SECTION: LETTERS; Pg. A12

SECTION: LETTERS; Pg. A12
The Washington Times - March 24, 2007 Saturday

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

I would like to respond to Richard Holbrooke's "warning" to Russia against vetoing the West's wholly illegal effort to grant Kosovo independence ("Holbrooke's warning," Embassy Row, Tuesday).

For over 60 years, the Serbs have been enduring persecution from Albanians in Kosovo due to the Albanian extremist "long pent-up desire" to steal Kosovo from Serbia as they have been ethnically cleansed and murdered, and had their cultural monuments destroyed in the effort to create a "Greater Albania." Western efforts to appease Albanian Muslim extremism at the expense of the Serbs and international law lie at the heart of the current conflict. Russia had absolutely nothing to do with this.

Russia is a valuable ally in our efforts to counter Islamic extremist terrorism throughout the world. Yet, tragically, some of our leaders still harbor the "Cold War Era" mentality and appear to be driving us toward a new Cold War with Russia. Opening new unnecessary and costly conflicts/fronts is something we can ill afford.

I must respond to Mr. Holbrooke's warning with a similar warning not to provoke and alienate Russia at this critical time in our history.

MICHAEL PRAVICA

Henderson, Nev.

Richard Holbrooke advises independence for Kosovo in order to forestall renewed Albanian violence. There is a parallel between the plan of Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari for removing Kosovo from Serbia and Munich's dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Just as the Ahtisaari plan has the backing of much of the European Union and the United States, so Munich had the backing of Britain and France. Both now and then, dismemberment was the product of appeasement.

A blank check was unwisely bequeathed to the Kosovo Liberation Army well before the Rambouillet Agreement by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Mr. Holbrooke. No wonder the KLA's goal is nothing less than an ethnically pure Kosovo. To claw back the check is to acknowledge the unthinkable, namely that NATO became the air arm of ethnic cleansing nationalists. Hence the appeasement.

YUGO KOVACH

Twickenham, Middlesex

United Kingdom