Sir, - In her article on Kosovo (The Irish Times, June 11th), Melanie McDonagh took the art of quoting out of context to a new level. On the basis of just 29 words from my 913-word report from Pristina in the London In- dependent of June 9th, she accused me of trying to establish "parity of victimhood" between Albanians and Serbs. Describing me as "a pundit" (she herself, I note, was respectfully described as "an Irish-born journalist"), she quoted me as saying that "first the Kosovo Albanians were `ethnically cleansed' by the Serbs. And in a few days - two weeks at most - the Serbs will be ethnically cleansed by NATO's Albanian allies".
She omitted to mention that my report had earlier described the "acres of looted houses, homes to the persecuted Albanians" in Pristina and my meeting with an Albanian couple who had hidden for weeks in the city to await "their day of liberation" - and whose experiences were later quoted at length in the same dispatch, the Albanian man's brother having been taken away by Serb police and never seen again. His wife was newly pregnant with what I described as "a child conceived amid her people's nightmare." The tiny section from which McDonagh quoted read in full:
"NATO, of course, is unconcerned by the fate of Kosovo's 100,000 Serbs - mostly civilians and innocent of the crimes of Serb militiamen - and is already talking blandly of their probable departure. First the Kosovo Albanians were `ethnically cleansed' by the Serbs. And in a few days - two weeks at most - the Serbs will be `ethnically cleansed' by NATO's Albanian allies."
Setting aside the fact that this is precisely what happened in the following weeks, I do wonder where Ms McDonagh picked up her childish - and dangerous - phrase about "parity of victimhood". But it neatly parallels NATO's own complaints about the "moral equivalence" of journalists who dared to write with compassion about the Serb men, women and children whose deaths were caused by NATO attacks.
The deep moral flaw in this argument is that it sees the victim only through the eyes of the perpetrator: Serb deaths - being "unintended and regretted" - don't count as much as Albanian deaths, which are carried out deliberately by Serbia's paramilitary monsters. But war is primarily about death and, from the point of view of the victim, being torn to pieces by a NATO cluster bomb or being cut in half by a Serb paramilitary's rifle fire is equally dreadful. Yet from now on, any journalist who covers the innocent victims of the "guilty" side (and Serbia, of course, is guilty) will - if Ms McDonagh's article is anything to go by - be accused of creating "parity of victimhood".
Similarly, she accused "Jim Judah" (presumably Tim Judah) of warning that a NATO vacuum might allow Albanian paramilitaries to commit revenge attacks. What, in heaven's name, was Judah doing wrong? Isn't that exactly what has happened? No sane person doubts the wickedness visited upon the Kosovo Albanians by Serb paramilitaries who murdered thousands of innocent Albanian men, women and children. I share Ms McDonagh's outrage at these atrocities - and also, by the way, her suspicion that the United States intends to deprive the Kosovo Albanians of any hope of independence.
But this does not mean she has the right to quote her fellow journalists out of context. Or to equate Serb civilians with Serb murderers - which is exactly what she did when she referred to "a dishonest symmetry between the fate and the moral responsibility of the ethnically cleansed and the cleansers, returning Albanians and fleeing Serbs." Note her careful wording there - in which "cleansers" equals "fleeing Serbs." But the fleeing Serbs are not the cleansers (most of whom I saw, drunk and heavily armed, driving out of Kosovo under the eyes of NATO troops).
Well over 100,000 Serb civilians (the vast majority) have now fled Kosovo. More than a hundred Serbs have been murdered since NATO arrived - 14 of them in a massacre last month - and 26 Orthodox churches have been destroyed or damaged. Yet The Irish Times introduction to McDonagh's article read: "Serbs beginning to leave Kosovo are not being ethnically cleansed either by NATO or Kosovar Albanians, as some commentators have begun to suggest."
Oh yes, they are being "ethnically cleansed". And I'm quite sure I know what is the real sin of folk like Tim Judah and myself: we predicted what would happen to the Serbs of Kosovo after NATO entered the province - and we were right. - Yours, etc., Robert Fisk,
Middle East Correspondent, The Independent, Beirut, Lebanon.