House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Apr 1993

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend (Bexleyheath) : It is a privilege to take part in what is for many of us an emotional and important debate. We are debating the spiral of violence in the Balkans that we see nightly on our television screens. The media like to put labels around one's neck. I am a minimalist. Unlike the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), I want minimum intervention. I am frightened that we have become more involved in the quagmire in the past six months. If we have another debate in six months' time, I fear that we will find that we are even deeper in the mire.

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I will not be accused of being an appeaser or a user of weasel words. However, I beg hon. Members to be a little more cautious about committing British troops to combat for unlimited periods for confused and blurred objectives. Before I entered politics, I was an infantry soldier for 10 years--twice on active service. A driver was killed alongside me. It behoves all of us with such a background to remember that we are talking about human lives ; we are talking about our constituents and our countrymen.

Let us put the Balkans in some sort of perspective. The world's major religions meet in the Balkans. There has been ethnic feuding in the region for 300 years. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made an authoritative and excellent speech this afternoon, but perhaps he was a little optimistic in thinking that some time in the next 30 years all the fighting in that part of the world will miraculously come to an end.

The United Nations is desperately overstretched. Countries have not been paying their dues--and the United States is a bad offender. There is an unwillingness, which I entirely understand, for sovereign Governments to commit their troops to fight other people's wars. When we hear the demand for troops on the ground to be dispatched, it is not made clear exactly who will supply those troops. It is impossible for that world body, the United Nations, to deal with the 25 conflicts and the 70 potential flashpoints in the world. In the past, it has not tried to deal with them. In Cambodia, 1.5 million people were killed in the civil war--one fifth of the population was destroyed. It was not expected that the United Nations should intervene and become a third party to the dispute in Uganda or Biafra.

In Angola, we all know that UNITA lost the election but is now back fighting its corner. Is there a call in the House to take action against UNITA? I do not think so. We are being lead by the media--we must be cautious about this--like little dogs on a lead. The pictures are incredibly emotional. Many people saw the young boy who had been blinded the other day when meeting his brother. I told my wife on the telephone what I had seen on television and she said that the family cried when they saw it. That has been a common experience throughout the country.

The media are fickle. We all know that, if British Tornado pilots were to kill men, women and children while trying to take out a strategic bridge in Serbia, those pictures would be flashed around the world and those reporters in the media who are saying, "You must do something," would be saying, "My God, what have you done ? Bring them back."

As the Secretary of State well knows, I was cautious about the commitment of the Cheshires to Bosnia. In the past, humanitarian aid has been entirely a civilian matter organised by the United Nations. I am the first to pay tribute to the commanding officer of the Cheshires and to the sterling work that they have done. However, I still have reservations. If we switch on our radios at breakfast time tomorrow and hear that there has been some heavy shelling and 12 soldiers have been killed, will we all say how marvellous it was that that battalion was given that task? We have put them in a most invidious position.

I hope that the Secretary of State will explain why British soldiers have been used to bring out in body bags the bodies of those who have been massacred. I am told that it is because no one else was prepared to do it. It is insulting and humiliating for our officers to be held up at

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checkpoints by drunken bums with kalashnikovs. I query the role that the Cheshire battalion has been given. I wish that we did not intend to replace it. The winter is over. There is a tremendous job to be done in dispersing food. I do not deny that for a moment, but the end of the winter might have been the moment to bring that style of operation to a halt. By all means let us have medical personnel, engineers, communications experts and so on in Bosnia, but I am doubtful about keeping a British battalion there carrying out its present role.

We have been told that the way forward now is to allow the Muslims to have the arms they need. They are short of artillery and tanks. That is a crazy suggestion. It is nonsense to imagine that we would help to resolve the conflict by upping the scale of military hardware. Instead of rifles, there would be machine guns ; there would be precision-guided missiles and more and more rockets ; and more artillery would be introduced which would kill more people. That cannot be the solution.

