Embassy responds

We would like to lodge the sharpest possible protest against the article Serbian leader Milosevic's last act to hang in there by Gwynne Dyer, published in The Jakarta Post on July 31, 1998, in which the same author, in the same column, is repeatedly and unscrupulously insulting the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and is expressing a series of anti-Serbian and anti- Yugoslavian statements, and numerous misinformations.

The article concerned is full of hatred towards the Serbian nation and simmers with helpless anger evoked by the success of the Serbian forces and the defeat of terrorists in Kosovo, as well as by the "bluffing" by NATO, which did not use force against the Serbs. We ourselves are surprised by such amount of non-objectivity, extreme bias, aggressiveness and hatred of the author towards the entire nation, which predominate throughout the article, and are unthinkable of in the journalistic profession.

As an illustration of the above, we would like to mention for instance that besides the numerous accusations of actions of the Serbian security forces, there is not a single word of accusation of the countless crimes committed by Albanian terrorists on Kosovo. Furthermore, the alleged idea of "Great Serbia" is being accused, whereas not a single word is written against the numerous idea of "Great Albania" proclaimed publicly by separatists and terrorists on Kosovo. Instead of calming down sentiments and inviting both parties to engage in discussions and to seek a peaceful solution to this issue, the article incites separatist ambitions of Albanians on Kosovo, new attacks by terrorists, and therefore new killings and destruction are being encouraged and hoped for.

While accusing the so-called ethnic cleansing of Albanians on Kosovo, the disappearance of Serbs from Kosovo, and therefore the eviction of an entire nation from its century-long territories, are being hoped for and predicted.

As if all the above was not enough, by the end of the article, the author, in an extremely insolent manner, takes the right and liberty of judging the entire Serbian nation and of "advising" it as to what kind of leader it should have.

It also comes as a surprise to us, that such articles beyond journalistic ethics, which do not serve the honor of the journalistic profession, receive such an amount of space in your newspaper, which is considered a professional Indonesian daily.

DUSAN STOJKOVIC

Charge d'Affaires a.i.

Embassy of the Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia

Jakarta