Sir, - The pain expressed in Ms Shaqiri's letter (April 20th) should attract nothing but sympathy, but she really must understand two things. First, being a development worker in Albania in itself gives one no special insight into an appallingly complex problem with very deep roots. Indeed, from her letter, one would gather that it has given her no insight at all. Second, her repeated sneers at those of us who oppose the NATO bombing have become all too common in your Letters page and they do nothing to clarify the debate. And it is a debate: I would guess that only in Serbia and Albania are there not genuine and deeply held differences of opinion.
Many of us can trade "when I was in the Balkans" claims for special attention and horror stories about the effects of the war, but progress can be made only if we refuse to go along with the demonisation of the opposition. A reasoned legal, political, military and, above all, moral case can be made against what NATO is doing and those of us who support that case resent the kind of labels attached to us by Ms Shaqiri and others. The fact that we take that position does not mean that we are ignorant or soft-headed, support Milosevic or are careless of the agony of Kosovo Albanians. - Yours, etc.,
John Bristow, Department of Economics, Trinity College, Dublin 2.