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Croatia

3.21 am Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : No one who contemplates the brutal war that has racked Croatia over the last few months can do so without a deep feeling of sorrow and shame : sorrow that such devastation and misery should disfigure our continent in 1991, and shame that we have been unable to do anything to halt the carnage and destruction.

It is not that the west has failed to make an attempt to do so, and I pay genuine tribute to the work done by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who is to reply to this debate, and to the tireless efforts of Lord Carrington and, more recently, Mr. Cyrus Vance.

However, when no real progess is made, the time comes for reassessment, and it seems to me that that time is now. Like many right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House, I followed with a mixture of admiration and exasperation Lord Carrington's attempts to negotiate a proper ceasefire, but watched with mounting anger the callous disregard for life and property cynically displayed by the federal forces.

For me, the moment of realisation that something more must be done to identify the aggressor and to hold him to account came last week, when I was invited to open an exhibition of photographs at the building centre in Store street, London, of some of the Croatian buildings destroyed over the past few months. Some were great and glorious, some were humble and small-- but together their destruction represents an awful catalogue of misery. Those photographs brought home to me the abomination of desolation that is Croatia now. In the Croatian conflict, as in any other, there is a background of distributed bitterness. I am well aware of the atrocities that some Croatians perpetrated during the second world war, and of the tensions between Serb and Croat that go back long before that, which left a legacy of hatred and fear. No one would ever suggest that President Tudjman should be awarded a Nobel prize for the tact and sensitivity with which he asserted Croatian independence. I know, too, that, even during these last months of conflict, acts of unjustified violence have been committed by Croats against Serbs. Only today I received a letter from Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia listing the Orthodox churches that had been destroyed by Croats. No one can defend such actions.

If we recognise that background, however, we must also recognise the reality, and the enormity, of what has happended in Croatia--and recognise that the great majority of acts of wanton wickedness have been perpetrated by the forces of a state that has, by all normal criteria, forfeited its right to be recognised as a sovereign independent nation. Let me suggest to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister that perhaps the time has come to stop acting as an honest broker between victim and aggressor. The evidence of responsibility for the carnage and destruction is too overwhelming to be ignored. Many hon. Members will have received, in the past few days, a report from Amnesty International giving details of some of the atrocities that have occurred in Croatia in

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recent months. I commend that report to all hon. Members : it is a terrible indictment of the impotence of the federal Government and their inability to control their army. It is a horrifying catalogue of crime and of utter disregard for the Geneva convention. In September, Unesco's Director General appealed for respect for Yugoslavia's cultural heritage. He said :

"the cities of Split and Dubrovnik are on the World Heritage List and are protected under the World Heritage Convention".

He also pointed out that Yugoslavia was a party to the convention on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, signed at The Hague in 1954.

That declaration was issued on 27 September ; by the end of October, a document was coming out of Croatia from the Ministry of Education and Culture. I have a translation. It says that, in that short space of time, 317 historic settlements had been affected, 241 heavily or lightly, while 76 had been destroyed or burned down ; 358 individual monuments registered or filed as cultural treasures, including 26 museums, seven archives and 13 library buildings, had been damaged. We have all seen, with a sense of sickening horror, the graphic television pictures of the shelling of Dubrovnik, and we all saw the appalling scene of devastation when Vukovar fell. I could go on, but I think that I can make my points simply and graphically by quoting from the documents that I have with me.

I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) share my sense of horror and outrage. I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that those feelings are translated into a more positive western attitude. Maastricht is now over ; let this be a test of the new Europe's resolve. It is an important test, for impotence will not only be a poor recommendation of Community cohesion ; it could make it all the more difficult to stem the tide of bloody anarchy that could so easily engulf large tracts of Europe which we recently rejoiced to see set free. I know that there are no easy answers, but if we do not at least attempt to act decisively, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Vukovar and Osijek could be just the first names on a ghastly roll call resembling those unending, poignant first world war memorials that are such a feature of life all over the continent of Europe.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will seize the opportunity provided by his next meeting with his Community colleagues-- which I believe will take place very shortly--to reappraise the position, and to see whether the Governments of the Community could now decide to recognise Croatia and to tell the Yugoslavian federal Government that they can no longer be recognised as the legitimate Government of former federal territory.

