Sir, - Bill McSweeney's contention (June 23rd) that NATO's intervention was not justified in the absence of what might be considered an overt genocide is, within the terms of the UN Genocide Convention, somewhat of a moot point. Apart from mandating the signatories to this Convention to arrest genocide, there is also an obligation to prevent genocide.
Regarding the convention's definitions of genocide these are much broader than what Mr McSweeney and most other opponents of NATO's intervention seem to believe. Article 2 defines genocide as any of six different acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group, as such . . ." Category (c) is defined thus: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part . . ." Among actions specified as punishable within the terms of the convention are conspiracy to commit genocide. In other words conspiring to bring about, directly or indirectly, the partial destruction of an unidentifiable community qualifies as a punishable act under the terms of this convention.
Leaving aside the direct evidence over the 12 months prior to March of indictable activities under the terms of the Convention, the circumstantial evidence alone pointing to the need to urgent and forceful preventive action was compelling. To imply, as McSweeney does, that Vojislav Seselj is some kind of mad aberration in the political culture of Serbia is, to put it mildly, astonishing. Not alone is he, after Milosevic, the most popular and powerful politician in Serbia today; not alone, as Fintan O'Toole recently detailed, have his policies been actively assimilated and pursued by Milosevic; most damning is the fact that these policies do not at all originate with Seselj himself but instead have a pedigree dating from at least the 1840s. No sooner did Serbia gain full independence in 1878 that it systematically destroyed through "cleansing" the Muslim and Albanian communities respectively of Belgrade and the Morava Valley in what is now southern Serbia. Since its bloody annexation of Kosovo in 1912, Serbia's rule there has been a disaster, with repeated attempts at colonisation and expulsion of the Albanian community.
Aside from Serbia's record in Kosovo over the past century, the criminality of the present Serbian government has become obvious over the past decade. This criminality has been overt since the illegal and brutal revocation of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. Its penchant for war crimes has been displayed since the levelling of Vukovar in 1991. Its penchant for overt genocide has been demonstrated since the beginning of the Bosnian pogroms in April 1992. Since the beginning of the wars in Yugoslavia there has been a persistent attempt in media and political circles in Europe and Ireland to draw a moral equation between the so-called "warring factions" in the various conflicts - an understandable way, perhaps, of dealing with passivity in the face of evil. As this view has become less tenable, there is more recently a preoccupation with the legal minutiae of "international law" in opposing intervention. Again, while the reality of international law is more nebulous, contingent as it is on evolving concepts of human rights and natural justice, than its latter-day champions appear to believe, citing it in this context appears to elevate this passivity to the status of a moral crusade.
To judge the efficacy and morality of international intervention, we need only listen to the victims: in this case the Kosovar Albanians. Regardless of the inept and cowardly manner of its execution. NATO's intervention has been universally acclaimed by these victims as a deliverance from nightmare - their one caveat being a criticism of its delay. - Yours, etc.,
Peter Walsh, Ireland Kosova Solidarity, Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2.