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Mr. Jacques Arnold : My hon. Friend referred to the weak judicial system in Colombia. It is worth bearing in mind that the system may be weak because murder threats are made against the judges, magistrates and their families. Our country has supported the Colombian judicial system by providing technical expertise and the like.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory : I certainly accept that we must recognise the difficulties of enforcing laws in a country where intimidation is rife.
Another new feature is that Latin American countries are pursuing the policies of the open market and encouraging international trade and investment. No longer do they seek state-owned, state-run solutions to all those problems. So in many ways, the government and administration of those countries are improving, and have improved out of all recognition during the past decade or more.
Serious problems remain. I have mentioned human rights. I also endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Rhondda about the drugs problem, which is serious and must be dealt with. We are playing our part. Last year, the Prime Minister visited Colombia and the Home Secretary visited Colombia, Peru and Venezuela to assess the drug situation and see what we can do to help.
Another encouraging feature that has been mentioned is that those countries now seek to play a responsible role
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on the wider world scene. The hon. Member for Islington, North was rather dismissive about the help given by Argentina during the Gulf war, but Conservative Members welcome the fact that those democratic countries are now willing to make their own contribution to United Nations peacekeeping efforts throughout the world. We wish to encourage them to do so.I shall now say a little more about this country's relations with Latin America. Many hon. Members have drawn attention to the visits--at a political level and to assist in bilateral trade--of Latin American statesmen to this country and of our Ministers to that continent. I mentioned the visit of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to Colombia and Brazil last year. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary went to Mexico in 1992, and more recently went to Argentina and Chile. I have already spoken about the Home Secretary's visits in connection with the drugs menace.
My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade recently visited Mexico and Argentina, and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently returned from a successful trade promotion visit to Mexico and Chile. I hope to visit the region during the recess, and I shall make a particular point of visiting Brazil. I know that that will please my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham.
I welcome visits to this country. The President of Uruguay came to London last month as a guest of the Government, and President Gaviria of Colombia is here at the moment.
I cannot miss the opportunity in a debate about Latin America to refer to Argentina. It is more than three years since we restored diplomatic relations with that country, and we attach a high priority to returning to as near a full and normal relationship as possible. There are deep and historic links between the two countries that should draw us together, but in discussing political links and developing trade, we must never forget the Falklands aspect. Diplomatic relations were restored only on the basis that we leave the sovereignty issue to one side while discussing other practical matters.
I regret that the Government of Argentina continue to press their claim. President Menem, who has in many ways done much for Argentina, nevertheless repeatedly asserts that the Falklands will be Argentinian by the year 2000. I reject that, as will every hon. Member. We have no doubts whatever about our sovereignty over the islands. I hope that the Government of Argentina will reconsider their continuing claim.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood rightly praised Canning house. In its 50th anniversary year, I am also pleased to pay tribute to the work of Canning house. It was founded during the second world war and was a visionary undertaking at that time. It has become a crossroads and a meeting place in London for Latin American presidents, Ministers, academics, business men and, of course, parliamentary colleagues.
Visiting presidents from Uruguay and now Colombia always make a point of meeting at Canning house. Its
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reputation remains high because of the quality of its staff and the way in which it has always been led. It makes a vital contribution to British-Latin American relations. I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood said about his perception of the need for continuing financial support. I hope that all hon. Members will continue to avail themselves of its facilities, and that they will join me in wishing Canning house success during the next 50 years. Several hon. Members mentioned trade with Latin America. It is too low. We want to increase our exports, and I am glad that last year we achieved a 20 per cent. increase. In 1992, exports to Latin America were worth some £1.3 billion. I expect that trend to continue in view of our continuing efforts.Some hon. Members emphasised the need for Export Credits Guarantee Department cover. That is under constant review, but it has not been available in a number of countries for some years because of previous defaults on debt. We want to resume cover as soon as possible. Cover in Argentina resumed in June and in Paraguay it resumed in July. I hope that that list will be extended as economic reforms, open markets and a liberal trading system take hold in other countries as well.
