Letters to the Editor

Standing up for Serbians

Editor’s note: Columnist Helle Dale said that, during a recent dinner with Serbian officials, there was no mention made that the conversation was off the record. We stand by her assertion.

The article “Are you being Serbed?” (Op-Ed, Aug. 6) came as a multiple surprise to me. Not only did its author, Helle Dale, refer to some off-the-record remarks by the prime minister of Serbia and our minister of foreign affairs at a dinner, but she also chose to go a step further to misquote and completely distort them. By the first act, she abused the trust of her host and his guests. The distortion can be attributed either to profound lack of knowledge or to Mrs. Dale’s ill intentions. Neither of the two gives credit to the renowned Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies that she represents.

Because I was present at the Metropolitan Club dinner, I can confirm that the prime minister did speak of the unpopularity of NATO and the United States in public opinion polls, something not unnatural, given that the intervention occurred four years ago. However, this was in the context of explaining how a democratic government has a difficult task of persuading public opinion on the necessity of certain choices but is still more than willing to make them. This is called leadership.

The prime minister said that the government was strongly resolved to conclude the issue of the cooperation with The Hague tribunal, and by the end of the year either arrest Gen. Ratko Mladic or prove that he was not hiding on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro. He also stated that the latter could be verified through cooperation of security services. How this was translated in the “new line” of denial in Mrs. Dale’s article eludes my understanding.

That brings us to the third issue — the case against eight NATO countries. The charge in itself is a remnant of the Milosevic years. The democratic government, as the prime minister said, was willing to drop it. It was absurd to sue the members of the club you wanted to enter. But the same is true, he argued, for the countries suing Serbia and Montenegro, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia that also one day will be together with Serbia in the Partnership for Peace. Incidentally, the United States is not being sued, another example of Mrs. Dale’s failure to get the facts straight.

Goran Svilanovic, the minister of foreign affairs, elaborated on the issue of security when he spoke about Europe. It was completely in line with the vision of “Europe whole and free.” He expressed satisfaction concerning the meetings held that day with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Incidentally, prominent individuals from both the State Department and the National Security Council were present at the dinner. I am certain that they would have reacted to any “accusations” relating to Mr. Powell and Miss Rice of the type quoted in the article. Mr. Svilanovic said that he had some differences of opinion in certain matters with Javier Solana and Chris Patten concerning various issues of EU enlargement, but to conclude that he proudly berated them and lectured them is a total distortion of what was said.

Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic explained that he believed in individual and not collective guilt. That is why Serbia, over the past two years, extradited Slobodan Milosevic, all members of his inner circle and many other war-crime inductees. Even at the peak of the NATO bombing, U.S. officials took pains to state over and over again that the war was against Mr. Milosevic’s regime and not against the people of Serbia.

By repeatedly making malicious remarks against Serbs in general, now that Serbia is represented by people who for 12 long years fought Mr. Milosevic — Mrs. Dale seems to imply otherwise. Then, she probably also believes that America went to war not against the regime of Saddam Hussein, but against the Iraqi people. For their inherent meanness, naturally. The analogies she makes show that social science is one of the weaker sides of someone who is a deputy director for international studies at a prestigious think tank. Substitute Serbian with the term Jewish, black or American in her piece, and see for yourself whether you find her remarks offensive and inherently racist.

We, who lived under authoritarian regimes, admired the West and above all the Anglo-Saxon tradition, for its ability to reach judgments after trying to objectively determine the facts. To distort the facts in order to fortify prejudiced judgments is not within that tradition. It belongs to other traditions that I thought were a thing of the past.

IVAN VUJACIC

Ambassador

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