House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Apr 1993

Mr. Duncan-Smith : In line with what my right hon. Friend has said, so that there is no confusion, will he confirm that, in the past 15 months, Croatia has taken shipments of some $320 million-worth of imported arms of all kinds, from aircraft through to powerful tanks, so the whole area is awash with arms? It is not just the Serbians who are involved in the matter.

Mr. Hurd : I cannot confirm my hon. Friend's figures. I shall come to the arms embargo and I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with me from his analysis.

I wish to deal briefly with the four main areas of sanctions. It is important that the House should understand what we are trying to do. On the Adriatic sea, since Tuesday we have new powers to prohibit all commercial and maritime traffic from entering Montenegran territorial waters unless specifically authorised. HMS Cardiff has been in the Adriatic with other ships for some time. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Western European Union forces in the area should be able to stop illegal passage by sea.

In the Danube, it is much more difficult. There are plans to deploy a WEU monitoring flotilla. We support that and are considering what we can do to help. The British are already providing a communications system between the states on the river, which is crucial for this purpose. We are anxious that the operation should begin as soon as possible.

The land borders are almost equally difficult. All freight and rail border crossing points should now be closed, with limited and specific exceptions. People are able to move from one country to another, but goods cannot, except for food and medicines. We have to find the best ways of monitoring the new sanctions. We have sanctions assistance missions in all the countries concerned and they are being reinforced. We are considering with the United States and our EC partners how those numbers can be doubled, and we are tripling our own contribution of customs officers.

Finally, on financial sanctions, Lord Owen believes--and I think that there is evidence for this--that these are the most crucial of all. The financing of trade is just as important as its physical passage.

Since Tuesday, the obligations on Governments worldwide to enforce financial sanctions against Belgrade have been tightened even further. Funds outside the former Yugoslavia cannot be used for the benefit of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or of any commercial, industrial or public bodies in Serbia and Montenegro. We now have the power to freeze the flow of any Serb assets of even indirect benefit to Serbia.

There have been some real and publicised problems in Nicosia, Cyprus over the enforcement of financial sanctions. The Government of Cyprus have now announced certain measures to help bring them into the mainstream of enforcement. Those measures are welcome, but there is still some way to go.

I have proposed that, because of all the institutions involved in the effort under Security Council resolution

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820, the Secretary-General should appoint a sanctions co-ordinator--a senior figure who would identify loopholes, have the authority to knock on the doors concerned to ensure that the loopholes are quickly blocked and, where necessary, knock heads together.

I have gone through the measures because on paper, and now in international law, they are formidable. They will not halt the conflict overnight, but they pin down the Serbs and they limit their options. I hope that the message is clear that the Serb leadership has to exercise decisive influence on the Bosnian Serbs by political means, but principally by cutting off military and economic support to them.

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : Presumably the sanctions will also apply to Kosovo. In those circumstances, what is the point of the sanctions? Might they not be counter-productive all over Serbia and Montenegro?

Mr. Hurd : The sanctions have to apply to Kosovo because, under international law, Kosovo is part of Serbia. The point of sanctions is to intensify the pressure on the Serb leadership to induce it to exercise pressures which could be decisive on the Bosnian Serbs who, although they do not bear the entire responsibility, bear the main responsibility for prolonging the conflict.

Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth) Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hurd : No, I must get on.

I now turn to other options. None of us can refuse to look at other ideas for a way forward. The suffering is great, the prospects for further atrocities are bleak and the glimmers of hope are too dim for us not to examine and re-examine all choices.

Solidarity among like-minded nations is essential. The European Community has worked together, with difficulty, but knowing that one policy is better than 12 and carries more weight than 12. NATO is now involved in different respects, on the Adriatic, as I have mentioned, providing elements of control and command for UNPROFOR. The NATO 16 are working closely and well. The WEU and the CSCE are involved and the Security Council has stuck together.

Work on other options is going on in all the major capitals. Wide discussions continue on three particular policy options in addition to the sanctions choice which has been made. It is now a matter of putting it into effect. Our common aim is to stop the fighting and bring the parties back to the conference table.

Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield) : I do not know whether the Foreign Secretary is coming to this point, but if so, perhaps he will allow me to anticipate it. Has he made it crystal clear to the American Administration that if arms are supplied and poured into the civil war, or if bombing is carried out by the United States, that will put at risk more lives and the humanitarian effort and will lead us into a far worse crisis? Has he made that clear to the Americans?

