Letter: Support for Sarajevo campaign

Sir: We would like to express our support for the Independent campaign on Bosnia, and also to applaud the documentaries shown on Channel 4's Bosnia season. Western policy seems to be leading inexorably to the partition of Bosnia along 'ethnic', religious and cultural lines. It is depressing that Western governments should be advocating ethnic separation as a basic principle of political organisation in Europe at the time when apartheid is about to be overthrown in South Africa.

We are deeply ashamed of the policy of appeasement practised by Western governments in the Balkans over the past two years. The appeasers of the Thirties could at least plead navety; their hand-wringing counterparts today can have no such excuse.

The European Community has over 2 million men under arms. It has a GNP bigger than that of the United States. There is no reasonable excuse for its failure to halt the mass slaughter, mass rape and so- called 'ethnic cleansing' under way in the Balkans. It has been a catastrophic failure of political will. We pray your reporting, and that of courageous journalists on other newspapers and in other media, can yet reawaken the consciences of Western governments, even at this late hour.

Yours faithfully,

ANDREW FAULDS, MP for Warley East (Lab); FRANK FIELD, MP for Birkenhead (Lab); KATE HOEY, MP for Vauxhall (Lab); CALUM MacDONALD, MP for Western Isles (Lab); MAX MADDEN, MP for Bradford West (Lab); MICHAEL O'BRIEN, MP for Warwickshire North (Lab); GILES RADICE, MP for Durham North (Lab); NICK RAYNSFORD, MP for Greenwich (Lab); CLARE SHORT, MP for Birmingham Ladywood (Lab); CLIVE SOLEY, MP for Hammersmith (Lab); MALCOLM WICKS, MP for Croydon North West (Lab); DAVID WINNICK, MP for Walsall North (Lab)

House of Commons

London, SW1