My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade gives a great deal of emphasis to trade with Latin America. A number of export promoters have been appointed, and we have two business-led trade facilitation groups, one for Colombia and one for Mexico. The Government's export services have produced a marketing plan for Latin America, concentrating initially on the top six countries. Aid is also important. In 1990, we announced that we would double the aid programme, though admittedly from a low base. It is focused primarily on technical co-operation, training, health programmes and the importance of encouraging management of sustainable natural resources.
I must emphasise that, although aid is important, the resources released by freer trade are much more important in the long term. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood criticised the CAP. Even so--and despite our continuing efforts to reform the CAP--it is worth noting that 65 per cent. of Latin American exports to Europe enter the Community duty free. We are in the vanguard of member states pressing for a successful conclusion to the Uruguay round. If we can achieve success in global free trade, it will release far greater resources than any conceivable aid programme.
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. Our relations with Latin America are enormously assisted by the presence in the House of a group of hon. Members with knowledge, expertise and interest in that region. If any hon. Members will be visiting that region during the summer recess, they should let the Foreign Office know, and we will endeavour to give them all the assistance and briefing that may be required.
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Yugoslavia
9.31 pm
Mr. Calum Macdonald (Western Isles) : I am heartened by the number of hon. Members who are present and who, presumably, hope to speak during the debate. It is testimony to the intense and continuing dismay felt by hon. Members on both sides of the House at the degeneration of the position in Bosnia, and the continuing lack of international will to do anything about it.
The Minister often claims that there is no political or domestic will in the House or the country. I genuinely think that he is utterly wrong to make that claim. I think that there is a huge groundswell of opinion among ordinary people in the country that the United Kingdom should be doing much more than it has over the past two years. That opinion is widely reflected in many
newspapers--certainly among the journalists reporting from Bosnia--and it is widely felt in the House. I have no doubt that the Government could secure a broad consensus in favour of a stronger stand, if they wished to take that initiative.
A number of my colleagues have been most eloquent on this subject for what seems to be a depressingly long time, notably the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). I first spoke in the House on this subject as long ago as 13 November 1991, when Dubrovnik and Vukovar were being bombarded and flattened. I called then for military measures to be taken to halt Serbian aggression, but unfortunately, as we all know, nothing was done. Resolutions aplenty were passed but never implemented, or never implemented with sufficient force. The aggression continued in Croatia, as it then was, intensified and inevitably spread into Bosnia, with all the horror that we now know.
I went to the Library to see how many resolutions have been passed. I was given the weighty collection of paper that I have with me--I might almost say, "I have in my hand a piece of paper." The collection happens to be the 41 resolutions that have been passed during the past 23 months. They have been passed but never fully implemented and, in essence, have changed nothing in former Yugoslavia.
I shall emphasise that point by referring to one of the 41 resolutions. It was passed on 6 May this year and concerned safe areas. In the resolution, the UN declared that Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and other threatened areas--in particular the towns of Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac and Srebrenica--should be treated as safe areas by all parties concerned, and should be free from armed attacks and from any other hostile acts.
The resolution went on to demand the immediate cessation of armed attacks and any hostile act against the safe areas and demanded free and unimpeded access to all the safe areas in the republic of Bosnia. Since that resolution was passed, 400 people have been killed and 2, 500 wounded in Sarajevo alone, one of the supposed safe areas. The Minister should reflect seriously on the long-term consequences of the debasement of the prestige of the UN, on the currency of international diplomacy and on the prestige of the west--particularly the liberal democracies--by the continued and constant failure to implement and enforce the resolutions the UN has passed.
