Letter: Serb `genocide'

Sir: Letters in The Independent and other journals object to the term "genocide" being applied to Serb actions in Kosovo. The object seems to be to demonstrate that the Nazis were uniquely evil and, by implication, that the Serb conduct is excusable by comparison.

In fact the Serbs are copying almost exactly the German treatment of the Jews in the period up to 1942 when the Final Solution started to be implemented. Communities were terrorised, robbed, expelled, often massacred, on the basis of their racial origin and usually with the assistance of a local civilian population.

Whether this is technically "genocide" matters little to most people and certainly not to the victims.

GRAHAM PERKINS

Bromyard,

Herefordshire