Everyone says--my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made the point several times--that Yugoslavia as we knew it is no more. Whether that is to be lamented or not, it is a fact. The federal Government do not exercise proper control. We in the west should be prepared to act in concert to impose sanctions, and to patrol the coast and the skies while a full conference to determine the relationship between the former Yugoslav territories is convened. It is important that the rights of all minorities within all the territories should be high on the agenda at the

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conference. One knows of the concern of the 11.5 per cent. Serbian minority within Croatia, but that is no excuse for what has happened and continues to happen. It is a terrible indictment of 1991 to think that such events could happen today in Europe.

Any course of action such as I have suggested is fraught with difficulty, and everyone must recognise that. However, it is as nothing compared with the difficulties that we shall face if the generals, who have effectively staged a coup against civil authority, are allowed ultimate success. In August, the world rejoiced when the communist old guard failed in the attempted coup in Moscow. Too few people seem to have realised that the communist old guard has succeeded in a coup in Belgrade.

There was an interesting article in The Sunday Telegraph on 1 December by Mr. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in which he speaks about the devastation in Vukovar and what has been happening in Croatia. He ends the article with the words :

"The officer corps of the army is the last relic of the Tito era, divided against itelf, scared of the future, without loyal troops, without strategy, without a creed that anybody, even itself, can still believe in. It is fighting to preserve its privileges and its pensions. When it meets real resistance the army will recoil and break."

I do not know whether it will break as easily as that. Certainly it is an army that has run amok. We must recognise that and we must recognise where the aggression lies.

When he answered questions in the House on 20November, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary showed an understandable reluctance to move towards recognition of Croatia. He made the point that that could lead to yet greater troubles in Bosnia and in Macedonia. What would guarantee such trouble is allowing the federal army to succeed in extinguishing an entire small nation state with the brutality with which it has already destroyed so much.

I hope that a message will go out from my hon. and learned Friend the Minister when he replies for the Government. This is the first time that we have debated the subject in the House, which is a pity. I hope that a message can go out that there is a new resolve in the west and that we are determined to ensure that the killing, the destruction and the brutality stop, and that, as a new year dawns in a few days' time, it dawns with a new sense of hope for the battered, beleaguered people of Croatia.

3.34 am

Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton) : I naturally commend the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr.Cormack) on his choice of subject for debate. It is a valid subject, and the hon. Gentleman is not to blame for the procedures that the House has foisted upon itself. Having spent 13 years in this place, I still find it truly remarkable that, with regard to such important issues--Croatia is receiving perhaps its first real airing in the House since the tragedy began to unfold--we are having this debate at 3.35 am. The House should not be proud of that, and I sincerely hope that this will be the last all-night Consolidated Fund debate that we will have to put up with. What the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South said about the tragedy unfolding before us is right. It is shocking and horrible, and it requires a sense of irony almost to reflect on the fact that this is 1991--towards the end of the 20th century. However, on our continent, on the

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doorstep of the most civilised part of the world, we are watching human beings killing each other for no other reason than the fact that they live next door to each other.

The waste, deaths, brutality and destruction of property beggar description. All that is happening in a beautiful country which has been the holiday destination of thousands of British people over the years. Many people who have spent their holidays in that country, as I have, shake their heads in disbelief as they watch what is happening.

I spent a family holiday in Dubrovnik last summer. One of my memories of my holiday in that beautiful city in the Aegean is of attending a football match with my brother and our children. The match involved Dubrovnik and a team from Belgrade. Only 15 months later, the participants in that match, which, it must be said, was not full of passion, are now presumably heavily engaged in destroying each other simply because they come from two sides of a divide that dates back to the tragedies, miseries and horrors of the second world war, back to the first world war and into the deep recesses of history before that time.

The point at issue is that what is happening is not only a tragedy of today but a portent of tomorrow. We are witnessing in Yugoslavia what happens when the cap of communism is lifted to reveal the suppressed anger that is contained. That may happen in other countries where the same situation applies. Because we are outraged by the conflict in Yugoslavia today, we should be ready for similar things to happen elsewhere in Europe unless we ensure that we set in place institutions to prevent them.