The Minister has chastised hon. Members for raising inflated expectations of what can be done in former
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Yugoslavia. The Government, however, have put their signatures to all the resolutions. They have helped to draft all the resolutions, including the resolution on safe areas. The Government have sadly failed to do anything to implement their declarations.The message that I hope will come out of tonight's debate is that, despite the delay and despite the pattern of appeasement, it is not too late. Europe can still rediscover its will and its conscience. By taking action now, we can still turn back the tide of nationalism and neo-fascism that is welling up in the Balkans and which threatens to spread across central and eastern Europe.
The Government often give the impression that they are playing for time. They give the impression that, if they can stretch out the endless series of resolutions and play out the endless sequence of conferences and negotiations for long enough, the public will eventually become disinterested. Those of us in the House and elsewhere who want to see stronger action taken will also become disheartened and will accept or reconcile ourselves to what Ministers like to call "realities on the ground." That is not what is happening, however. As Sarajevo has teetered on the brink of collapse, the calls for stronger action have become louder and more numerous. On Friday more than 80 American congressmen signed an open letter to President Clinton calling for a 72-hour ultimatum to lift the siege of Sarajevo and the other besieged towns, and advocated the use of force if it was not complied with. General Morillon, released finally from the leash of his political masters, has called for military action and air strikes to lift the siege on Sarajevo. He made it plain that in his view that was feasible.
Last week several of us listened upstairs in a Committee room to Larry Hollingsworth, the United Nations special representative for humanitarian aid in Bosnia. He stated his view that we should have been firm with the Serbs from the outset of the delivery of humanitarian aid and that if we had been firm and decided that aid should be delivered on our terms without negotiating and compromising with the Serbs, the aid could have been much more effectively delivered. He added that it was time to stop bargaining and negotiating with the Serbs and time to start using force to deliver that aid.
Bit by bit, the Government's claims that all the expert advice from humanitarian workers, the military and the diplomatic corps is against intervention are being shown to be grossly and gravely misleading. A group of us visited the NATO headquarters recently. We left there with the clear impression that the most senior officials in NATO were satisfied that intervention was not only feasible and advisable but urgently required. We received a clear impression that there was intense frustration at the failure at the political level to take the steps necessary to resolve the crisis.
When Ministers search for an excuse for non-intervention, they often say that there is a civil war in former Yugoslavia and Bosnia and that we cannot become involved in a civil war. Of course, communities and civilians are caught up in the war. In that sense, it is civil. Indeed, the main brunt is being borne by the civilian population as it is deliberately targeted and terrorised by Serbian and other forces. However, it is not a civil war in the sense that its primary source and inspiration is internal and
domestic--absolutely not.
It is contradictory for the Government to continue to trot out that claim as an excuse for their lack of action.
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Last December, at the summit of the European Council in Edinburgh, it was plainly stated by the Heads of State who gathered there that, although there were civil aspects to what was happening in former Yugoslavia, the primary responsibility lay with the Serbian Government in Belgrade. They stated that plainly in the communique from the European Council, in which they made a declaration on former Yugoslavia. That was in December last year. Paragraph 2 of the communique reads :"The primary responsibility for the conflict, and its brutality, lies with the present leadership of Serbia and of the Bosnian Serbs The Serbian authorities in Belgrade bear an equal responsibility for fomenting the conflict."
So the argument that it is a civil war in which we cannot intervene simply cannot be used with consistency by the Minister. He can search and grope for that excuse in desperation, but he cannot use it consistently because it has been rejected by the European Council. Nor can the war be confined to a particular local area or its consequences restricted to the Balkans-- another frequent excuse for inaction. Sometimes it seems that it is Government strategy to cordon off the war in Bosnia and to allow it to burn itself out. I firmly believe now, just as I did in November 1991, that that is an utterly false hope. The Bosnians will not stop fighting. In the short term, they may be forced to accept some kind of ethnically based settlement --but that will not last.
A radicalised and embittered rump state in Bosnia will not accept the so- called reality on the ground, any more than the Palestinians have accepted the so-called reality in the middle east since the last war. The Croats will not accept either the effect of annexation of one third of their territory. The recovery of what are viewed as occupied lands will remain the overriding goal of future Croatian policy and of any rump state created in Bosnia.
