Letter: Balkan problems

Sir: Reading Mr Michael Howard's diatribe over Kosovo and government reaction, I recall his government was in office during Serb attacks on Bosnia and Croatia. The shameful actions of Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, and the wimp, John Major, he fails to mention.

May I remind him of the arms embargo, Hurd's so-called level playing field, the mandate of our troops to take no action unless they were attacked, the humiliation of food convoys turned back in Serb efforts to starve the besieged townspeople and the "safe havens" and lastly the attempts to prevent air strikes by the US?

Does Mr Howard remember Vukovar and Srebrenica and the massacres of Sarajevo?

What did his government do then? But he is right. This government has gone down the same road of appeasement.

K M DAVIS

Bournemouth

Dorset