Slobodan Milosevic

* Your reports about the divide between Serbs and the Muslim-Croat Federation in Bosnia deserve comment. Time and again, you (in common with most of the Western media) assert that Slobodan Milosevic was responsible for the breakup of the country. As one who has traveled widely throughout the region, it has been my impression that many people (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) agree that the European Union recognition of Croatia as an independent country--forced through by Germany--was the catalyst for war in the former Yugoslavia.

No side is without blame: the Serbs ran the Omarska camp, the Croatians massacred grandmothers and babies in the Krajina campaign and the Muslims bombed their own people in a Sarajevo market to get America involved in the war.

Memories are long here; the revelation that the Vatican may have received $80 million in cash stolen from Jews and other minorities persecuted and murdered by the Croatians during the Second World War will not surprise many. What is more astonishing is the constant stream of anti-Serb propaganda that pervades the Western media. Nobody is guiltless in the tragedy of Yugoslavia. Stop demonizing the Serbs.

BEN WARD

Beverly Hills