Diana's issues

Before the deluge of letters begins, now that Princess Di, as we Brits used to affectionately call her, has been laid to rest I would like to attempt to focus on the issues involved.

We have already a contribution from Tangerang (S. Natarajan, "Your Letters," Sept. 5) ruining his otherwise well thought out letter by saying "she is partly to blame for her own death".

Presumably then, if his own president were to die in similar circumstances, he would make the same totally offensive comment?

This is on a par with the same lowest of the low sensationalism shown by CNN, who, when Diana's lifeblood was pumping out of her left pulmonary vein in a French hospital, gave us (every five minutes) the revolting "plea from the heart" from Tom Cruise -- 'man, I've been there -- you gotta believe that is bad, real bad, somethin's gotta be done," (or similar).

This was when all this totally illogical witch hunt against the press began. Here is a man, with thousands of peers (including our own departed and dearly beloved Princess) who cannot live without press coverage and publicity, but taking the opportunity again to be first to comment, aided and abetted by the wholly incompetent CNN who five minutes later gave us a five minute "eye witness account" from a yoke which faded into psychotic laughter -- a hoax.

That is when the witch hunt began against the press, not only the two or three photographers stated to have been at the scene, and the others said to have been the cause of the accident (this seems to turn logic on its head completely) but the collective press and their photographers all over the world.

I have not yet seen a serious commentator addressing the obvious issues concerned in this tragic destruction of human life.

The contribution of the drunk, unqualified, emotional driver (he is quoted as telling the photographers that "you will never catch me" -- bravado with a blood alcohol content of 160 mg/ml and that was when the autopsy was done which suggests a real time level of 200 mg equivalent to a whole bottle of whisky). To the police, surely, the main cause of the accident was the driver.

OK. But what about the "bodyguard." Here he is -- front seat passenger in a car reported to have been moving at almost 180 km/hr -- his two charges in the back seat -- and telling the driver to stop or slow down. What about Dodi himself -- the man in control of everything -- why did he not stop the driver, call the police, instruct the bodyguard to stop the car, or any variation on these themes?

Natarajan should also know that less than 30 percent (probably much less now) of UK citizens would agree that the wrongs, in the matter of Diana versus Charles and the Royal Family, were those of Diana.

The majority, including my self, believe the wrongs were perpetrated by the Windsors themselves, who caused Diana to feel unwanted, unloved, or whatever mattered to her, and my friend from Tangerang should not forget that it was our queen herself who insisted that they had to divorce -- "cause and effect" arguments would be better served by remembering this, instead of inanely attributing part of the blame to the innocent victim in the car with three men all failing to take individual responsibility.

BILL GUERIN

Jakarta