It is not just the Bosnians and Croats who will not desist in the long term. The more that sanctions threaten economic collapse in Serbia, the more that President Milosevic will be compelled to continue his policy of ethnic cleansing and territorial consolidation. Carving out a greater Serbia is about the only means of economic growth and the only source of political credibility and legitimacy available to Milosevic's regime.
There can be no doubt that when the fighting in Bosnia subsides, Kosovo will be next. As Serbian policy there gradually escalates from intimidation to terror and to ethnic cleansing eventually, at what point will we draw the line--or will we simply wait for a general Balkans war ?
I cannot emphasise too strongly that the belief that a carve-up of Bosnia into territorial spheres of influence between Tudman's Croatia and the Serbia of Milosevic and Arkan, with a small rump Muslim statelet crushed between, is a recipe for any kind of stability and long-term settlement in the Balkans is dangerous nonsense and a delusion.
Today's issues of The Independent has an article explaining what needs to be done now. The immediate need is to lift the sieges of safe areas. The wider political objective must be to restore a plural, intercommunal, political and civil society in the whole of Bosnia--if necessary, in the way that the allies reconstructed German society after the second world war.
Two measures are necessary to enable that wider political role to be achieved efficiently. The United Nations must declare the whole of Bosnia as being under its protection. That would be welcomed not just by the
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Bosnian Government, who have already suggested that possibility, and by the population of that country, but by the majority of the people of Croatia and by many in Serbia as well. The UN must make it absolutely clear that its purpose is to guarantee the civil and social rights of all the communities equally within Bosnia under an impartial UN-administered interim Government.The second measure necessary to ensure the efficient achievement of the wider political objective is for the UN to delegate to NATO, and primarily to its European members, the military task of lifting the sieges and of disarming the warring forces within Bosnia. The maximum tactical and strategic freedom should be allowed to NATO forces to fulfil those missions. Anything short of that formula will make the overall task that much more difficult. For example, to restrict the political objective simply to protecting the safe areas is a recipe for a second Gaza and an endless stalemate, while inhibiting the tactical freedom of NATO in its ability to respond to events on the ground will mean having to deploy many more soldiers to accomplish the same task.
The figure of 70,000 to 80,000 troops to implement the Vance-Owen plan, for example, was a deliberate overestimate by NATO commanders, intended to compensate for the variable quality of UN troops, their lack of common training and the lack of an efficient command and control centre at the United Nations. Delegation to NATO would dramatically reduce the number of troops required and increase the efficiency of the operation. That is not to criticise the United Nations, or those involved in trying to implement UN peacekeeping missions. It is not their fault that the member Governments of the United Nations hve not supplied the resources and the wherewithal to allow the UN to carry out these missions effectively and properly.
Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : Does my hon. Friend agree that when we visited NATO we were told that all it took to enforce the safe areas strategy was the commitment of 8,000 troops and a change in the rules of engagement? Does he also agree that we were told that NATO had done the work and felt that this was a European responsibility and that European troops, at that very small level, should be committed? Furthermore, does my hon. Friend agree that we were told that, although Bangladesh and Pakistan had committed troops, Europe had not committed enough troops for the strategy to be implemented? Does not all that symbolise a lack of political will?
Mr. Macdonald : It represents an appalling abdication of the responsibility of European Governments, as my hon. Friend points out, that they have absolutely failed to fulfil the request for the minimum number of troops required to enforce the safe areas policy. Of the 23 observers or monitors that the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe said that it would be putting into Kosovo to monitor the situation there, I understand that only eight or nine have been put in place and that some of them are Americans, not Europeans. The Serbian authorities are making difficulties and are refusing to co-operate with European Governments in Kosovo over the monitoring of the situation there.