There is a danger that the Serbs would get the surplus equipment sitting in Russia waiting for a home rather more quickly than the Muslims would get their equipment from their friends in the middle east. It could be that, within six weeks, the balance of power would be, if anything, more in favour of the Serbs than the Muslims. I ask hon. Members to think carefully before they call for surgical strikes. Heaven knows, we know what happened in Vietnam, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) said. Some of the American air force generals who talked about surgical strikes were responsible for the fiasco when the United States tried to get its hostages out of Tehran. Surgical strikes mean killing men, women and children. If strikes are to be effective, one needs observers on the ground. They entail involvement of people physically walking, using their radios to report back.

I appreciate that I am running out of time, Madam Deputy Speaker. My message is that we cannot bring about the good governance of every country in the United Nations. That is simply impossible. There is a danger that we would make matters worse. We can attempt to douse the flames. We should go in for humanitarian effort. But we cannot colonise the countries that are misbehaving or where human rights are a disgrace.

In the 1980s, the cry went up that something had to be done about the Lebanon. A bloody, bitter civil war was taking place and there was degradation and despair on all sides. We had no direct interests, but western countries felt that they should help. The multinational force was dispatched. What did it achieve? Some months later, more than 200 United States marines were killed. Shortly after that, the multinational force was withdrawn. No historian would say that it was anything other than a disaster.

I happened to be in Washington when that force was withdrawing. You may remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the United States used a world war two battleship, the USS Jersey, to shell the Chouf mountains. Each shell took out an area the size of a football pitch. We watched that on television in the United States. The image stuck in my mind. There was total misunderstanding in the United States of the local scene in Beirut, the local politics, the local ethnic communities and the intricacies of life in a city like Beirut. For heaven's sake let us learn from our previous mistakes and be cautious about greater involvement in the Balkans.

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8.4 pm

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) on his speech. It is remarkable in this place to find someone who is willing to admit that he has changed his mind. It is even rarer to find someone who is prepared to admit that he was wrong. He did that today in a most eloquent speech.

As the case for military intervention in Bosnia has gathered pace and won more support, a formidable chorus of voices has been raised against that case. We have heard echoes of those arguments in the debate today. We have been told that no British or western national interest is at risk in Bosnia so there is no reason why we should intervene militarily. We have been told that there are other bigger and better wars around the world so why should we become militarily involved in Bosnia. We have been told that there is no guarantee of success.

We have been told that massive numbers of ground forces would be required. We have been told that it will endanger the lives of UN forces and jeopardise humanitarian relief. We have been told that arming the Muslims would escalate the conflict and increase civilian death, injury and suffering. We have been told that air strikes against supply lines would endanger civilian life and cause Serbian retaliation. Of course, all that is true.

However, not only in the debate but previously, far less emphasis has been placed on the risks of doing nothing about what is happening in Bosnia. There is a formidable risk in inaction and failure to take effective military action. From day one, and certainly since British troops were first involved in the United Nations contingent, there has been uncertainty and confusion about not only Her Majesty's Government's political objectives but the whole exercise. The House has been denied a debate on this crucially important issue since last November. I believe that that is because the Government are embarrassed about public scrutiny of their policies, primarily because they have no coherent policy on Bosnia.

NATO military commanders had a perfect right this week to call for clear political direction. The job of the military is to arrange military power to achieve political objectives. There are many objectives at play in Bosnia. The overriding political objective is to stop genocide, stop territorial gain by military aggression, create safe havens, secure an effective ceasefire, encourage joint negotiations to secure future political settlement, secure adequate food, water and medical supplies, to release detainees, sustain displaced persons--let us not forget that there are between 2 million and 3 million in Bosnia now--and bring war criminals to book. I cannot see how those objectives can be achieved without military intervention mobilised by and through NATO under the overall command of the United Nations. That inevitably calls for a major ground force. Like other hon. Members, I came to that conclusion reluctantly, but nevertheless I accept the consequences of that and I say clearly and unequivocally that those forces need to be deployed in numbers that military commanders judge to be necessary. They should remain there until, in the view of military commanders and their political leaders, their job is complete.

I do not know how many will be required, but we must have to recall, as various military experts have done recently, that the Germans occupied the whole of

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Yugoslavia with five divisions. We should also understand that, if the Vance-Owen agreement were to be implemented-- and I agree with many who have spoken that that agreement is dead--that would require at least 100,000 military personnel and possibly many more.