Mr. Hurd : The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned two of the three options with which I am about to deal, and I shall come to his point soon.

The first option, which the right hon. Gentleman did not specifically mention, is safe areas. We have already

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welcomed the UNHCR proposal for safe areas in Zepa and Gorazde to allow the United Nations humanitarian agencies and the Red Cross to operate there. We supported similar United Nations ideas on those lines last July.

An international presence can have a calming effect, as we have seen in central Bosnia, and is invaluable to ensure access by relief convoys. However, there is a limit on what can be negotiated. We are discussing the option of safe havens by negotiation and the number of forces available and we do not believe that United Nations forces could or should fight their way into designated areas, or become combatants on behalf of the Muslim or any other community. The House will know that in Srebrenica the Canadians have been living through some difficult moments. At one stage last week they felt that they were in acute danger. We have made it clear that it would be inconceivable for us to fail to support them from the air if the need arose.

We have always emphasised the right and determination to use force in self- defence if necessary. Thankfully, the situation in Srebenica is quieter than it was, but that may not last for ever.

Ms Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) : Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

Mr. Hurd : No, I shall not give way again, as I have some ground yet to cover and many hon. Members wish to speak.

The second option was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn)--lifting the arms embargo. The House knows our deep reservations about that. We believe that we should be in the business of trying to stop the war and not equipping the parties to fight it out. The idea is understandably presented as giving the Muslims a chance to defend themselves against the more heavily armed and better equipped Serbs. It is possible that in that way Muslims would get better access to weapons, but the impact on the military situation would be neither quick nor decisive. The Serbs, and possibly the Croats, might decide to attack before the Muslims became too strong.

Far from tilting the balance towards the Bosnian Muslims, lifting the embargo could lead to an increase in the supply of weapons to the Serbs and the Croats. Violence could escalate and the humanitarian relief operations would become increasingly difficult and dangerous. If that were to happen, far from ending the suffering, that course would aggravate it. It could, more than any option seriously being considered, threaten an extension of the conflict into other parts of the former Yugoslavia or beyond. As arms flow into the area, the fighting could overflow out of it.

The third option is that of limited air strikes as a further means of pressure on the Serbs to accept the Vance-Owen plan and as a response to military attacks. That might work as a threat to deter the Bosnian Serbs from further attacks, atrocities and offensive strategies. If it were defied, actual strikes could prevent them from following those strategies. However, there are risks and uncertainties attached to any such action and they need to be thought through with the greatest of care, not just here but in consultation with our allies, before decisions can be reached. In particular, as the right hon. Member for Chesterfield pointed out, the implications for the forces of

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the United Nations, for our own forces, for humanitarian agencies and for the drivers and civilians carrying supplies through day after day have to be weighed carefully.

We could not agree to action which would put British forces at serious risk. That was put succinctly, as the House will have read, by the chairman of NATO's military committee, Sir Richard Vincent : "Decide what you're trying to achieve before you go out". That is very true. In testimony before the Senate this week, my colleague Warren Christopher, the American Secretary of State, made it clear that air power should be used in Bosnia only after strict criteria had been met.

Those criteria included the assurance that the goal of strikes was clear and understandable to the American people, and that there was what he called an "exit strategy" to avoid becoming involved in a Balkan war. In Washington, on the same day, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said :

"you cannot allow somebody to go forward and assume you are going to get in and out with a quickie operation."

Those are all wise comments.

The situation essentially is similar to that when I reported to the House last week. Those options and others are being considered. We must seek to stick together as we consider those options. We must not allow the Atlantic alliance to fracture on this issue. We are not excluding options simply because they were considered earlier and not adopted. But we in Government, we in the House, owe our constituents, as we said in another context last week, our considered judgment. The worst of all worlds would be half- measures in Bosnia which salved consciences without saving lives.