The sad fact is that the entire United Nations peacekeeping budget for 1992, covering its tasks in the Balkans, Cambodia, Angola and elsewhere, was less than
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the combined budgets of the New York city fire and police departments for the same year. It is no wonder, therefore, that problems have arisen in Somalia and difficulties in Bosnia. The lesson is that the onus is all the greater upon the Governments of Europe and the Governments who comprise NATO to take a lead. There are now 4 million people who depend upon humanitarian aid in Europe, 3.5 million of whom are still in the Balkans. Half a million of them are now outside the Balkans. Of those 500,000, 300,000 are in Germay, 80,000 in Switzerland, 73,000 in Austria and 40,000 in Hungary. In Britain, there are only 4,424. We do not need to look much further for an explanation of the British Government's complacency regarding the position in the former Yugoslavia. They have repeatedly insisted that British interests are not directly involved. There is no doubt that we should not be adopting that attitude if we, like Germany, had not 4,000 but 300,000 refugees living among us.It is deeply ironic that a Government who have spent more than a year of parliamentary time on ensuring the ratification of the treaty of European union still, apparently, have no idea, no concept, of the significance of that to which they spent a year trying to persuade us to put our signature. The treaty of European union should at least signify or recognise the existence of a new Europe : a Europe without barriers and of common citizens. It should recognise a Europe in which Britain is no longer an island apart and a Europe in which Germany's refugee problem is also our refugee problem.
Right up to 1940, British Governments considered the fate of the Low countries of the Netherlands and Belgium as being of vital national interest to Great Britain. The trouble with the Foreign Office is that it still thinks that way. It has still to adjust to the new Europe which was created after 1945. The Balkans are to the European Community today what the Low countries were to British Governments in the past--an area of vital and immediate interest and importance on which British Governments simply cannot turn their backs.
Sadly, we can have no great expectation that action will follow this debate. Most of us in the Chamber today are just junior Back Benchers and we are ranged against a Government who claim to have the weight of diplomatic and military opinion on their side--and they claim that falsely, I would add, for the reasons that we have been given by the Government.
We will not accept what the Government try to tell us is now inevitable. We will not accept the extinction of a democracy and multi-cultural civilisation in Bosnia. We will never accept a settlement that is based on the principle of apartheid in the middle of Europe.
The American Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, has described Bosnia as a problem from hell. He is wrong. Bosnia is a problem not from hell but straight from the pages of European history. The way to solve the problem can also be found in the history books. The lesson to be learnt from the history books is something that we should all have learnt 50 years ago : one cannot pacify aggression by appeasement. The only way to stop aggression is to stand up to it.
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9.57 pmMr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) who made an excellent speech and who outlined with controlled passion and lucidity the situation that we are debating this evening. I simply regret the fact that the Chamber is so empty even though, for a Consolidated Fund debate, I acknowledge that it is quite full. The contrast between last Thursday and Friday and tonight is stark, yet the relative importance of the subject discussed, if we think about it for a moment, is also in stark contrast. What we are discussing this evening is, in its far-reaching consequences as well as in respect of its own intrinsic importance, a far graver situation than that which exercised us last week.
I have been a Member of deeply ashamed. I do feel ashamed about what has happened in the Balkans and about the lack of will and resolution displayed, particularly by the European powers, in the face of this catalogue of misery, crime and depravity. Two hundred thousand fellow Europeans have been slaughtered in Bosnia in the past 16 months, about 40,000 women have been raped, about 750,000 people have been wounded, many of them children and many of them badly mutilated, and 2 million of our fellow Europeans have been displaced--uprooted from their homes. The monuments and buildings which symbolised their culture have been wantonly destroyed or vandalised.
That is an appalling catalogue of desecration which impoverishes and shames us all that it should have happened. That it should have happened as the first great repercussion of the end of the cold war makes it even more shaming and shameful.