All of the options we have had paraded not only in this debate but before, have implications for military ground forces. Ground forces, in my view, would be reinforced by air strikes against all those exercising aggression to secure territorial gain--I emphasise "all"--and against supply lines, airfields and other military targets. A total blockade is to be established and I believe that very severe action must be taken against those who are flouting the operation of sanctions--and we all know that they are numerous. Intense diplomatic effort must be made to isolate Serbia and to bring all parties to the negotiating table.

The main aggressor is undoubtedly Serbia. It has an enormous arms superiority and is responsible for many, if not most, of the atrocities which have been committed, including the systematic rape of women designed to humiliate and demoralise the Muslims. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) said that 200,000 have been killed. That includes 14,000 children under the age of 14. They have been slaughtered--and the bulk of them were Muslim.

The conflict has been met by hand-wringing and dithering inaction. That will be seen by many, especially those in the Islamic world, as part of a world wide conspiracy against Islam. We should take this factor on board if, in the future, we are to come to terms with the surge of nationalism and the rivalry between minorities--including ethnic and religious minorities. If we are to come to terms with the surge for the right to self -determination, for the right of people to decide their own destinies, the United Nations and the European Community must recognise those realities. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) was right to say that the United Nations and the European Community are singularly ill- equipped to deal with those political realities.

The hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) told me that when he visited the United Nations, its control room monitoring the conflict shuts down at the weekend. Is this the way in which the architects of the new world order intend to approach such intensely complex and complicated issues? I fear it is not and that we, the political leaders of this country, should ensure that the international forum that we charge with this responsible task should be properly equipped and resourced to carry it out.

I attended a broadcast debate recently in which a representative of The Times and the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham, (Mr. Hogg) participated. Lord Bonham-Carter intervened to say that that was not the first time that The Times and a Hogg had sung the same tune. He recalled that the Minister's father ran a by-election campaign in the 1930s, under the memorable slogan, "Vote Hogg and save your bacon."

I venture to submit that the stench of appeasement hangs over the Government--and, indeed, over every aggression.

This debate is long overdue. I hope that the voices that have been raised today calling for military intervention will grow and continue to gather popular support. Unlike many other hon. Members who have spoken, I am getting a great deal of pressure from constituents--and they are certainly not all Muslims--for Britain to intervene militarily and effectively. People have said to me that they are ashamed to be British at this particular juncture. I can understand their point of view.

I hope very much that when the Government respond to the debate they will recognise that if we authorise air strikes, inevitably there will be retaliation and a vital need for ground forces. Let us, for God's sake, ensure that those ground forces are properly organised and equipped to do the job.

8.14 pm

Mr. Michael Colvin (Romsey and Waterside) : Those of us who take part in this debate do so with mixed feelings of pride, anger, frustration and humility. We feel pride at the successes of our forces, and civilians too, in delivering humanitarian aid to Bosnia ; anger at what is going on in that country--the bloodshed, the rape and the ethnic cleansing ; frustration at our inability, so far, to stop the atrocities and humility because it is someone else's country that is being fought over by peoples whom we do not altogether understand, and because it is difficult, though not impossible, to define Britain's national interest. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) in fact defined it extremely well.

Before we look for an acceptable and workable plan for peace in Bosnia, it is as well to consider what caused those wars--I use the plural deliberately because too many people refer merely to a three-sided civil war. We should not forget that Bosnia, a sovereign state, has been invaded by Serbia.

Hostilities started because the cohesion of communism--the glue which held Yugoslavia together--was removed. Totalitarianism was suddenly replaced by tribalism. In potentially volatile, though heterogeneous communities, tolerance gave way to the fear of minority groups becoming second-class citizens, deprived of their rights, freedoms, property and even their limbs and their lives. Imagine the sudden awful realisation that their neighbour, with whom they and their forebears had co-existed for centuries, was their enemy and that their enemy's enemy was not their friend, but their enemy, too. That is what has happened in this ghastly triangular conflict and it has fanned the flames of war still further.

I do not believe that there was a sudden release of centuries of pent-up ethnic hatred when Yugoslavia fell apart, although I acknowledge that some settling of old scores has triggered repeated reprisals. The problems of former Yugoslavia were exacerbated by the western powers' rush to recognise the independence and sovereignty of former parts of that country without giving any copper-bottomed guarantees to minority groups.

