Serbia Opposition Leader and War Crimes

Re “Communism Takes Fall as Belgrade Gains New Mayor,” Feb. 22, and your premature enthusiasm conveyed for Serbia’s opposition party leader Zoran Djindjic taking over the Belgrade mayor’s office:

While it sounds great that the opposition beat President Slobodan Milosevic’s Communist Party, it should give no comfort to know that the opposition is no more democratic than Milosevic’s Communists. The new mayor is an ultranationalist, as is Vuk Draskovic, the other leader of the demonstrations in Belgrade. Both wholeheartedly supported Serbia’s war against Croatia and Bosnia, not too long ago giving full support during the elections to the party of the Bosnian Serb rebel leaders, indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Journalists should be asking these leaders as well as the average demonstrator about their views regarding “Greater Serbia” and the Serb notion that “wherever Serbs live is Serbia.” Only when they can give assurances that Serbs are no longer interested in taking over their neighbors’ lands, could one start believing that democracy is a possibility in Serbia.

HILDA M. FOLEY

Santa Ana

“Protesters Air Economic Demands” (Feb. 18) related that Serbian teachers and transport workers were striking against their leader, Milosevic. We are reminded that in July 1995 the Serbians were fortunate in having the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indict their oppressive leaders, Karadzic and Mladic, for killings and mass deportations and thus to discredit those leaders. However, there is no such court available in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Latin America, where perpetrators of crimes against humanity are allowed to roam free.

We need an International Criminal Court where perpetrators of serious international crimes such as genocide, rape, torture, attacks on ships, airplanes and oil well platforms will be punished. Formal treaty negotiations for an ICC have been moving along steadily with up to 120 countries participating. A diplomatic conference is scheduled for June 1998. An ICC would deter the crimes listed above. The ICC would also lessen the necessity for U.S. intervention, which has proved costly and dangerous in Somalia and Bosnia.

JAMES GOODWIN

FRANCES GOODWIN

Seal Beach