For a long time, the hon. Member for Western Isles and I have been involved in seeking to draw attention to those problems and to urge action. He and I were among those who, when Dubrovnik, a world heritage site, was being shelled--that alone was a reason for the rest of the world to take an interest--urged that a naval patrol and an air patrol should be put in place. I firmly believe, although I could never prove it nor could anyone disprove it, that had resolute action been taken then, we would probably not be having this debate tonight and many thousands of people would still be living in Bosnia in peace, accord and amity, as they had lived for generations.
I recently stayed with some friends. The wife was a Serb--from Mostar--and she said to me that in her childhood there was no more peaceful society. People got on well together, they lived side by side, they enjoyed each other's company, they respected each other's cultures, and they had a common culture, too. The word "multi-ethnic" is often tossed around without much thought or regard, but Sarajevo was a multi-ethnic city. Its mosques were among its most glorious monuments, but its churches also were revered and respected by people of all persuasions and name, yet in the past 16 months we have seen a city and a country destroyed.
What makes it so appalling is that Britain recognised that country as an independent nation. Last April, about 65 nations recognised Bosnia as an independent nation. It was given and still has a seat in the United Nations. That
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country was not a Muslim country but one with a united presidency--Muslim, Croat and Serb--which it still has, and with a Government who reflected those three cultures and symbolised the one that Bosnia was. We recognised it and we have stood by while it was being destroyed.Of course, I yield to no one in my admiration for the bravery and skill of British troops. I do not gainsay for a minute the value of the humanitarian aid and the enormous courage that has been needed to take that aid to people, nor do I deny that many tens of thousands of people would have died of starvation and malnutrition had it not been for the aid that was taken to them, but we must not shelter behind praise for the troops because there has been a political vacuum. I do not say these things easily. I have a high regard for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his ministerial team, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, who will reply to the debate. I kept him up in the small hours in December 1991 during the Consolidated Fund debate, when we first debated the former Yugoslavia. I called for action at the time when Dubrovnik and Vukovar were attacked.
The west, collectively, has failed, as have the institutions that we created to guarantee the world order. What has happened in the former Yugoslavia is an indictment of the United Nations, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and every other institution to which we have all paid, from time to time, enthusiastic lip service. Above all, it is an indictment of the failure of NATO and the European Community to respond.
There is no point in saying that the British public did not want action to be taken. What sort of leadership is that? "Those are the people, I will follow them because I am their leader." If the Prime Minister had come to the House and said that a fundamental British and European interest was involved and that it was necessary to take certain action, what would have been the response? I suggest that it would not have been dissimilar from the response at the time of the Falklands war or the Gulf war. British people are not slow to recognise national and international interests.
In this country and other European nations there has been a craven refusal to measure up to the enormity of the challenge. I am ashamed.
Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) : I agree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis that this is a European failure, but does he agree that two nations, Britain and France, take supreme responsibility? They are the two European members of the United Nations Security Council and they have the armed forces capable of taking action. Those countries, of all countries, are the most guilty. The evidence of opinion polls reveals that, way back from the time when Lady Thatcher first spoke about the need for action, the majority of British people have called for action.
Mr. Cormack : The cannon should be pointed at Britain and France, and at Germany, too, because its precipitate action in another context is also responsible for the failure.
Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : It is much more responsible.
Mr. Cormack : I note what my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs
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says. Be that as it may, at no time, either individually or collectively, did we convince the Serbs that we were prepared to take action.I have talked to soldiers, diplomats and journalists. I do not want to break confidences or embarrass people, but suffice it to say that I am not persuaded--how shall I word this carefully--that what has been said in the House entirely reflects the advice that I am told has been given at a lower level. Perhaps that advice has not permeated to the top and, if that is the case, there is something wrong with the system. There is an appreciation among diplomats and those responsible in NATO and elsewhere that there is something that should and could be done.
Nobody in the House who has taken close interest in this subject has, in irresponsible and gung-ho fashion, recommended vast ground troop involvement.