There is a risk of overlooking the broader picture in that concentration on Bosnia. The break-up of the former Yugoslavia has left a rash of conflicts, not just one. I sometimes think of Bosnia as a fire which is blazing, but there are heaps of combustible material around which we must try to prevent from catching fire. That is why we must support what Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance, soon to be replaced by Mr. Stoltenberg, are doing to prevent the trouble spilling over into neighbouring regions, particularly Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

In Croatia, there is particular concern that moves to announce the unification of the Krajina Serbs with the Bosnian Serbs could lead to a flare-up of the fighting there. Pressure is being brought to bear on both the Croatian Government and the Serbs to hold back from any new offensives and to enable the renewal of the mandate for the 15, 000 UNPROFOR troops in Croatia. That is the first force, not the one in which the Cheshires are involved. The continued presence of the United Nations in Croatia is vital if the kind of cruel, bitter fighting which occurred at the end of 1991 in Croatia is to be avoided.

In Macedonia, the greatest risk comes from instability as a result of that country's relations with its neighbours, including Greece. We worked hard, and in the end successfully, to secure Macedonia's admission to the United Nations on terms acceptable also to Greece. Lord Owen and Mr. Vance are now charged with seeking to resolve the difference between those two countries which continue.

At the same time, 700 UNPROFOR troops from Scandinavia, together with monitors from the conference on security and co-operation in Europe and the EC

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monitoring mission, are active in Macedonia helping to build confidence. There is a case for strengthening that United Nations contingent.

In Kosovo, there remains a high risk that a particularly brutal incident of repression against the ethnic Albanian majority could spark an uprising which could in turn destabilise the region. Under international law, it is part of Serbia. No one questions that. A CSCE monitoring team is active in the province under the direction of the Swedish Prime Minister, the chairman of the CSCE. That mission, he told me this week, is being urgently reinforced ; but, undoubtedly, the situation in Kosovo remains dangerous.

Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland) : Are not the points that the right hon. Gentleman has just made reasons for making it clear to the Serbs that they should stop their aggression now and that they will not get away with ethnic cleansing? If they are allowed to get away with it in Bosnia, will not the temptation be for the Serbs to try it again in Kosovo and Macedonia?

Mr. Hurd : I follow that thread of argument. I am all in favour of finding effective ways in which we can achieve a turnaround in Serb strategies. I have been running through the options and we shall listen to the right hon. Gentleman with great care. I have listed the disadvantages of options, as well as the way in which we are carrying through the option that has been agreed--sanctions. I repeat that we are not excluding further examination and the consultation will continue next week, but it would not be right to refrain, either in private consultations or in dealings with the House, from setting out the difficulties that we see.

Bosnia was once a peaceful, prosperous country, in which all ethnic groups mixed freely. I had a letter last week from a medical student who now lives and works in Birmingham but who escaped from Sarajevo last year and whose family is still there. She wrote :

"Until the war began, Sarajevo existed as a multicultural, pluralist and peace-loving society. No one cared about the ethnic origin of their neighbours, nor their own for that matter. And people there still live together, Muslims, Croats and Serbs (because Mr. Karadzic is not a leader of all Bosnian Serbs)."

From my slight knowledge of the former Yugoslavia, I do not believe that hatred and killing are inevitable, somehow irredeemably logged in the history books as something that has to happen. That is not the history of the former Yugoslavia. The killing and hatred will come to an end--perhaps not soon, but never too soon.

We are deeply moved and angered by what has been happening in Bosnia. Why? Because it is carried day by day and night by night in our newspapers and on our television. But Bosnia is not unique, and I end on this general thought. If one visits Japan, as I did recently, one finds that the people there are much more concerned about what is happening in Cambodia. In Moscow, people are at least equally concerned about the killings in Georgia and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Africans are more conscious of the atrocious killings, on a much larger scale, which continue in Angola, Liberia, Rwanda and the Sudan.

All those, and others--I have given only a selection--are wars inside countries in which thousands are being killed and standards of decent behaviour are wholly disregarded. That is why I have always disliked as

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pretentious the phrase "a new world order". We are wrestling, in fact, continent by continent with ancient disorders fanned into a new blaze by factions and extreme nationalism. It has been so through the centuries. What is new is our awareness of it.

We should not resent the fact that the media bring some, but of course only some, of those horrors into our homes. It is difficult for the television or even the press to convey the complexity of conflict, the spread of guilt, or the difficulty of arriving at the truth which characterises, in particular, a civil war. Nevertheless, they are right to anger and horrify us.