It might have been possible to recognise Slovenia, but it was certainly not possible to recognise Croatia. The fact that no guarantees were given to the Serb minorities led directly to Serbia's invasion of that country. That was just

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one reason for the 1991 invasion : the other was Serbia's policy to create a greater Serbia and to drive through a northern corridor between Belgrade and the Adriatic.

Before we debate what should be done about Bosnia, we should consider the current situation in Croatia. UN Security Council resolution 743 and subsequent resolutions led to the establishment of UNPROFOR--the UN protection force. The most recent resolution, 815, extends the UN mandate until 30 June.

Croatia is a real test of the UN's ability to enforce such resolutions. At present 15,000 out of some 22,000 troops in former Yugoslavia are stationed in Croatia. They are drawn from 14 different countries. But Serbia is still in unlawful possession of vast areas of Croatia. Nothing has been done to persuade the Serbs to withdraw from those parts of the country that they have unlawfully occupied ; the United Nations has failed to remove them.

Many observers feel that the United Nations' failure in Croatia encouraged the Serbs to continue their military aggression and invade Bosnia. The credibility of the United Nations is at stake. Other belligerants around the world--of which there are many--will be encouraged by the UN's failure to enforce its Security Council resolutions. Bosnia is already paying the price. Who will be next? There are 25 wars now being waged throughout the world. The UN is involved in 17 of them and they are all civil wars.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : Twenty-six with Northern Ireland.

Mr. Colvin : What should the United Nations do in former Yugoslavia? It may be best to acknowledge that we should leave Croatia to one side at present and deal first with Bosnia, where the position is more serious. One option is to do nothing. That would be a disaster. It would reward Serbian aggression and encourage the Serbs to take further aggressive action and to turn to Kosovo, Macedonia and who knows where. Many contributors to today's debate have reminded us how appeasement encouraged Hitler.

We could lift the arms embargo and let the parties fight it out, in which case humanitarian aid would have to cease. I believe that arms supplies would increase, and conflict and bloodshed would escalate. To lift the arms embargo, we would have to persuade Russia--as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to agree, which it most certainly would not.

What about armed intervention? Military intervention would worsen the situation in former Yugoslavia. It would be difficult to define with clarity any military objectives. In addition, how would we withdraw if the policy failed? We have to acknowledge that Serbia has enough weapons and ammunition to fight a full-scale war for two years or more. The only way to stop the wheels of war turning is to have a full-scale blockade, but that will not work unless Russia, as well as Serbia's neighbours, Bulgaria and Romania, agree to co-operate. If a blockade is to be effective it must be coupled with a deadline. Unless an ultimatum is given to Serbia to co- operate, the blockade is unlikely to work.

What if the blockade is successful and there is a proper ceasefire? A growing number of people share the view that the Vance-Owen plan is now a non-starter, and a three-way partition of Bosnia is also ruled out. Therefore, there is no alternative but to return to the negotiating table and redraw the map of Bosnia. In any new negotiations,

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the Bosnian Serbs would be under far greater pressure to agree if a blockade was enforced. Only if the map is redrawn could the United Nations then be asked to set up a protectorate under chapter 12 of the UN charter. I believe that agreement on the map must come first ; then the protectorate can be established. The negotiations would stand a better chance of success if they took place in the knowledge that the protectorate would follow.

Even if a plan was agreed by all the parties in former Yugoslavia, it could be achieved only if the UN was prepared to send in troops to underpin it and make it work properly. If that worked, we should have to start thinking about giving the UN the resources to repeat the operation elsewhere. Bosnia presents the western powers with a problem which has serious implications for world peace and the future of the United Nations. I have already referred to 25 conflicts around the world, 17 of which already involve the UN, but there are another 50 or so flashpoints around the world where hostilities could break out at any time.

8.25 pm

Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South) : In view of the shortage of time, I shall merely pick up on one or two of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin). There have been continual references in the debate to the other flashpoints throughout the world, and the 25 wars--or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said, the 26 wars. I am sure that he was joking when he increased the number.