We should pay tribute to the bravery of the journalists in Bosnia, among whom Martin Bell is perhaps the most outstanding. He said at a meeting in the House a couple of weeks ago that he was convinced that the Serb gun positions could easily have been taken out. They were not as mobile as some would have had us believe. If just a quarter of the resolve to teach Saddam Hussein a lesson had been applied to Bosnia, we would have turned the Serbs back. The technique of precision bombing is not restricted to one part of the world. When we say these things we are told that there would be civilian casualties, but have there not already been tens of thousands of those? We are told that some soldiers would be killed, possibly British ones among them. I am reminded of the visit that I paid in April to the young men of the Staffordshire regiment who were celebrating their reprieve. They asked the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) and me, "Why do you think we joined the Army? What is the Army for? Of course we have to go into action sometimes." Had there been any resolve or determination the Serbs would have backed down. As Martin Bell reminded us, Karadzic recently signed the Vance-Owen plan because he thought that at long last the west would take action. When it became apparent that we would not, he reneged. So much for the sorry history of the conflict. What of the future? If the end of this terrible episode is the extinction of a sovereign nation from the map of Europe, that will be a dire portent for the next century. If the message goes out that, having recognised a state, we were neither prepared to defend it nor to give it the means to defend itself so that it vanished in carnage from the map of Europe, that message will be heard in the former Soviet Union.
I do not want to be told that there are many other conflicts in other parts of the world. We do not refuse to help our neighbour just because we cannot help someone who may be in even worse trouble in a far-flung land. And we are talking about the centre of our continent ; our neighbours.
If we finally fail--we have failed badly enough hitherto--and this nation disappears, that will be a most damning indictment. Today I was glad to see that The Independent devoted the whole of its front page to a call to save Sarajevo. Colleagues may have seen and read it. I am persuaded by those to whom I have talked in the military and elsewhere that even at this late stage it would be possible to save Sarajevo, that great European city--to employ black humour at its most grotesque--whose citizens have been reduced to conditions worse than those
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suffered by people in the middle ages. Sarajevo is still there ; it has not fallen. It need not fall and, if we are to rescue any vestige of honour from this appalling catastrophe, it must not fall. Even now, it would be possible to halt the Serb aggression by delivering an ultimatum, as suggested by the 80 congressmen to whom the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) referred.Let us not balk at placing the responsibility where it belongs most--with the Serbs. In recent months, awful things have been done by all the communities involved, but, as was said at Edinburgh where we also held a Bosnian summit, which the hon. Gentleman and I attended--not that it did much good--the prime responsibility lay with the Serbs. They started it and they fuelled it from Belgrade, literally and metaphorically. Although we criticise some of what Croatia has done, we should not forget that, in defiance of some of those 41 United Nations resolutions, vast tracts of Croatia are still occupied by the Serbs. A couple of weeks ago, a senior diplomat said that, if we started by enforcing those resolutions, in Croatia, we would send out the right signal.
We cannot allow the situation to continue. If we do, it will not end there. Sooner or later we shall be sucked in anyhow. Will the Serbs end with Bosnia? No. Will they end with Kosovo? No. Unless this rampant belligerent aggression is halted, and unless the Serbs who believe in democracy--many do--are given a lifeline, we shall have in the Balkans the smouldering beginnings of a war which could become a conflagration at any time and could involve not only Bulgaria and Albania but Greece and Turkey. Two NATO nations could be fighting each other.
Let us also consider the signals that we are sending to the Muslim world. Some in the Muslim world are already beginning to show their disfavour in quiet ways. Do we want to enter the next century not only in a Europe in which a cancer has taken hold but in a Europe in which we are regarded as enemies by those in the middle east? Do we want to enter the next century with a Europe which, if it is not a cohesive continent, will not be in a strong position when the balance of power inevitably moves from the Atlantic to the Pacific? This debate covers all those problems.
You, Madam Speaker, have done the House a service in allowing three hours for this debate. The hon. Member for Western Isles has done us a service in choosing the subject matter. A number of us did likewise and we are grateful to you, Madam Speaker, for recognising its importance. I wish, however, that the debate could have been awarded a full day and a full House because if, when we return in October, Sarajevo has fallen and Bosnia is no more, we shall have written one of the most appalling chapters in European history and we shall reap the consequences. What is worse, our children and our grandchildren will do so, too.
