Letter: Baroness Thatcher's call to arms

Sir: Baroness Thatcher valiantly spoke on behalf of the many self-respecting persons with a conscience and a commitment to justice in the world today, who are in utter despair as they witness the shameful crime against humanity being perpetrated in Bosnia and the Western governments' reluctance to use their might to put things right. Such reluctance, I am sure, is not shared by the great majority of their own people.

Through a misguided and blind policy of arms embargo, the Bosnian Muslims have been denied the right of self-defence. They are, I am sure, grateful for humanitarian help, but do we not know that bullets kill faster than hunger?

Lady Thatcher's remarks, and the replies to her, bring to mind the question of where we would be today had the West been led in the days of Hitler by leaders similar to those we have now. The arms embargo must be lifted, and the Bosnian Muslims supported in the same way the Afghan freedom fighters were in the face of tyranny.

Otherwise, what are all these short-sighted officials in the Western governments going to tell their children when they ask a few years from now: where were you when the Bosnian Muslims were massacred?

Yours sincerely,

HESHAM EL-ESSAWY

The Islamic Society for Religious Tolerance

London, W1

14 April