Human rights in Yugoslavia

Thank you for the editorial "Onus on Serbia," Sept. 6. The minority Serbs do have legitimate concerns about their rights within an independent Croatia. But the way to best ensure their rights is through internationally monitored negotiations, the kind the breakaway republics have been advocating for months.The Army-sponsored attempts by Serbian guerrillas to partition Croatia will only serve to make the situation worse for everyone. Moreover, as your editorial correctly points out, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's record of dealing with the Albanian minority in Kosovo (not to mention his brutalization of Serbs who disagree with him) suggests that he is not much interested in anyone's civil rights. It should be noted that only a third of Croatia's Serbs live in the so-called Krajina region that Serbian guerrillas want to annex to Serbia. How will their actions help the remaining two-thirds? Moreover, some of the towns the Serbs have been attacking have a population that is 20 percent Serbian or less. What kind of society are these militants preparing, if the will of a well-armed minority is allowed to brutalize the rest of the population into submission? Dubranka A. Romano, Austin, Texas

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