The Croatian offensive blessed by Germany and the United States may help open a window for negotiated peace. It could also be the lift at the end of the tunnel for the helpless Bosnian Muslims. The poor Bosnians waited for support from the West and their Muslim brothers. This military assistance did not arrive because of the intransigence of Britain, Russia, Greece, Holland and some other countries who thwarted every move to arm the Bosnian in order that they defend themselves.

I have been writing about Bosnia ever since the Dakar Islamic Summit in Dec. 1992. The then foreign minister Harris Salajidic forewarned of the impending blood bath but apparently no one took him seriously. Or perhaps the Muslim World never thought that Europe that is hounding "suspected" war criminals of the 1930s and 1940s era would allow history to repeat itself. But history did so and the inevitable happened. The mass genocide of a nation whose only crime was that they belonged to a different creed. No one lifted a finger to stop the flow of Muslim blood.

On this issue I wrote many articles and gave vent to the feelings of all justice and freedom loving people. All my articles were based on historical events and present day actions. There were no baseless facts. In fact many people phoned and sent messages to me from all over the Gulf, Arab countries, and even from Europe to ask me to write more on the subject.

An American gentleman from Culver City, California wrote and said: "I wish that you have more Khaled Al Maeenas throughout the entire Muslim world but at this stage even one is better than none. I applaud your feelings and writings and when you were being criticized by some of your "Western" readers, some of us took the time and pain to write letters to the publisher defending your viewpoint."

Others also expressed their feelings. In this very page many like Mr. Wright expressed their outrage at the indifference and apathy of the Western political establishment. These people were motivated by their humane concerns. 

However, many got hot under the collar and some even described me as a bigot!!

Another gentleman was more polite when in his letter he described my article as "unjust, unbalance and factually incorrect."

An editor of a respected European paper wrote to me and said my articles recapitulate the set-piece positions and fall into the trap of so many political polemics, substituting vilification and personal abuse for argument!!

I would like to state clearly that while I feel passionately for the Bosnian cause I have not attacked certain vested interests in the West without any reason.

What do the Western governments want from us? How can we believe all these lies that they are telling us. It seems that huge syringes of morphine are to be given to us for us to benumb us. 

There is absolutely no justification for the criminal silence and apathy that prevails now in Europe.

I reserved my harshest criticism for the Muslims who shed crocodile tears and who appealed and pleaded with the West and the impotent United Nations personified by Boutros Ghali.

People who criticized should take a look at many papers outside and see how we are being ridiculed and attacked. I have always advocated tolerance and good relations between people of different religions, ethnic groups and cultures.

Let us try to narrow our differences instead of diverging them.