There is a difference in degree and character between those 25 wars and the position in former Yugoslavia, which is a legacy of the breakdown and the end of the cold war. Many of the other 25 wars are legacies of the cold war itself, with one side intervening on the part of another because the east or the west was involved. Such intervention increased the trouble as an attempt was made to secure victory for one particular combatant in the cold war. We must increasingly take account of those wars, but the position in former Yugoslavia is of immediate importance.

The hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside mentioned Serbian arms. There is no doubt that Serbia has a virtually limitless supply of arms and one of the best military complexes in its part of the world. It is ironic when people say that Russia is prepared to provide more arms to Serbia as the Serbians did not build up their military complex to defend themselves against the west, but against the east--the former USSR and its allies in the Warsaw pact. The idea that Russia will run to the aid of Serbia if the Bosnian nation is armed flies in the face of historical evidence.

It is easy to say--every hon. Member who has participated in the debate has done so--that we are appalled by the position in former Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia. It makes not one jot of difference whether we are appalled or not. If we are appalled, it will make no difference to the number of lives lost, people maimed and women raped. The only way that we can begin to assist is to do something as an international community or to enable the Bosnian nation to take up arms in its own self-defence.

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I shall stand back from the horror and seek to draw some conclusions from the mistakes that the international community has made. The present conflict involves some successes as well as errors.

The United Nations humanitarian aid programme has been a success, and a further success is represented by the fact that the states bordering the former Yugoslavia have not yet been drawn into the conflict. Thirdly, the belated safe city policy, which I hope will turn into a safe haven policy, will provide some succour in the coming months.

These successes, however, are far outweighed by the failures. First, there has been the lack of any overall objective, adopted either by the European Community or latterly by the western allies. Secondly, there was the precipitate recognition of the former republics of Yugoslavia. Thirdly, there was the Vance-Owen plan which is now seen, if not actively to be encouraging ethnic cleansing, at least implicitly to recognise it. Lastly, there is the blanket arms embargo on the former republic of Yugoslavia.

There is no doubt in my mind that these failings have fuelled Serb and Croatian nationalism in Bosnia, encouraging Bosnian Serbs and Croats to take up arms, as they have done in the past 12 months--ably assisted and abetted by their masters in Serbia and Croatia. In the meantime, the multi- ethnic Bosnian Government are virtually powerless, and, despite their cries for international assistance, they remain defenceless and they have not a cat in hell's chance of the international community exhibiting the political will to intervene in sufficient numbers to separate the combatants in Bosnia. If we do not realise this, we fail to understand one of the principal motives of western policy.

Air strikes are becoming increasingly popular among armchair generals. When they were used in Iraq and elsewhere, many people were critical of them, but now they seem to be becoming the day's best treat. Air strikes are nothing but a figleaf for military inaction. Unless they are the precursor of further military action, they will make no difference. And to pretend that air strikes will make any significant difference to the position of the Bosnian Government flies in the face of the evidence.

The arms embargo is virtually a pro-Serbian and pro-Croatian policy, since both countries have access to huge amounts of arms already. The Bosnian Serbs can acquire further supplies from the Serbian republic, while the Bosnian Government and people are denied the elementary right of self- defence.

The policy implied here is that a political solution in Bosnia will be reached only when the Serbs and Croats have realised all their territorial ambitions, whereupon the Bosnian Government will be reluctantly forced to accept the political fact of a rump Bosnian state.

In the meantime, people still advocate no intervention, but until this military and political stalemate has been achieved, thousands more men, women and children--Bosnian Muslims, Bosnians Serbs and Bosnian Croats-- will be maimed or killed. That is intolerable. I am driven to the view that the west intends to take no action, but I believe that we should at least admit that the Bosnian Government and nation have the right of self- defence, the right to defend the lives of their people and to try to defend the integrity of their territory. The

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only way of doing that and the only positive policy that we can offer the Bosnian Government is a partial lifting of the arms embargo so that the Bosnian Government can acquire the elementary means of self-defence which the west has been denying them.

8.34 pm

Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton and Wallington) : At this stage in a debate of this character, many of the best and most necessary points will already have been made. Having listened to most of the debate, I believe that I can add only a little of value, so I shall try to be as brief as I can.

