Letter: Belgrade's answer

Sir: Anne McElvoy's call to arms in a war in which she will not have to fight is stronger on emotion than fact ("Kosovo is part of Europe - that is why we must fight to save it", 24 March).

It is not true that Mr Milosevic ended Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. He rescinded Tito's 1974 constitution, introduced to please Muslim powers he had been corralling into his Non-Aligned Movement by giving the Albanian- dominated government in Kosovo rights no other unit in Yugoslavia possessed, and fewer obligations.

Kosovo was left with the same rights as the Vojvodina. There, the Hungarians, Slovaks and other minorities work within the constitution to further their own interests. The Albanian nationalists in Kosovo have refused to do this, boycotting elections, refusing to use the state education system, persecuting and often killing those Albanians who tried to co-operate. The "KLA", financed and organised from Western countries, carried out murders of Serbs and loyal Albanians, including postmen, in order to provoke Serb reprisals to justify the irruption of the USA and its satellites and their operation as the KLA's air force, along the same lines as in Bosnia, where the Americans are arming and training the Muslims for a new war of conquest against the Serb Republic.

The author should ask why the Americans have fomented conflict in the Balkans, and why Britain should allow itself to be manipulated to that end.

DJORDJE MIJALKOVIC

Counsellor

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

London W8