Despite having visited the country and despite a long interest in the area, even I was not fully aware of the complexities and the depth of feeling in the various component parts of Yugoslavia until I read the quite remarkable book that Chris Cviic wrote for the Royal Institute of International Affairs only a few months ago. Despite the fact that modern history grows old within a week, I commend that book to people who want to understand what is happening in that part of the world. The replaying of historical conflict, brought to our own living room firesides by the miracles of modern technology and displaying the brutality of past years, does not reflect well on our development in Europe.

The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South commented on the differences of view about who is to blame. There are strong feelings on both sides, as my postbag bears witness. It is now becoming clear even to those of a partisan view that the culpability of the federal army, which is no longer responsive to any of the organs of the previous state, must bear a heavy responsibility for what is happening.

I do not want to detain the House or myself for long, but I pay tribute to the role of the European Community and to the monitors who have served with considerable bravery and tenacity during the conflict. Their presence has done much to inhibit some of the wilder excesses on both sides. Their courage in entering into the conflict and their presence of mind in circumstances in which they have been in enormous danger are a great tribute to the individuals themselves and to the institution that sent them.

We must pay tribute also to the United Nations, which has been revitalised over the past 12 months and has started to play its part in trying to unravel and resolve the problems in Yugoslavia. The Security Council took on board some of the challenges. Mr. Cyrus Vance, who

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stepped into the breach, has made herculean efforts to establish a peace so that, eventually, a peacekeeping force might move into place. Of course, the United Nations has been engaged in the exercise of sanctions against those who perpetrate excesses.

There are some who say that we should involve peacekeeping forces right away. However, we in this country know more than most that, unless there is a peace to keep, putting in peacekeeping forces simply places troops in danger. There are some who say that we should immediately recognise Croatia and Slovenia because they have passed a test in respect of self-standing and self-sustenance. Of course, despite claims about elections--I recently met President Tudjman and Mr. Peterle, the Prime Minister of Slovenia-- enormous questions have to be answered.

What borders would we recognise ? Would they be pre-conflict borders, the borders on the map, Yugoslav internal federal borders, or the borders that exist after the conflict and the damage that took place during the capture of towns such as Osijek and Vukovar ? What would be the implications for the other republics of Yugoslavia, or what used to be Yugoslavia ? What of the future of Bosnia, in particular, where there is a very complicated cocktail of ethnic mixes ? The problem cannot be solved by the recognition of any number of states.

There are some, including the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), who say, "Arm one side." She said that we should send arms to the Croatians. Nobody who is sensible or sane would say that we should export more arms to a country that is already awash with them, because it would do little more than increase the bloodshed that has already stained that country. There are those who even dare to say that we should intervene militarily and hope that some form of peace will come about as a result. With conflict going on inside our own borders, we cannot help the world in advising that course of action.

Yesterday, the EC observers in the conflict areas of Yugoslavia made it clear that they were not in favour of rapid diplomatic recognition of Croatia, which they say would wreck the prospects for negotiating a settlement of the war and increase the chance of hostilities spreading to other parts of the collapsed federation. We would be wise to listen to those on the spot who have experience, because they are close to what is going on. The spokeswoman for the mission said :

"Recognition not tied in to the negotiating process is not a sensible thing right now."

Rinelde Steeghs said that that move

"would so infuriate Serbia and the Yugoslav army as to spell an end to the EC peace conference chaired by Lord Carrington."

This House and the wider world should listen to that view. In conclusion, I make this plea to countries such as Germany--a country for which I have the highest regard : they should be cautious about promising recognition for Croatia and Slovenia by any precise date, and about breaking ranks within the European Community. A decision on the recognition of any of the republics may be on the agenda, but that decision should be made collectively and advisedly. I hope that Germany, which has stood firmly in favour of a common foreign and security policy in the intergovernmental conferences that have just concluded and in the discussions on this week's Maastricht

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treaty, will listen to its own exhortations and ensure that, whenever the decision is taken on recognition, it is made collectively, not unilaterally.

