Kosovo Refugees

Re “Exodus Tears Apart--and Reunites--Kin,” April 17: I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous and my blood is boiling. This young man from the Bronx, one of 50 relatives who are willing to take full responsibility for their displaced Kosovar Albanian relatives, can’t even get help in bringing them to the United States. With all the agencies scrambling to find ways to care for the hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees, can’t we cut through the red tape and do something for these few?

MARY BURLEIGH

Los Angeles

*

The statement by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony (April 17) calling the NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo a “just” war is, I believe, irresponsible. Only a few weeks earlier, Mahony had stated his opposition to the death penalty, a statement I can agree with. How can he now justify another type of death penalty: the deaths of innocent civilians, yes, even innocent Christian civilians, by his blessing of NATO bombing?

The cardinal would be more responsible in urging prayer and negotiations for a peaceful settlement in that region. Has he given up on the holy spirit and the prince of peace?

CURT GROVE

San Pedro Catholic Worker

*

Arianna Huffington fails to grasp that the destruction of Slobodan Milosevic’s military forces--by and of itself--would be a major accomplishment and contribute significantly to peace in southeast Europe (Commentary, April 16).

In 1991, having seized the military patrimony of all the republics of the former Yugoslavia, the rump Yugoslavia--comprising just Serbia and Montenegro--was armed to the teeth. This army attacked Slovenia, fought on the side of indigenous Serbs in Croatia and participated in brutal ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and now Kosovo.

The current NATO campaign will greatly reduce or eliminate Milosevic’s ability to ethnically cleanse his next targets--the other formerly autonomous province, Vojvodina, of its Hungarian Yugoslav population and the Sandjak region of its Muslim Yugoslav citizens.

If the Yugoslav military and police apparatus must be reduced to rubble to protect everyone in the region who is not Serb, so be it.

MARK RYAVEC

Honorary Consul, Slovenia

Venice