Come on down
Sir: Could I suggest that Dr Noel Malcolm (Letters, 9 April) tours Bosnia soon, to add a little contemporary human understanding to his peerless academic knowledge of that nation? He might discover that bellicose rumblings for more arms and a longer war, delivered stoutly from Docklands or Doughty Street, do not resonate amongst those who are beginning to emerge from their cellars to sniff the fresh, if fragile, air of peace. He might find that element of Bosnian youth which has been drafted at gunpoint strangely reluctant to begin dying afresh.
At the very least, such a visit would add to Dr Malcolm's moral authority when call- ing for more military action. At present, he sounds rather like Osbert Sitwell's parlia- mentarian of the Great War:
`We cannot and we will not end this war
Till all the younger men with martial mien Have enter'd capitals; never make peace
Till they are cripples, on one leg, or dead.'
Kenneth Roberts
Hotel Toplice, Bled, Slovenia
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