WHY do correspondents B. Jones, B. Todd and N. Freeman (July 9) assume that because B. Tebbs and P. Kaiserman oppose Nato's bombing of Serbia, they must automatically support the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovan Albanian people by Serbia?

They condemn that extreme form of nationalism - and so do I - no matter who is committing it, but the truth of the matter is that the crisis in the Balkans is not the black and white issue that is being presented to us by the politicians and the media.

Truth is well known to be the first casualty of war with Nato and the politicians desperate to justify their actions. Therefore, what is being shown in news bulletins can easily be concocted to look as if it is only Serbia carrying out the atrocities, when in actual fact probably both sides are carrying out heinous acts against each other.

That is the nature of racial hatred; it brings out the worst in human behaviour and it isn't confined to Serbia. The KLA has been variously described as a bunch of gangsters, terrorists and drug runners and are no doubt just as guilty of atrocities as the Serbians.

The reason we are against the air strikes is that they haven't solved or stopped the ethnic cleansing but have wreaked untold death and destruction on a small nation. It is also in contravention of the United Nations charter, Nato's own charter and against all norms of international behaviour. Nato has all along taken sides against Serbia and did nothing when Serbians were being ethnically cleansed from Bosnia and Croatia, particularly from Kryena. Nato is a military alliance and, as such, hasn't the mandate or right to act as judge, jury and executioner in matters concerning a sovereign country.

That is not to say that the international community should stand by and do nothing to stop the bloodshed or to try to broker a genuine agreement that is acceptable to both sides in the conflict. And that is why the United Nations, as a recognised international agency set up precisely to mediate on issues of national tension, has the right credentials to be an honest broker in this Kosovan conflict.

I don't believe that Nato's involvement has been even-handed and I don't believe that their actions have been humanitarian. How can it be humanitarian to knock the stuffing out of a country, reduce the infrastructure to ruin, and to contaminate the atmosphere with the fumes and noxious gasses from burning chemical plants and oil refineries and the radiation from the use of depleted uranium.

And what about the cowardly use of cluster bombs which target the innocent and cause death or maiming when disturbed after being left unexploded in the ground. And so-called "smart" bombs are not so smart when they hit hospitals, schools, factories and residential areas because the bombers fly so high they can't distinguish the target!

My suspicions about Nato's lack of sincerity was further confirmed when Robin Cook said, after the bombing had finished, that Serbia wouldn't get any assistance to rebuild its devastated country unless it turned its economy over to the free market.

If that isn't an indication of why Nato has become involved, I don't know what is.

NEVILLE BALL,

Peveril Close, Whitefield.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.