Anger and horror are not enough as a basis for decisions. It is a British interest to make a reasoned contribution towards a more orderly and decent world. But it is not a British interest, and it would only be a pretence, to suppose that we can intervene and sort out every tragedy which captures people's attention and sympathy. I have never found the phrase "something must be done" to be a phrase which carries any conviction in places such as the House or the Government where people have to take decisions. Governments and Parliaments have to weigh and judge. Bosnia is not the same as Kuwait or the Falklands, in history or terrain or calculation of risk. Decisions cannot be based either on false analogies or on a desire to achieve better headlines tomorrow than today. That is particularly true when those decisions affect human life, and more especially still when the lives are those of British service men or civilians. The instinct to do better, to work harder, to look again at options, even those previously rejected, is a sound one, which we are following. But the decisions that follow must be based on judgment as well as instinct if they are to match the need. We shall continue, with our friends and allies, to apply that judgment.

4.58 pm

Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland) : It was right for the Government to provide time for a debate on Bosnia today and we welcome the decision of the Leader of the House to respond to the request made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition for such a debate.

There are deeply held and genuine differences of opinion on both sides of the House on this nexus of complex problems in the former Yugoslavia.

I make no criticism of those hon. Members who take a different view from the one that I take ; nor are there certainties in any of the options that we are considering. I believe, however, that there have been some disasterous miscalculations in the past with diplomatic efforts, particularly in the European Community, over the former Yugoslavia, and that the credibility of the Community has been damaged as a result. We now face circumstances where the credibility of the United Nations itself is being questioned, not just by hon. Members and not just by people in the West as a whole but by many people in Muslim countries, and people in Muslim Governments too. I want to begin, therefore, by making it clear to everyone that any action that Opposition Members would support, any new departure that we would endorse, would

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have to be firmly authorised under the provisions of chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, specifically article 39, which says : "The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."

I do not believe that we should depart from those provisions. It is to the decisions of the United Nations that I first want to turn. There is an arms embargo under resolution 713 of September 1991. The United Nations protection force was established by resolution 743 in February 1992. Mandatory sanctions were established under a resolution of the Security Council in May 1992, and the UNPROFOR mandate in Bosnia is under those provisions of chapter 7 of the United Nations charter. I begin with those facts to answer those who say that nothing has been done and to point out that a great deal has already been done to try to deal with the appalling situation in Bosnia.

Who does not share the anger and the anguish of people in Britain and elsewhere about the agonies of the Bosnian people ? We all share the anger and anguish, but we should not allow anger to dictate the difficult political decisions that we must make in trying to deal with the circumstances.

I want to echo the point made by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs about British personnel currently in the former Yugoslavia, all of whom, military and civilian, are playing an effective and brave role in appallingly difficult circumstances. They have earned our lasting admiration and they enjoy our complete support in the tasks that they are trying to carry out.

We gave our support to the London peace conference which eventually produced the Owen-Vance plan. I want to compliment Lord Owen--not always my favourite person--on his outstanding attempts to secure a peace settlement in Bosnia. The peace plan unveiled in Geneva in January 1993 has now been signed by the Croatians and the Bosnian Government but not by the Serbs. Surely the principal political objective of any action we seek to take must be to secure Serbian signatures to that peace plan ? We must spell out political aims and objectives before we can begin to contemplate whether any kind of military intervention is appropriate or likely to be effective. I do not, however, understand why there is such a drawn-out, continuing delay in reaching conclusions. The tragedy is that, in spite of the mandatory resolutions on sanctions of, in some cases, a year ago, no serious effort has been made by the international community to implement them effectively. That is the truth. It is clear that members of the European Community as well as members of the United Nations, including in some respects members of the Security Council itself, have allowed their own economies and their own people to turn a completely blind eye to the mandatory resolutions of the Security Council.

So while we warmly welcome something that we have called for since the summer of last year, namely a complete economic blockade of Serbia--I first called for it on 4 August last year, and I remember the date well because it was my birthday--we regret that it has taken the international community until now to accept that the existing resolutions were being flouted and that they were

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in no way preventing the Bosnian Serbs from continuing their military aggression in Bosnia. The decision, therefore, is welcome, if somewhat belated.

I recognise too that questions remain about the peace plan that the sanctions are intended to buttress, but Lord Owen has made it perfectly clear that it is open to amendment if only agreement to it can be reached.

