UNPUBLISHED LETTER - JOHN PILGER ON KOSOV & MILOSEVIC

I respect Pilger & this is about as truthful an article as you are going to get about Kosovo in the official media. Nonetheless I wrote this to the New Statesman because even here Pilger had thought it neccessary (for balance?) to call Milosevic a "brute" - an accusation which is blatantly untrue & which he would not have made about any UK politico.

The article by John Pilger about the Milosevic Trial had some good points but is seriously flawed by his reference to Milosevic as a "brute". A man who has outsmarted the best team of lawyers Nato money can buy is no brute. Even Nato's friends are willing, even keen, to admit to his ability.

By comparison with Mr Pilger's claims, when Lord David Owen testified he said that Milosevic was the ONLY leader who had been consistently & sincerely seeking peace & that any form of racism was personally "anathema" to him. I doubt if even Mr Blair's closest friends could honestly testify the same about him, under oath. The reason's why his astonishing testimony was not reported, as indeed most of the "trial of the century" isn't, is something on which we can only speculate.

It has come to a strange pass when Lord Owen reports the facts the government doesn't want us to know while John Pilger genuflects towards the government propaganda position.

I have liinked this to the anti-war version of the article because the New Statesman needs subscription.