Thatcher Backs Lifting Arms Embargo

At odds with the British government that succeeded her, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Saturday that she supports lifting the U.N. arms embargo on Bosnia.

Thatcher condemned the West for its “humiliating impotence” when Serb forces overran the U.N.-declared “safe zones” of Srebrenica and Zepa.

“Aggression must never be allowed to pay,” she said in a speech to several hundred Indian leaders at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

She said lifting the arms embargo would give the Muslim-led government the tools to recapture its own land from the Serbs.

Croatia’s recent military success against rebel Serbs, Thatcher said, showed that the Serbs “are not invincible when confronted with well-armed opposition.

“If the Bosnians were provided with sufficient heavy weapons, they too could retake their own land.”

Prime Minister John Major’s government, which has sent about 4,000 soldiers to the former Yugoslavia as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force, has opposed lifting the arms embargo for fear it will lead to escalated fighting.