The myth was propagated for Nato's convenience, immediately after the first bombs had fallen on Belgrade. The present "victory" over Serbia, might very well be turned upside down with the KLA, greatly strengthened, "ethnically cleansing" the Serbian villagers. But what is Nato's real objective in this war? Is it not to weaken Russia by crushing her only ally left in Europe? Is it not to consolidate eastern Europe, Turkey and Israel, within a Greater Europe? DENIS KNIGHTSouth Brent, Devon. NEMESIS, IN the form of arrogance, was Jonathan Aitken's undoing. A gilded youth, followed by fame and fortune, convinced this scion of the Beaverbrook dynasty that he was above the rules that bind the common people. There is still something breathtaking about the words Aitken used to launch his ill-fated libel action, calling for the "sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play".

Ironically, he turned these very weapons against himself when he chose to lie to the court and involve his daughter in his perjury. Yesterday, this meteor crashed to the ground in spectacular fashion. Few would doubt Aitken richly deserved the jail sentence he received. Many, however, would share our distaste at the witch-burning zeal that has accompanied his downfall. He has been a fool, a hypocrite and a liar - but, like any common criminal, he must be allowed to discharge his sentence and rebuild his shattered life.. DEMOCRACY IN the Third World got a huge boost on Monday with the unexpectedly peaceful elections in Indonesia's 13,000 islands.

This giant democracy, with its 116 million voters was the scene of riot and revolution just a year ago. True, the counting of the votes yesterday was taking place with excruciating slowness, with observers divided between attributing this either to the carefulness of the election officials in compiling the results, or to the efforts of party stalwarts to engineer the results. But the view of the financial community was unequivocal: the Indonesian stock market rose 12.2 per cent yesterday. Nigeria, too, pleased itself and foreign well-wishers with its peaceful transition from military dictatorship to democracy, following elections in February and the handover at the end of last month to the newly elected president, General Olusegun Obasanjo. As his title tells us, the army is still a force in Nigeria, as it remains, too, in Indonesia. In fact, owing to the guaranteed seats for the military in the Jakarta parliament, it may well prove to have the decisive vote in the choice of President, currently set for November. The Asian tigers and the "miracle" of economic growth they were thought to have brought are now remembered more for the damage they did in their collapse than for the riches they produced in their glory days. The hope of Indonesia must now lie in the honest watchfulness of the civil society that grew up within the shade of Sukarno's dictatorship, and that may have come to fruition in this week's peaceful elections.In August, the promised referendum for East Timor independence is scheduled to take place.

A peaceful resolution of this long-standing problem could entrench Indonesian democracy, reduce the importance of the military and send a hopeful sign to nascent democracies everywhere.. IT HAS been fashionable to mock the "Third Way". Roy Hattersley made a most memorable quip about it when he said that, since the Third Way was the ideology of the New Labour Government, it might be as well to work out what it was. It is true that the Third Way has never been especially well-defined.