I want to look at these important questions under three disarmingly simple rhetorical headings. The first is : why are we in this position? When I say "we", I mean not only the House of Commons--it is interesting to speculate why this matter has not been fully debated here before--but the unfortunate people of Bosnia. Why are they in this tragic position?

I also want to say a word or two about some of the options already touched on fairly fully in this debate ; and, thirdly, I want to discuss what I believe to be the least bad way forward in this unhappy situation.

Clearly, the original cause of these difficulties was the collapse of the communist yoke in Yugoslavia itself. Whatever else one says about the former Yugoslavia, it worked in a miraculous way to hold in check all the ethnic differences that have now bubbled out, with the tragic consequences that go under the headings of ethnic cleansing and tribalism. But there is more to it than that. The influence of the mass media on both politicians and public has had its effect, and not only by confusing and troubling us in the so-called free world ; it has also had dramatic effects on the dramatis personae in the former Yugoslavia.

As we saw in the Iraq-Kuwait conflict and on other occasions, the media not only manipulate us, willingly or unwillingly ; they are also used themselves, wittingly or unwittingly, by the participants. I have heard awful but true stories from people who have been out to Bosnia about the way in which certain parties to the conflict have wrought havoc and destruction on their own vulnerable peoples so as to make a point on CNN or world television.

So, we need to be not only idealistic and moralistic but also cynical. It is hard to hold all these perspectives in the mind at one time.

The issue has already been influenced by Lady Thatcher. I have not heard her much mentioned in this debate, but her influence on the American public is still considerable--and on the way in which opinion evolves within the Beltway in Washington.

Then there is the nature of American politics, something about which many of us know a bit at first or second hand. In the past, the only way the Americans have been mobilised for war, civil or abroad, has been by introducing the moral imperative. That can be very dangerous in situations that do not lend themselves to moral courses of action.

There is also the difficulty of the historical precedents, most of which are beguiling and false and some overlooked, which are used in cases like this. I do not believe that the Gulf war is a legitimate precedent for what is possible or desirable in this case. If hon. Members have had amnesia about some of the historical issues, they have

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had amnesia about the inability of the most powerful nation in the world--the Americans--to subjugate the Vietcong over many years in Vietnam and the equal inability of the Soviets to subjugate the Afghan rebels in territory which is perhaps a little more similar, in topographical terms, to the territory in Bosnia.

What should we do next? The options have been well rehearsed. I believe that we should continue the humanitarian aid effort plus what the Foreign Secretary described as the peace process. He was right to describe it as a peace process, a phrase that is also applied in the middle east context. The Vance-Owen peace plan is, as has been said in this debate on many occasions, now looking a bit dated and irrelevant.

We must turn the economic sanctions, the effect of which has been rather pitiful so far, into a meaningful economic blockade. For example, I understand that until very recently any lorry or land traffic which could claim that it was in transit through Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia was not affected by any meaningful restrictions. Clearly, things were labelled as being in transit and then, surprise, surprise, they ended up in the relevant place to add to the warfare.

We must also consider the use of selective air strikes. That proposal has been at the heart of this debate. I see only three possible rationales for such a tactic. The first would be as a placebo to make us feel better, and we need only state that for it to be rejected.

The second rationale would be to use selective air strikes as a controlled experiment to test the reaction of the Serbs to see whether such action had any effective leverage over their desire or otherwise to come to the negotiating table. That is the most respectable reason for considering selective air strikes. However, it is not a conclusive reason.

The third rationale, which is the most likely because of the dynamic of escalation, would be to use selective air strikes as yet another step towards a full military commitment which would also involve substantial forces on the ground. I believe that the unwisdom of that was well expressed by Sir Richard Vincent, and I do not have to repeat what he said.

Were we to use ground troops in a peacemaking rather than a peacekeeping role, we would effectively be taking sides to punish aggression. That is a perfectly honourable thing for a nation or group of nations to do, but we must be very clear about the chances of that improving the situation at the end of the day.

