THE sheer horror of the atrocities carried out by the Serbs in Kosovo is mind blowing. Here, approaching the dawn of a new millennium, is a catalogue of sickening stories which could have come from the Dark Ages or the Hitler or Pol Pot regimes.

We had been conditioned, to a certain extent, by accounts brought out of Serb-occupied Kosovo by fleeing refugees.

But the reality is even worse.

Bodies of men, women and children, assassinated in cold blood, are being dug from shallow graves.

Nato troops have found a torture chamber used by the thugs of Serbia's army and a factory used to burn bodies.

Every day brings a further batch of revelations of Serb brutality.

And it is now clear that the atrocities have been taking place ever since the evil Slobodan Milosevic started the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia 10 years ago.

It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a crashing silence from those in the West - politicians and commentators - who argued that Nato's air war would not work and that such an assault on a sovereign state was immoral.

Some sovereign state!

It allowed its uniformed thugs - they do not deserve military status - to murder, rape, torch and pillage over a sustained period. It was prepared to preside over the obliteration of an entire race while posing as a civilised Western country.

The leaders of Nato have been proved right.

To their credit they stuck to their task in the face of mounting criticism, sometimes bordering on the hysterical, from a section of Western politicians and the armchair generals, dusted down and wheeled out for television during every armed confrontation.

In the light of what has gone on in Kosovo, the rest of the world must isolate Serbia until they have kicked out Milosevic and his evil cronies.

Serbians must be made to realise that these butchers have carried out the atrocities in their names and that they will be unwelcome anywhere in the world until they have civilised leaders.

Clinton and Blair have said there will be no re-building aid for Serbia until Milosevic and Co are ousted.

That is right.

The bomb damage inflicted by Nato must remain as a constant reminder that they will be ostracised until the leadership is removed and made to pay for their crimes against humanity.

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