Civil Strife in Yugoslavia

The massacres of the civilian population in the Republic of Croatia, perpetrated by various Serbian terrorist groups (not the Serbian people) and fully supported by the Republic of Serbia (run by the communists) and the Yugoslav army (also run by the communists), surpass in cruelty and destruction the massacres committed by Basque and Irish terrorists, various paramilitary groups in Lebanon and even the liquidation of the Kurds by Iraq. And our government calls on the warring factions to enter a dialogue! Dialogue with whom? Do our local authorities conduct dialogues with gangsters, Mafia members or street gangs?

Are we ever going to realize that we are sitting on the fence while the democracies in Croatia and Slovenia are being destroyed by the last communist Establishment in Eastern Europe--by the Serbian communists who conveniently present themselves as ardent, and, of course, “just” nationalists in order to gain the support of their own people? Did not Stalin appeal to Russian patriotism during World War II, to finally reintroduce rigid communism after the war was over?

ANTHONY M. MLIKOTIN, Rancho Palos Verdes