Who really are the aggressors? Is Serbia the only aggressor? Obviously that is not the case. There are many other aggressors and no one is really clean. Should we rule out lifting the arms embargo as irresponsible and counterproductive? Yes, I believe that we should. It has been clear throughout this debate that this would be like throwing petrol on a bonfire. Most of the weapons would probably end up in the hands of the Serbs and Croats, and not in the hands of the Muslims, because they have more hard currency, better connections and a larger critical mass of territory to use for that purpose. The lessons of history should teach us that it is nearly always a bad idea to edge backwards into a policy in which we do not believe and have not thought through. That would be a fair description of what is happening in Washington right now, and it explains to a large extent why President Clinton is taking an inordinately long time for someone with his razor-sharp intellect to reach some sensible conclusions.

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What, then, is the least bad way forward? I believe that it is to combine a policy based on our national interest-- after all, this is the British House of Commons and our first responsibility is to our voters and to our people--in an area where our national interest is not greatly engaged in the outcome, disagreeable though that may be to some people, with sensible humanitarian efforts and a certain ambiguity about the use of force. I understand the points made by my right hon. Friends the Members for Bridgwater (Mr. King) and for Guildford (Mr. Howell) about maintaining ambiguity. If we do not do that, we undercut the threat of force.

That means maintaining the food and medical aid, persisting with the movement of vulnerable people which is a very useful humanitarian activity. It includes tightening sanctions to the extent that they become effectively an economic blockade on Serbia. In that context, we should exhort the Russians and even use leverage on them, now that the referendum is out of the way, to owe us one and pay us one back in return.

We have been unusually generous to President Yeltsin and to the Russian people in recent times. It is time to call in our IOU if there is any danger of the blockade of Serbia being undermined. Above all, we must resist military escalation, which I believe may mean the necessity for firm, quiet, private advice from our Prime Minister to the President.

I remind the House that about 40 years ago Clem Attlee had to go very swiftly and necessarily, at the height of the Korean war and in slightly more serious circumstances than those that we face now, to dissuade President Truman, for whom I had the highest regard, from allowing General MacArthur to use the nuclear weapon against the Chinese and North Koreans.

In retrospect, we can see that was the right decision and a timely intervention. I hope that it will not be necessary for our Prime Minister to do that in quite such a dramatic form. However, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will act as a restraining influence, because I believe that it is not self-evident that the British national interest is such that we should involve ourselves deeply in a process which would only escalate and probably end in tears, not just for the tragic peoples of Bosnia, but also ultimately for the British people themselves.

8.45 pm

Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby) : This is the nightmare debate that I have feared for two and a half years. As long ago as 1985, I addressed a meeting of the British Yugoslav Society in a Committee Room of this House and I pointed out the dangers of the over- decentralisation of that country as it was then. In April 1991, I sent a letter to the Prime Minister, who replied :

"Under CSCE we support Yugoslavia's unity and also maintain the right of its peoples to self-determination. We thus believe that it is for all Yugoslavs to determine their country's future." I was very concerned that we were not giving enough assistance to the federal Government at that time. We even failed to provide assistance through the know-how fund. Nevertheless, I was pleased to be able to tell the Foreign Secretary that I was glad that he had an even-handed approach to the situation in that country.

That was true in August 1991 when I first met Milosevic and Tudjman and was able to tell them that our country stood by the integrity of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, in

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January 1992 the British Government gave in to pressure from those with less sagacity than the Government--simply, I suggest, because of the opt-out on the Maastricht treaty--to the premature recognition of Croatia despite the Badinter report set up by Lord Carrington. That folly led to further folly. We then recognised Bosnia- Herzegovina. People have been talking about the Bosnians as a nation. There is no nationality of Bosnian. They are Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Even the Muslims are Serbs. They are the descendants of those who converted from the Orthodox religion to the Muslim religion during the time of the Ottoman empire.

People want to orchestrate action against the Serbs because the Serbs have committed atrocities. At least I had the guts to say to Milosevic, "Look, what are you doing in Kosovo?" I faced him and asked him that. I also faced Tudjman because the Croats are by no means innocent in all this.

Recent ceasefires have been broken by the Muslims. General Wahlgren, the Swedish commander of UNPROFOR, is reported in the New York Times as saying that the ceasefire was holding in Bosnia until the Muslims in Srebrenica broke it. He said that they broke it because they wanted to invoke western intervention. An article in a Los Angeles periodical, which I could produce, states that General McKenzie, the commander of the UNPROFOR forces until November 1992, said that every ceasefire that he had negotiated was broken by the Muslims. The reason he gave was that they wanted to get the west to intervene on their behalf.

