruthless people.

DRAGAN MARKOVIC

Belgrade