This is a horrifying conflict on our own doorstep. In many ways, it is a sad illustration of how little we have learnt from the past, despite the long history of our continent. We must draw careful lessons from it--about the necessity for collective action and for creating new institutions in Europe to deal with the new conflicts that may spring up in our continent. It is a sad warning, and we would be wise to recognise it as such.

3.47 am

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg) : The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) has expressed his distaste for these early-morning debates. I share that view. We are discussing a matter of considerable importance--it is difficult to think of a matter of greater importance at the moment in central Europe--yet my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) has been obliged to raise it at an hour that is inappropriate to a matter of such gravity. My hon. Friend deserves our congratulations and thanks for having raised it, but the systems and procedures of the House should not have obliged him to do so at this time--or obliged us to be here at 3.47 am to deal with a matter of such moment. Like the hon. Member for Hamilton, I wish that we would put an end to such proceedings. They do the House no good whatsoever.

My hon. Friend has spoken with a concision and lucidity that does him credit. I am bound to say that I am not in total agreement with what he has said, but nobody could have put his points more clearly or concisely. I for one am extremely grateful to him. In his preliminary remarks, he said that he approached this issue with a sense of both sorrow and shame. I entirely agree with him about a sense of sorrow--this is indeed a tragedy--but I do not agree with his sense of shame. I am a great one for pinning blame where it can properly be pinned, and I do not believe in collective guilt. The fault lies with those who are guilty of the violence. It is not our fault that we cannot persuade them to stop. We should not be ashamed of our inability to persuade them to stop, for the fault is theirs and we have tried hard.

My hon. Friend spoke about where the blame lies between the combatant parties. I agree with his analysis. He correctly said that the Croatians and those who say that they are fighting on the Croatian side have been guilty of various acts of atrocity and provocation. Both those statements are correct. On occasion, the Croatians have been guilty of breaches of the ceasefire. But having said that, if we are to express a view about where the fault primarily lies, I share the view of my hon. Friend that it is with the JNA and Serbian forces.

None the less, there is fault on both sides. Perhaps it is right to say in parenthesis that genuine concern about their future is felt by Serbs in Croatia. President Tudjman was not sufficiently sensitive to those fears at an early enough stage. Certainly he did not address them in a properly positive way.

My hon. Friend began the substantive part of his speech by calling for more positive action on the part of

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the European Community and, indeed, others. It is right that I should remind the House of some of the positive steps that the European Community has taken. It has deployed the monitors. The hon. Member for Hamilton spoke of the courage and determination shown by the monitors now operating within what was Yugoslavia. I agree with him. The monitors have been courageous and determined, and have made a considerable contribution to the maintenance of peace in some areas within Yugoslavia.

Secondly, as my hon. Friend will have in mind, we took several measures in November designed to put express pressure on those who are in breach of the ceasefire and those who are refraining from making an effective ceasefire. Thirdly, we have brought into existence the peace conference under the chairmanship of Lord Carrington. That is a positive contribution to making peace in Yugoslavia. I shall make further reference to it shortly. Therefore, several measures have been taken which create the circumstances in which the participants to the fighting could enter into an accord or settlement if they chose to do so.

The burden of my hon. Friend's speech was his call for the recognition of the two republics of Slovenia and Croatia. That is clearly a serious case, which needs the most serious consideration. I come to a different conclusion from my hon. Friend, but none the less I recognise that it is a case which requires serious consideration. The traditional criteria that we adopt for the recognition of states probably apply to Slovenia. They do not apply in the case Croatia in the same way, but I accept--my hon. Friend would probably make this point--that one of the reasons why the criteria do not apply to Croatia is that Croatian territory has been invaded by the JNA and Serbian irregulars.

Rather than argue whether the traditional criteria apply, I would like to take a slightly broader perspective on the issue. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made it plain in the House and elsewhere that we accept the principle of recognition of the republics of Yugoslavia which wish it.