Other decisions by the United Nations have been taken in support of securing peace in Bosnia : on human rights, particularly with reference to crimes of violence against women, under resolution 808 of February this year, and on the establishment of an international war crimes tribunal. As, in an incremental way, the international community has sought to bring about a resolution of the problem, we have gone along with those decisions, hoping that eventually they would become effective in a cumulative way, but we must face the reality that they have not done so. Economic sanctions, the arms embargo, the humanitarian aid programme which has been so worth while, the no-fly zone, the resolutions on crimes of violence and on the war crimes tribunal have not stopped the Serbs. They have not stopped Serbian aggression which, regrettably, continues even today. The Serbs are the principal aggressors although it does not help the case or the credibility of other political leaders in Bosnia--Croatian or Muslim--when the Croatians launch attacks on the Muslims or the Muslims launch attacks on the Croatians. The reality is that among the political leaders as well as among the military leaders in Bosnia there are no innocents. They all bear a grave responsibility for continuing the slaughter in the way they do.

Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South) : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Dr. Cunningham : In a moment.

The innocents are women and children, elderly people, civilians and non- combatants, the hapless victims of the civil strife that their political and military leaders continue to inflict on them. Surely it is they who should be uppermost in our thoughts. The best way to help them must surely be, in turn, to secure as quickly as possible a peace ; an end to fighting ; an end to the conflict in Bosnia.

Mr. Marshall : May I first of all apologise to my right hon. Friend for failing to note his recent promotion?

While I do not disagree with a good deal of what he has said, when he uses the term "Muslim" he uses it in the sense of the Bosnian Government, the legitimate Bosnian Government. Although it is true that atrocities may have been committed by that Government, does he not accept the basic fact that, when the Bosnian Government attack the Croatian nationalists in Bosnia or the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia, they are carrying out the legitimate right and programme of any legitimate Government?

Dr. Cunningham : I accept that civil war is going on in Bosnia, and I also accept that Serbian aggression is taking place.

r. Cunningham : I am in the middle of replying to one intervention ; I can hardly deal with another at the same time.

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The point that I was making is that political leaders on all sides of the conflict are willing to continue to wage war. I do not believe that, in those circumstances, there are any innocents.

Lady Olga Maitland : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cormack : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Cunningham : I will not give way yet. I am dealing with the point put to me by my hon. Friend the Minister for Leicester South (Mr. Marshall).

Let me refer my hon. Friend to a passage that I came across by accident. It is very relevant to the aggressive nationalism that is now so rampant. In one of his essays, George Orwell wrote : "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage--torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians--which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by our' side."

I am afraid that too many such views prevail now among political leaders in Bosnia.

Mr. Cormack : This morning, the right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to receive the Foreign Minister of Bosnia. We recognise the Bosnian Government--a multi-ethnic Government including Serbs, Croats and Muslims ; but they have been virtually disarmed while seeking to repel people who are guilty of the most appalling atrocities. Can the right hon. Gentlemen deny for a moment that the overwhelming majority of those atrocities have indeed been committed by the Serbs?

Dr. Cunningham : I have already dealt with that point at least twice. I shall say more about my meeting with Dr. Silajdzic in a moment.

There are arguments for further action in the circumstances that I have described : action to secure peace, to end ethnic cleansing, to stop the killing and brutality, to prevent the destabilisation of the region--to which the Foreign Secretary rightly referred--and to avoid a spread of Serbian aggression into Kosovo or perhaps Macedonia, destabiilising Greece and, possibly, Turkey, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria. The need to uphold the authority of the international community and the decisions of the United Nations is another reason for contemplating further action, different from any that has been taken hitherto.

There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that, if we are to secure compliance with the decisions of the United Nations, we need to do more to deal with Serbian aggression than we have done so far. I am not sure that the necessary international political will exists to support the economic blockade that the United Nations is imposing. It is a sad irony that Cyprus --itself the subject of ethnic cleansing nearly 20 years ago--is now a base for money laundering to support that atrocious act in the former Yugoslavia. There is plenty of evidence that some countries are not ensuring that, for instance, money laundering and the trade in arms and important supplies are stopped.

I do not believe that we can simply stand by and let the present position regarding the peace plan drag on indefinitely. When I met Dr. Silajdzic this morning--I had

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already had a discussion with him some weeks ago--he made it clear that he did not want military intervention by ground troops in Bosnia ; what he did want were air strikes and an end to the arms embargo.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) : That may well be true from the point of view of the Bosnian Government, but my right hon. Friend should bear in mind the fact that air strikes without the withdrawal of British troops on the ground would simply put at risk many of my constituents, and those of other Cheshire Members.

