When Nato bombs hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade it brought home to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world just how dangerous things can become when a military alliance decides it can flout international law and the Charter of the United Nations to launch a war.

That is why I led a delegation of MPs to the Chinese Embassy in London on 10 May to express our condolences to the Chinese people and to join Russia and China in urging Nato to stop the bombing before more innocent lives are lost.

Alice Mahon: "There is nothing humanitarian about destroying the civilian infrastructure of a country"

Having visited Yugoslavia, I feel as strongly about the innocent civilian victims of laser-guided bombs as I do about victims of ethnic cleansing and the Albanian refugees who must have the right to return home in safety.

I cannot accept that there is anything humanitarian about destroying the civilian infrastructure of a country, targeting roads, railways, factories, electricity supplies and television stations.

I have travelled extensively in eastern Europe with the North Atlantic Assembly over the last 10 years and been increasingly alarmed by Nato's bellicose approach to the crisis in Yugoslavia.

I was on an official visit to Macedonia only a few weeks before the bombing started. We met parliamentarians and aid agencies, and were briefed by generals leading Nato's extraction force and the UN protection force. At that time, nobody thought bombing was a good idea.

Until recently the government refused to take sides in Kosovo's civil war. Robin Cook told the House of Commons on 18 January that the Kosovo Liberation army had committed more breaches of the cease-fire than the Yugoslav security forces. He demanded that the KLA "stop undermining the cease-fire and blocking political dialogue".

Yet the Rambouillet document, whose rejection by Yugoslavia precipitated the bombing, was not a compromise but an ultimatum. Under its terms, 28,000 Nato troops would not only occupy Kosovo but also have access to the whole of Yugoslavia.

The text states that Nato "shall be immune from all legal process" and "shall enjoy free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia including associated airspace and territorial waters". Hardly surprisingly this is the sticking point for Yugoslavia.

Nato spokesman Jamie Shea: Increasing disarray in allied ranks, Mahon argues

The subsequent of withdrawal of the verification mission and bombing inevitably turned a humanitarian crisis into a catastrophe, not least for those whom we were told the bombs were supposed to protect.

Now, after 50 days of intensive bombing, there are signs of increasing disarray in Nato ranks - with divisions in the House of Commons, the US Senate, Germany, Italy, France and Greece.

Public opinion is turning against this war. In London, on 8 May, 25,000 people marched with the Committee for Peace in the Balkans and CND against the bombing. Speakers ranged from Conservative MP John Randall, to Germaine Greer, Bruce Kent, the Green Party and a visiting Greek MP.

Those demonstrations are going to get bigger until international legality is restored by replacing Nato's disastrous bombing campaign with negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations to resolve the conflict in Yugoslavia.