REVEREND Howard Mayell, the vicar of Ledbury's Team Ministry, says the West's response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington seemed "out of proportion to other events that have happened worldwide in the past 50 years".

In an open letter in the October parish magazine he says: "Because this has happened in the materialistic capital of the world, in America's front garden, everyone it seems is up in arms.

"There is, I agree, something horrible about the near seven thousand deaths resulting from this tragedy. But where was the response to the millions who were slaughtered by the Pol Pot Regime in Cambodia, or in the genocide in Rwanda?

"It could be argued that those of us in the West have no real understanding of poverty and helplessness."

While Mr Mayell stresses that the terrorist attacks at first made him angry and desiring revenge, he said that such attacks were one way Third World people had of "bringing their plight to the attention of the capitalist governments".

He adds: "After all, when you have nothing, and have no hope of getting anything, what have you got to lose?"

He called for a considered and measured response from the West, to preserve the lives of the innocent.