Dr. Cunningham : I am coming to that. I am now explaining what Dr. Silajdzic asked me to support on behalf of the Labour party. I recognise that none of these proposals is without risk : anyone who did not recognise that would be deluding himself. I cannot accept, however, that ending the arms embargo, abrogating the mandatory resolution of the UN Security Council--either by taking unilateral action, or by seeking to change it-- and allowing additional arms to pour into Bosnia would do anything to bring about an early peace settlement. I do not believe that it would do other than extend and exacerbate war and conflict. Certainly, it would almost completely end any hope of maintaining an aid programme. The idea that it is the moral imperative of the west to arm the combatants and stand by while they go on slaughtering each other in ever greater numbers does not appeal to me at all.

Nor do I accept the argument put to me by Dr. Silajdzic and others that we have a moral duty to intervene in Bosnia. No one talks about our moral duty to intervene in Angola, where nearly three times as many people have been killed in a bloody civil war. No one says that we have a moral imperative to intervene in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Lady Olga Maitland : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Cunningham : Not for the moment.

If the fragile circumstances brokered by the United Nations in Cambodia collapse and we see a return of the atrocities perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge, will we be obliged to intervene ?

Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : I do not think that anyone wants more arms to go to the region. Does not my right hon. Friend agree, however, that if there is no willingness to create safe havens and no willingness to stop the Serbs, the Bosnians are entitled to have arms to defend themselves ? If we do not accept that, we are saying that we want the war to be ended by the defeat and slaughter of the Bosnian people. Arms are not the best option, but if we do nothing else, the Bosnians are entitled to defend themselves.

Dr. Cunningham : My hon. Friend is a little precipitate in suggesting that I am about to rule out all the other options, but I do not agree that ending the arms embargo would be sensible ; nor do I think it likely that the UN Security Council will be persuaded to agree to such a course.

Lady Olga Maitland : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way ?

Dr. Cunningham : I am sorry ; not for the moment.

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There are other options. If, through agreement and negotiation, safe havens can be approved, of course they should be created. I do not believe, however, that we can establish such havens quickly or simply by taking military action and putting in combat troops. That is a fundamental difference between my view and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short).

Indeed, the whole argument that somehow--quickly and militarily--we could impose a peace in Bosnia is not borne out by any sensible, rational examination of the circumstances. It would take weeks, if not months, to assemble a force, set up the logistical support and create the necessary airfields, safe harbours and supply lines. In the meantime, surely the predictable response of the Serbians would be simply to turn up their own aggression to grab as much land as they possibly could.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned air strikes. I know that they, too, are not risk-free. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition spelt out our view, clearly and concisely, nearly two weeks ago. He rightly pointed out :

"In recent days the tragic civil war in the former Yugoslavia has produced ever more appalling examples of barbarity as innocent civilians are made the victims of indiscriminate and brutal attack. The slaughter in Srebrenica and the horrific and ruthless pursuit of the inhuman concept of ethnic cleansing requires urgent re-examination of the policies adopted by the international community.

Last year the United Nations imposed mandatory sanctions against Serbia in an attempt to halt the persistent aggression on which it was engaged. Over the months we"

meaning the Labour party--have

consistently protested at the failure to make the economic and military sanctions effective. Long before now they should have been widened and intensified--and above all, enforced. The sad truth is that so far they have not been a sufficient or effective impediment to Serbian aggression."

My right hon. and learned Friend concluded--and I believe that he was right --that the

"time is now overdue for the United Nations to insist that its mandatory sanctions must be imposed urgently and completely so that the pressure upon Serbia becomes intense. Had this been done earlier, as we have consistently advocated, perhaps we would have avoided reaching the edge of the present abyss.

However we are now in a situation which requires a more urgent response it is now necessary for the United Nations to issue an ultimatum to Serbia-- that unless a ceasefire is made effective, the United Nations will authorise air strikes against Serbian lines of communication in Bosnia- Herzegovina. Such action is of course punitive, but I believe we are now at a stage where it is necessary to stop the flow of material to the war zones and to make the Serbs realise that the international community is capable of effective action in the course of implementing a resolve to bring the slaughter to an early end."

Mrs. Dunwoody rose--

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