There are 15,000 or 16,000 British troops in Bosnia, but the HVO--the Croat national army--has 60,000 troops there. It is not a Bosnian-Croat army. Colonel Bob Stewart was justly angry at the atrocities committed by the HVO. He said, "The HVO said no cameras' and I told them to get stuffed." He was right. The commander in chief of that army is the President of Croatia, President Tudjman, but that army is not the worst. The HOS troops wear Utashe arm bands and flaunt the swastika in areas around Mostar.

When I was in Geneva, the military adviser to David Owen told me that one of the biggest problems faced by the British Army was the HOS, but we still hear orchestrated campaigns about Serbian aggression. More than 60 per cent. of the land in Bosnia-Herzegovina was owned by Serbian people when the conflict started, but only 34 per cent. of the population are Serbs. Only one large town which could be described as Muslim has been taken by the Serbs--the town which controls the water supply to Banja Luka, which is a Serbian stronghold.

I have seen Bosnian Muslims at the Palic refugee camp in the north of Serbia looked after by Serbs and the International Red Cross. It is untrue to say that every Muslim is at risk. Ironically, those who are calling for military intervention in the former Yugoslavia are the same people who call for troops to be pulled out of Ireland. When an Italian plane was shot down by the Croats, people said, "Bomb the Serbs." When a French United Nations convoy was attacked by Muslims and people were killed, there was the same cry. On 26 January, the Croats launched their attack on Kriena and the cry was "Bomb the Serbs." When one of our soldiers was killed by Croat bullets, people again said, "Bomb the Serbs." The

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same cry was heard even when it was discovered that the attack on a bread queue in Sarajevo was by Muslims. On Friday there were television reports of Croat atrocities and on television last night we saw Muslims demanding to be allowed to search British tanks for civilians. Yet in both cases people said, "Bomb the Serbs." My party talks about air strikes without understanding the consequences, not only for the civilian population but for humanitarian aid because the strikes would be on bridges across which that aid pours into Bosnia from Serbia. Most of the convoys come from Belgrade, across bridges such as that which I saw a few months ago. That is not a rational formulation of policy--it is giving in to an emotional spasm.

The Vance-Owen plans has often been held up as though it were sacrosanct, but in March 1992 there was another plan which all three parties agreed to sign. But then the Muslims withdrew. There are alternatives to the Vance- Owen plan. We must not become hung up on the idea that that is the only possibility on offer. Churchill once said that "jaw, jaw" was better than "war, war." Neither air strikes nor military intervention will solve the problem.

People do not think about the political consequences of intervention in Serbia. Two years ago, I spoke in the House about Vojislav Seselj. When I met Milosevic at that time I said, "The more bloodshed there is, the more this escalates and the more your position is at risk." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Seselj, the fascists, the chetnik radical party, the people who were responsible for the murder of 17 Croats in the area around Osijek." He said, "Oh no, they have only one or two Members of Parliament." In the election in December they won 75 of the 250 seats in the Yugoslav Parliament.

Air strikes, more military intervention or even tightening sanctions will not destroy Milosevic in favour of democratic forces. It will harness the decent Serbian people behind Seselj and people like him and war criminals. That would be piling folly upon folly. Last December I met Albanians in Kosovo who are under moderate leadership. They have legitimate complaints and need to have their human rights protected. The CSCE is there now and I was glad to hear the Foreign Secretary say that that will be strengthened. War in Bosnia will encourage extremists among the Albanians.

8.55 pm

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) : The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) made a powerful speech. The information that I have shows that there is little difference between the atrocities committed by all three parties to the conflict, the Serbs, the Croats and the Muslims in Bosnia. I say that on the basis of a visit there in February and some discussions. I agree that the Serbs are responsible for most of the aggression, but that does not mean that they commit the majority of the atrocities.

I heard it said today that because such atrocities are happening in the former Yugoslavia we should be ashamed to be British. That is most unfair. We should feel a sense of shame that human beings can behave in that way towards one another. They are worse than animals because animals rarely kill, other than for food. Through our soldiers we can feel a sense of pride in the courage and skill that they have dedicated to the distribution of humanitarian aid.

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