Armenian Students Help Their Homeland

Regarding the article "Armenians in US Rally to Aid Ancestral Home," Feb. 23: Thank you for writing about a country whose crises are often overlooked. Armenian students at my high school are also trying to help their homeland.

A.G.B.U Sarkis and Seta Demirdjian High School in Los Angeles has a program called Operation Winter Rescue. We search our closets for winter clothing to send to Armenia. We also send cooking equipment, non-perishable food, and medicine. We have already filled one container and are working on the second.

In addition, we have a program called Armenia Aid. Each month we give a minimum of $1 to buy supplies for Armenians. Some students give up large sums of their own money to this cause.

We've also written the president, asking him to help the United Nations break the blockade formed by Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Karoun H. Bagamian, Canoga Park, Calif.

Armenia is facing one of its toughest challenges. Many people don't care about the issue because Armenia is small and weak compared with other countries. But Armenians are an important ethnic group. They deserve attention. Marc Shakelian, Canoga Park, Calif. Arms embargo in the former Yugoslavia

Jeff Danziger's cartoon "Serbs Now Selling Arms to Somalis," Feb. 25, captures the essence of what we in the American Bosnian community have been trying to express for a year. The West has been forcing Bosnians and Croatians to fight almost unarmed against the Serbs. The Serbian military, on the other hand, has not been hurt by the arms embargo, and has been producing and importing weapons for its own needs with enough left over to export. President Clinton is abetting the inequity on the battlefield by letting the arms imbalance continue. Dropping food is not enough. Without weapons, the Bosnians are going to die anyway. Stjepan Balog, Warren, Mich.