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The Washington Times LETTERS Serbian genocide in Kosovo a myth In her Wednesday Op-Ed column, "Fixing Kosovo," Helle Dale states: "Serbia attempted to drive out the ethnic Albanians from the Kosovo province of Serbia by the hundreds of thousands in the hope of preventing the province from declaring independence." This is not accurate. The mass flight of Albanians from Kosovo was triggered by sudden panic after NATO commenced bombing. Earlier, a few thousand Albanians had moved out to safer places in Europe. Serb forces drove out Albanians only from those enclaves where the Kosovo Liberation Army had stepped up its guerrilla attacks during NATO's bombing. Because the KLA in civilian clothes were indistinguishable from Albanian civilians, Serbian military strategy chose to drive out the entire population from those enclaves. In doing this, Serb forces saved Albanian civilian lives from getting caught in the crossfire between the KLA and Serb forces. At the end of the crisis, the perceived "Serbian genocide" which provoked NATO bombing was nowhere to be found. RAJU G.C. THOMAS Former U.S. Fulbright professor University of Belgrade, Serbia Visiting professor University of Bologna, Italy Glendale, Wis. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
