New York Bombing

The purpose of this letter is to protest your paper’s malicious and erroneous reporting which dealt with the bombing of the New York Trade Center building (Feb. 27).

Your paper’s decision to print, on the front page, that the act was credited to the “Serbian Liberation Front” and that a “ranking U.S. official” treated the claim as “credible” was a vicious attack on Serbian people everywhere.

Omitted from the report was the fact that there is no such organization as the “Serbian Liberation Front” or that the Serbs have never sponsored a terrorist attack in the United States. The article also omitted any reference to known fundamentalist Muslim and Croatian groups that have committed terrorist acts in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere. It also omitted reference to a similar bomb attack against the United States embassy in the Croatian capital of Zagreb on the same day as the New York explosion.

In the meantime, just about every Serb in Los Angeles was forced to discuss the allegations in The Times with friends, family and acquaintances; a task which, you well know, is impossible since it requires proving a negative. Examples of the harm to the Serbian community are rampant and growing. A friend confided to me that she had nightmares of being stoned because she was Serbian. Young Serbian kids are increasingly being attacked by friends at school.

DRAGUTIN M. ILICH

Director, Institute for the Study

of Serbian History and Culture

Los Angeles