Leading Article: Yugoslavia

'SPECIAL forces would beat us during the day outside in the yard. Police guards usually beat us at night. They would take the victims out one by one, and three to four of them would throw themselves on them in the dark. And sometimes there were up to 10 policemen. They beat them with anything and everything, so that the victims' screams were horrible to listen to. Each of us feared we would be next . . .'

The description comes from a former prisoner at the Bosanki Samac camp in a Serbian sector of Bosnia. The victims, many of whom were not only tortured but executed, were Croats, Muslims and ethnic Albanians. Enough evidence has emerged to leave no doubt that the Serbs are holding thousands, if not tens of thousands, of civilian prisoners in appalling conditions. In some places of confinement, levels of brutality match some of the worst horrors of the 20th century.

More publicly, they continue their pitiless programme of 'ethnic cleansing' by bombarding Sarajevo and other cities, with the aim of driving out all those not of Serbian stock. Within the towns, sniper fire is equally deadly: the weekend's ambushing of a Sarajevo bus laden with 45 orphans was just another example of the utter callousness of the gunmen. Yesterday's mortar attack on the funeral of the two victims was a crowning act of heartlessness.

There comes a level of atrocity at which the public's gorge begins to rise and prompt the cry: 'Enough] Something must be done]' Not for the first time, David (now Lord) Owen and Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, have sensed this change of mood. Both see the crisis as, in Mr Ashdown's words, 'a challenge to the effectiveness of the UN, to the will of Europe, and to our common humanity'.

Both emphasise the risks of the war spreading south and sucking in neighbouring countries. Both believe that Nato ground attack aircraft should, if the Serbians refuse to observe a ceasefire, be used to prevent any further bombing, and to take out the heavy artillery and tanks that have been doing much of the damage.

Just over a year ago the Independent urged European military intervention to prevent the crushing of Slovenian and Croatian independence by the Serb-controlled Yugoslav federal army. The Serbs got away with their conquests in Croatia, and are now seizing much of Bosnia-Herzegovina (of which the Croats have also taken a large swathe).

It may be impossible to prevent such a takeover. But it would be very dangerous for the future of Europe if they were allowed to complete it without suffering heavy retribution at the hands of the international community.

John Major and Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, have been consistently hostile to any use of force, even from the air. Yet it was the same John Major who converted the concept of safe havens for Iraq's Kurds into reality. It is easy to emphasise the difficulties in Bosnia: aircraft cannot stop the men with mortars and hand-held rockets. They cannot prevent tanks and artillery being moved to schools, hospitals or densely populated areas. They cannot stop reprisals. But they can eliminate a major source of death and destruction; and they can deliver the lesson that torture, execution, bombardment and sniper fire do not go unpunished.

The British people look to the Government for action at two levels. The international conference it has called in late August will come too late for the people of Bosnia. For them, each passing day means death and destruction. So far, diplomacy has failed to halt the fighting. It is time to try the language of air power. Britain is well-placed to seize the initiative within the councils of Nato and the Western European Union.

It should also abandon its dubiously motivated preference for helping the 2 million Bosnians displaced by the terror campaign 'on the spot': here, too, it has failed to catch the public mood, which is much more prepared to welcome substantial numbers of refugees. The heart of the British people goes out to those suffering in Bosnia. Ministers must adjust their fine political calculations accordingly.