Dear colleague, 

My name is Svetlana Bojkovic. My upbringing does not allow me to address
Messrs Tony Blair and Robin Cook,  since they do not belong to our artistic
family. Therefore,  I am addressing You,  appealing to Your artistic being,
 a being universal in the entire world.

Belgrade is my hometown I have been living in. For more than a month now,
we have not been sleeping because of the sound of sirens and bombs that are
falling every night on my city,  and my country, Yugoslavia. Perhaps You
will understand this better if I tell You that,  as a nation and against
our will, we have been drawn into a cruel theatre in which someone
invisible is playing a game of collective
russian roulete with us,  every night.The invisible ones, unfortunately
also include Your countrymen.

This spring,  Mrs.Jackson,  in Serbia and Montenegro, we are not performing
bloody scenes from Shakespeare's tragedies.These scenes are, unfortunately,
part of our everyday life, our reality.What we live in is not a cruel
theatre.This is a theatre of cruelty, if, according to Shakespeare "all the
world's a stage". Are You aware, dear Mrs.Jackson, that the NATO planes
piloted also by Your countrymen are, day after day, "accidentally" killing
our innocent people and children, because mistakes can always happen.That
is the russian roulete we are going through.

I assume that You have heard and perhaps even seen footage of the tragedy
which NATO planes caused destroying my country's national
television.Mrs.Jackson, I belive that You have an open mind because I
have followed Your work and I know that You are an artist.Therefore, I am
addressing You, although I would like to spare You from the cruel scenes of
truth I witnessed during the struggle for the lives of The Serbian
Television's workers on duty, at the funeral of the innocent killed.Even
now, as I am writing to You, several more people are lying underneath four
demolished floors like living dead.

I would not want this to happen in Your countru, to Your BBC, because then
You would probably be painfully weeping, as I am weeping now.And I would
understand Your grief. Before I saw You on the stage of The Lyric Theatre
(1982), I had already known You as Elisabeth of England from TV series, and
as Heda Gabler.Later on, I acted both roles myself in my country.

Mrs.Jackson, You belong to an island nation.And being on an island means
being alone.Your people has fought for centuries not to be alone.It is
still fighting the same battle.Do You realize, and I belive You do, that a
country can be an island in the middle of a continent.That is my country
today, with bridges torn down and people separated from their own. I feel
awkward in explaining all meanings of bridges to You, as an artist I
admire.Therefore I will quote our Nobel-prize winner Ivo Andric:"Bridges
are like eternal and eternally insatiable human desire to conect, reconcile
and join everything that appears in front of our
spirit, our eyes and legs, so that there would be no divisions, no
opositions and partings".

On behalf of the innocent people killed in the Grdelica Gorge, on behalf of
the innocent ones killed in Aleksinac, on behalf of the innocent Serbian
refugees from Croatia who met their death in Kosovo, on behalf of the
innocent convoy of killed Albanian refugees returning to Kosovo, on behalf
of the innocent Workers of The Radio and Television of Serbia, who were
burnt while doing their jobs, on behalf of the tree-year-old girl from
Batajnica killed by a shell fragment in the toilet, on behalf of more than
one thousand innocent people killed, I implore You to do something for this
bloody game to end.

Do something in the name of the lives of our , Yugoslav children and
grandchildren who are not going to school and are wasting their
childhood.Do you realize that this is not only a physical but also a
spiritual genocide, that we are probably new Indians in the middle of Europe.

Do something as a member of Great Britain's ruling Labour Party.I belive
that, as an artist, You have and must have greater strength and a clearer
vision of this world.I would like to hear the voice of Your artistic
soul.That is the least we, Yugoslav artists, expect from You. If you
cannot, in the name of
Christ, we will forgive You.

--------------------------
Actress Svetlana Bojkovic (51), mother of Katarina Zutic (26), also an
actress, whose late father Milos Zutic was an actor, and wife of Ljubomir
Draskic (61), director at "The Artelje 212" theatre and professor at the
Universitry of Belgrade.

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