The essential problem is that of timing and pace, and I agree with what the hon. Member for Hamilton said about the desirability of a collective approach. I hope that the EC can remain united on the issue and move together. It is desirable, if possible, that our policies should be entirely harmonious, not only between ourselves but with our friends and allies who have a direct interest in the matter.

The first question that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South must ask himself--and that I would ask of him--is whether there is any reason to think that recognition would stop the fighting. That is the key question. Is there anything about the quality of the act of recognition that would stop the fighting ? In the end, one can only give one's own opinion. I do not believe that recognition per se would stop the fighting. Indeed, the act of recognition would be likely to make fighting in Yugoslavia generally more widespread and intense, so the argument fails on the key point whether it is likely to diminish the fighting.

I also believe that it would be likely to put an end to the peace conference. It is difficult to envisage the peace conference continuing if one or two of the parties have already had their independence recognised, so it is likely to diminish the chance of a settlement being negotiated within the peace conference.

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Next, I believe that it is likely to trigger other unilateral declarations of independance in Yugoslavia, and in that context I am particularly concerned about Bosnia, which the hon. Member for Hamilton described as an unholy cocktail. He is right. There are at least three major ethnic or religious groupings--the Croats, the Serbs and the Muslims. If Croatia were recognised as an independent republic, inevitably the president of Bosnia would have to declare independence, and that fact would be likely to trigger fighting between the ethnic and religious groupings in Bosnia. For that reason also, the fighting would be extended rather than confined by the act of recognition.

I believe that the act of recognition would be premature and would deprive us of the leverage we need over the republics in Yugoslavia on such important questions as human, minority and legal and civil rights. Those important questions must be addressed at considerable length, because there is hardly a republic in Yugoslavia which does not have substantial ethnic minorities whose civil, legal and political rights must be addressed. In an ideal world, the act of recognition would follow accord on all the important questions that have been raised in this debate--notably questions of ethnic, civil and political rights.

To summarise my view, although I recognise the force of my hon. Friend's remarks, I believe that the act of recognition is premature and would be damaging in its consequences. We must press on with the policy that we have in place, which is to urge an effective ceasefire on the combatants to be ready to support a United Nations deployment of peacekeeping forces when the circumstances are appropriate--I agree with the hon. Member for Hamilton about the vital importance of ensuring that a ceasefire is in existance before the deployment of a peacekeeping force--and we must urge on all the parties the need to negotiate a settlement within the context of the peace conference, now under the chairmanship of Lord Carrington.

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Western Sahara

4 am

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : The subject that I wish to raise is that of the future of Western Sahara, which at the moment, I believe, hangs very much in the balance. As the United Nations plan to try to resolve the long-standing problem there is a danger of running into very serious problems indeed. I obviously welcome the opportunity to raise the matter in the House and to record some facts about the history of and background to the impasse with which the Sahrawi people are faced.

It is a very large area of land : 110,000 sq miles, roughly equivalent to the area of the United Kingdom. It is very sparsely populated, with a population of rather less than a quarter of a million.

The problems for the Sahrawi people have been colonial oppression over many centuries and the fact that the country is rich in some minerals, particularly phosphates, and fish in the sea off its shores. We are talking of the last colony in Africa. Western Sahara became a colony in 1884 under Spain, because the Spanish were very keen to be included in the 1885 Congress of Berlin and by their occupation of Western Sahara they were able to achieve that. Their occupation was particularly oppressive and there were many rebellions against Spanish rule.

In the fullness of time the winds of change swept through Africa and independence was achieved for the colonies that had made up most of the continent. The mass colonisation of Africa took place mostly in the 19th century, and independence was achieved in virtually all cases in the 20th century. Morocco achieved its independence from France in 1956. Mauritania, which is germane to the area we are discussing, achieved its independence in 1961, and Algeria achieved its independence in 1962. However, during 1959, as a side-show to the war in Algeria, France gave considerable help to Spain in putting down rebellions of the Sahrawi people demanding their own independence. That conflict is well remembered.

