Letter: Crimes against people and culture in former Yugoslavia

Sir: The wielder of the knife in Robert Fisk's writing ('Waging war on history', 20 June), and the victim of that knife, is Robert Fisk himself. Why does he say that 700,000 people died in Jasenovac, when even the real number of 30,000 (which includes anti-fascist Croats) is too many? Why does he morally and politically equate the Serbian crimes of today with the Croatian crimes of 50 years ago?

Can anyone justify ethnic cleansing and genocide by Serbs against non-Serbs in former Yugoslavia today by what happened to Serbs during the Second World War? (Serbs committed more than their share of wrongdoing against non-Serbs between the world wars and in concentration camps after the Second World War.) No past, however terrible, can be anyone's excuse for committing crimes against humanity today. And Robert Fisk has no right to excuse the Serbs of today for starting the war in order to create an ethnically pure, homogeneous Greater Serbian state at the expense of their neighbours.

Equations such as 'they are all the same' only help the Serbian aggressor, muddy the waters of understanding, and excuse the West's inaction in the face of Serbian conquest.

Yours faithfully,

DRAGO STAMBUK

Charge d'Affaires

Embassy of the Republic of Croatia

London, W1