Letter: America on trial

THOMAS FLEMING alerts us to the dangers of the "new imperialism" wherein firing off missiles seems to take diplomatic precedence over peaceful resolution of disputes. Unfortunately, he rather spoils his argument with one of the main examples he gives, namely Kosovo.

Fleming praises the Republican Senator Bob Smith for condemning the threat to bomb the Serbs as "outrageous" and asserting that "Kosovo is as much part of Yugoslavia as New Hampshire is of the United States". I was not aware that 90 per cent of the citizens of New Hampshire had been so brutalised and radicalised by 10 years of intense oppression of their ethnic group that they were now clamouring for secession from the USA. There is also the awkward fact that it was precisely the (belated) Nato bombing of Bosnian Serb positions that ended the war in Bosnia.

Messrs Fleming and Smith should know that Yugoslavia (meaning literally "land of the Southern Slavs") effectively no longer exists. Four of the six Southern Slav nations have got the hell out and a fifth, Montenegro, is becoming increasingly restless. The continued use of the term "Yugoslavia" for Serbia-Montenegro is a fraudulent deception perpetrated by Belgrade to justify the continued denial of the legitimate rights of the people of Kosovo.

CHARLES KENNAUGH

Greasby, Wirral