In all this, the problems of Western Sahara as a colony were rather forgotten. The United Nations committee on decolonisation recognised in 1966 the case for decolonisation and, indeed, a United Nations delegation visited in 1975 to try to promote a settlement. In 1975 Kurt Waldheim, who was Secretary-General of the United Nations at that time, called for a process of restraint and no disruption of decolonisation. Finally, in 1976, following the death of Franco, Spain gave up all pretence of control of Western Sahara, having some years previously withdrawn its troops to the coastal areas. From that day on, 27 February 1976 has been recognised by the Sahrawi people as their day of independence.

Tragically, here we are in 1991 and that independence is not yet a complete reality because the vast majority of the area of Western Sahara is under the occupation of the Moroccan armed forces. In 1975, at the time when Spain gave up its claim to Western Sahara, King Hassan of Morocco personally led the "green march" into the Western Sahara area to establish, in effect, a new colony for Morocco, and the building of the sand wall which surrounds the area where the Sahrawi people were attempting to live. He created a military enclave, which he

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then attempted to settle in order that independence could be denied and this could be seen as part of greater Morocco.

That whole process since 1975 has led to a very bloody conflict. Many lives have been lost ; many human rights abuses have occurred in Morocco as a result of the dynamic of the war that has been going on within Western Sahara.

The leaders of Western Sahara formed a government in exile based in Tindouf, in Algeria, and throughout the war there have been huge numbers of casualties. Human rights abuses have resulted in Morocco. In August this year Amnesty International produced an important statement in which it said that

"it feared that hundreds of western Saharan civilians who disappeared' up to 15 years ago are still held in secret detention in Morocco or have died."

Some people had been released. The statement said :

"over 300 disappeared' Sahrawis have been released after a royal amnesty in June, but hundreds more remain unaccounted for. The Moroccan Government has in the past persistently denied knowledge not only of those still missing but also of those recently set free." Amnesty said :

"Many of the released Sahrawis suffer severe physical or mental problems after having spent up to a decade and a half in secret captivity. Some are paralysed or blind due to harsh prison conditions, others left their cells insane."

The report continued :

"At least 43 of their fellow inmates have died in custody since 1975, when Morocco first took control of the former colony of Spanish Sahara and began wholesale arrests of people for known or suspected links with the Polisario Front. ... This year's royal amnesty is the first solid confirmation of the mass disappearances'."

Amnesty has produced a comprehensive report which I am sure the Minister has seen and which his officials will have examined. The battle for independence of Western Sahara is twofold, like all battles for independence. On the one side there is the physical fighting and the casualties that have been incurred. It has always been a one-sided battle in the sense that on one side there is great determination by the Western Saharan people, led by the Polisario, and on the other side there are sophisticated weapons and the conscript army of Morocco.

One interesting point is the degree of international recognition of the Government in exile which has been recognised by 74 members of the United Nations. Crucially, in 1982 the Organisation of African Unity granted recognition to Western Sahara. I say "crucially" because, as the major political organisation in Africa, the OAU is important and it is always extremely reluctant--I underline that--to do anything that could be seen to upset the national borders of individual member states. In Africa the borders are all drawn by colonial powers and the possibility of change is considerable once it is prepared to go down that road. Interestingly, it is the only case that I know of where the OAU has recognised a right of independence from a different country. In other words, it supports the view taken by the rest of the world that the occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco is not only illegal but an act of colonisation.

Agreements were reached with the United Nations, which has taken a consistent interest in the issue, that the case should be resolved peacefully. Obviously everyone wants that, although the recent actions of the Moroccan

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Government undermine their earlier declarations. In 1988, under resolution 621, the Security Council supported Perez de Cuellar's plan which would have led to the referendum. In 1991 Security Council resolution 690 was supported and later endorsed by the General Assembly. Under that resolution Morocco was to reduce its forces to 65,000 immediately and $200 million was to be voted to finance the referendum ; there was to be an exchange of prisoners, and the roll for the referendum was to be based on the Spanish census of 1974. The referendum was to be held in January 1992.

Since then, Morocco has done a great deal to undermine the whole process. Military activity has increased. Morocco has increased the number of troops who are active in the western Sahara. Very recently it has tried to add 120,000 names to the electoral roll. The numbers being added would affect the result greatly, because the people are being bussed in, given names and told to register as Sahrawis. That would clearly upset the referendum process.

