Sir, - The systematic repression of the Albanian majority in Kosovo by the Yugoslav authorities during the past 10 years was met with rhetoric but very little action by the leaders of NATO and the European Union, organisations whose founding principles were the maintenance of security in Europe. The inadequate approach by Western governments has allowed the situation to escalate beyond control, beyond the capacity of the Western powers. Although Milosevic is predominantly to blame for the atrocities, it is not unreasonable to say that the failure of the West to respond has cost many lives.
The founding principles of the forerunner of the European Union was the prevention of renewed conflict in Europe by means of economic integration. It is difficult to understand, given the success which European integration has achieved in forging a Franco-German alliance and involving the previously unstable Mediterranean states (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) in its programme of economic development, why the EU has been so slow to apply its founding principle to the former Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of engaging in programmes of economic development and political co-operation with the fragile fledgling democracies, many of which remain seriously underdeveloped and in economic turmoil, the European Union has cherry-picked those states with healthy economies and stable strategic situations and rejected those that fall short of its criteria for membership.
Surely, just as the objective of European integration after the second World War was to promote economic interdependence between Germany and its traditional foes, in the aftermath of the Cold War it is the unquestionable responsibility of the European Union to integrate eastwards and secure stability through economic development and co-operation. Yugoslavia's political and economic isolation means that there has been no effective pressure on the Serbian ultra-nationalist conscience.
It is now essential, given what is happening in Kosovo, that the Irish Government challenges the reluctance of Brussels to commit its resources to the rehabilitation of the former Communist states, particularly the most dangerously unstable of them all, the Russian federation. Another Bosnia, another Chechnya, another Karabakh, another Kosovo will happen if the European Union continues to stand idly by. Kosovo is a lesson that Brussels has to learn. - Yours, etc.,
Andrew A. P. Whiteside, Secretary, Irish-Albanian Society, Marlinstown, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.