In addition, 40,000 settlers have been brought into Western Sahara by the new green march, once again led by King Hussan, and a state of siege exists in the area. His utterly cynical manoeuvres in taking people from the very poorest parts of Morocco, putting them on buses and trucks and promising them a home, a job and a bit of land if they go there, are a desperate attempt to hang on to a colony. Many people believed that 20 years of war and Morocco's stubborn refusal to accept an international solution to the conflict were over. The "Peace Special" of the "Western Sahara Newsletter" of May-June 1991 uses those very words. It says that the Sahrawi people are now on the verge of the victory and independence that the Polisario has struggled for 18 years to achieve. Obviously, one hopes that that is the case, but serious obstacles remain to be overcome. The timetable for a referendum began on 17 May last year and shows where the process has gone wrong. Stage 1 was from June to September, when Morocco and the Polisario were to agree on and implement a comprehensive ceasefire. Officials of MINURSO's Identification Commision were to arrive in Western Sahara and the commission was to update the Spanish census of 1974, which would form the basis of the referendum voting list. A preliminary list would then be presented by October.

Stage 2 was from October to November 1991, when the MINURSO military and civilian staff were to arrive in Western Sahara and supervise the withdrawal of half the Moroccan armed forces currently occupying Western Sahara ; the remaining 65,000 were to be restricted to designated areas. Armed Polisario units were to meet at established bases in pre-arranged locations. Alongside several hundred civilian personnel, MINURSO was to consist of 1,700 UN troops, rather like the system used for the development of the ceasefire in Zimbabwe in 1981.

Stage 3 was to be carried out in the six weeks from November to December 1991--the present period--when the Sahrawi refugees were supposed to return to their homeland. The 165,000 refugees who fled the Moroccan invasion of 1975 were to be transported from their camps in Tindouf to safe locations in Western Sahara, again under UN supervision with the provision of transport, shelter and food. Voting stations were to be constructed.

Stage 4, of which we should now be in the middle, from December 1991 to January 1992, was to consist of three

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weeks of campaigning envisaged under the rules. Stage 5 was to be the referendum, due to take place in a month's time, with voting over seven days. The outcome of that referendum was to decide the future of Western Sahara.

It was hoped that that would be the end of a particularly brutal chapter in Africa's history and that peace could have been achieved at that time, but Morocco's more recent actions suggest that that is now extremely unlikely. There have been extremely disturbing reports which the Foreign Office has doubtless seen. In The Independent of 13 November 1991, one such report expressed concern about how some UN officials had been working against the interests of the Polisario. There was a serious allegation that they were not working even-handedly with regard to the protagonists in the conflict. In November 1991, King Hussan made a speech that hardly belonged to a man who had accepted that the United Nations had a serious role to play in the matter and that the conflict was about to come to an end, announcing that a foreign flag would never fly over Western Sahara. He then commemorated the 16th anniversary of the 1975 green march by promoting a new green march.

The peace plan is being sabotaged--it is as simple as that. This is not the first time that the Western Sahara issue has been raised in the House. More than 100 hon. Members have signed an early-day motion supporting the principles of the UN peace plan and saying that they want the referendum to go ahead. All that is now at risk. Morocco is desperate to keep its colony, despite all the agreements that it has made on many occasions.

We want the British Government to use all their influence with the United Nations to insist that Morocco, which is shortly to become a member of the Security Council, keeps to all the agreements made. We must ensure that prisoners of war are exchanged, there are no more ceasefire violations, and the electoral roll for the referendum is accepted on the basis of the 1974 census so that the voting can go ahead as it should do in a month's time. That should allow those people who have existed in the past 18 years in refugee camps in Algeria to return home, elect their own Government, live in their own country and decide their own future democratically. They should not be denied that opportunity by the presence of the Moroccan army or Morocco's subterfuge in attempting to undermine the process undertaken by the United Nations.

I strongly urge the British Government to use their influence to support the United Nations process and allow peace finally to return to the last colony in Africa so that we can say once and for all that the process of the colonisation of Africa--in terms of the 1885 Congress of Berlin--is over, the last colony is consigned to history and the people are granted peace.

4.16 am

Mr. George Robertson (Hamilton) : With the leave of the House, may I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) on his choice of subject for the debate, which is serious and rightly inspires strong feelings among hon. Members and the population in general.

The past few years have seen remarkable changes in the world : many intractable problems finally seem capable of solution. There has been much movement in regional conflicts throughout the world and the United Nations has

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been given a new lease of life--there was co-operation against an aggressor in the Gulf, remarkable success was achieved in Namibia and progress has been achieved in Cambodia. Now we are begining to see the chance of some success over one of Africa's most intractable problems and the opportunity to bring peace to Western Sahara. There are also signs that the countries of the Maghreb, which for so long were divided on the future of the Western Sahara, have decided to co- operate to try to find a solution. They were encouraged in that endeavour by the European Community. The Labour party has taken a consistent line on the Western Sahara : that there should be no imposed solution and the decision on the future of that region should be made by the people themselves. It was always our strong belief that a referendum would allow the people of that district to make their own free choice only if it were conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. Therefore, we were delighted when this summer, following the United Nations Security Council's unanimous endorsement of the plan, it seemed that we were on course for such a referendum in January 1992.

However, since then we and many others have been highly disquieted by the number of allegations made about breaches in the agreed timetable and the preparatory conditions for the referendum. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said, serious allegations were made in The Independent on 13 November and further allegations about breaches have been made by other organisations and people on the spot. The allegations are all the more serious because they cast doubt not only on the process that is now under way, but on the very credibility of the United Nations presence in Western Sahara. The anxiety was reflected in an early-day motion tabled on 5 December by the chairman of the parliamentary Labour party's foreign affairs committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross). That early-day motion, on which my hon. Friend deserves congratulations, has already attracted 59 signatures.

Our aim in relation to Western Sahara is to be as constructive as possible. Our county's influence should be used to ensure that the United Nations status and objectives there are met in full. Therefore, I should like to ask the Minister a number of questions, if he is given the leave of the House to speak.

Do the Government believe that there is a realistic prospect of the timetable set by the Security Council for a referendum in January being met ? It is an important question and I am sure that the House and the wider world would like to hear the Government's estimation. If the Government do not believe in such a prospect, what conclusion can be drawn ? Why is the timetable in question ? Is there a lack of resources for the process, a lack of co-operation by the Moroccan Government or by the UN agency ? We have heard no allegations about foot-dragging or obstruction by the Polisario who appear to have complied to the letter with the obligations that they took on. Sadly, in contrast, there have been a number of allegations directed at Morocco--the role of the military in situ, the denial of access to observers and repeated allegations of the attempted flooding of electoral rolls by large numbers of Moroccans who have moved-- or been moved--into the area.

What is the extent of the Government's support for the referendum process ? We know that financial assistance has been given, but perhaps the Minister will illuminate us

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as to how much. What is the extent of the Government's commitment and how does the scale of our assistance compare with that of our European Community partners ?

In the light of the slippage of the timetable due to alleged non- compliance, is not it time for the Government to take a lead in returning the matter to the Security Council for a reorientation and redefinition of the existing mandate if that were judged to be appropriate ?

Finally, there have been repeated allegations of intimidation of electors. I put it no more strongly than that because I and my colleagues are not in a position to do other than repeat those strong allegations of intimidation of electors in the referendum process. The Minister will, of course, be aware that in previous elections hon. Members who have gone to such areas have played a valuable role. With their knowledge, they have been able to assist. Recently, hon. Members went to Bangladesh and Zambia and performed a major task there. Does the Foreign Office think that it would be right for them to do the same in this case?

We are conscious of the success that the United Nations has had in setting up the timetable. We look forward to the people of the Western Sahara being able to make a free and fair decision on their future. We look forward, too, to the United Nations having its reputation reinvigorated by another success in another regional conflict, and we must hope, perhaps beyond hope, that some of the hiccups in the timetable will be relieved and that the people of this area will soon be able to make an historic choice in a free and fair fashion.

4.25 am

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg) rose--

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