10.18 pm
Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber) : The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) ended his excellent speech by saying that he wished that this debate was not being held with such a limited number of hon. Members here, although among those present are many, like him, who have been committed to the issue for
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a long time. He thought that it would perhaps have made a difference. Sadly, I do not think that it would. Like the hon. Gentleman, I read the front page of The Independent this morning. It caused me to look back at my papers and read :"In Sarajevo, people are in their cellars without electricity, water or food. If you have children, think what that would be like. Soon, those who have escaped the shells will starve. Only force can be understood, and force should be used, and we should also give air cover for food and medical supplies. We can, of course, also do nothing and just let people die."
That was a broadcast that I did on Channel 4 on 10 June 1992--a year ago. I mention that not to say, "Look how clever I was saying that on 10 June 1992", but to say to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South that I am afraid that we have been looking at the present situation for a very long time. The situation has simply become worse, but intrinsically it has been very bad for a long time.
I agree with the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) about NATO. I remember visiting the headquarters of Action Rapide in Paris about a year and a half ago. During the briefing, the general was asked specifically what he thought about the military implications of lifting the seige of Sarajevo and he more or less said, "If you give me proper notice and 36 hours, I will do it". I do not think that the head of Action Rapide was given to exaggeration. It was possible ; what was lacking, as has been repeated several times, was the will.
Two or three nights ago, a scrap of news on the television showed a man sitting behind an enormous gun, which appeared to have an enormous number of shells. He was just pumping them out into the air towards Sarajevo--to whatever it may have hit. We allow that to happen and we say that we cannot take any risks. Without some military action from the west, Sarajevo will ultimately fall and all over Bosnia there will be some sort of Srebrenica defeat. I am not looking for a military solution--none of us is--but without the threat and almost certainly the use of some military force, and with a threat of more, negotiation will not succeed. That is essentially what the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South said.
The hon. Members for Staffordshire, South and for Western Isles concentrated on Sarajevo and on the particular problems of Bosnia. Since many hon. Members wish to speak, I shall spend a little time on other related questions in the former Yugoslavia.
The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South was right to say that the Croats have problems with the occupied areas in Croatia, but what they are doing at Mostar is indefensible. They are clearing out all areas on one side of the river, preparatory to doing it on the other, with a view to making it the capital of Croatian Bosnia. I gather that there are between 6,000 and 8,000 Muslim men in camps on the edge of Mostar with a view to being transported goodness knows where.
I should like the Minister to say what action the Government have taken with the Croatian Government. He may find it difficult to answer all the questions, so I hope, therefore, that he will answer in writing. I ask questions only because I want to know the answers ; that is what these debates are supposed to be for.
There is no doubt that economic sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro have been a considerable success. One needs only to look at the position of the dinar to realise that the collapse of the currency is nigh. I readily accept that it is an exceedingly difficult issue, and I am not being critical.
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The question is, what are we trying to do with sanctions? Presumably, we are trying to put maximum pressure on Milosevic so that he, in turn, will do the same to Karadzic and General Mladic. That is the straightforward position. I understand that, when Lord Owen was here, he was saying sotto voce--rumour goes around in the House-- that Milosevic was being quite co-operative, and we should be thinking in terms of progressively reducing sanctions. I would not wish to do that without four things--first, an agreement in Bosnia ; secondly, an agreement in Kosovo ; thirdly, an agreement in Vojvodina, which we must not foget, as it has a substantial Hungarian population ; lastly, we have to look at somehow disarming Serbia. It is an enormous military power squatting in the region.We have to face the fact that some in the House will say that sanctions are bad. I listened to the views put by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) about Iraq. They say that our sanctions there are punishing women and children and making the population poor. If that argument can be applied to Iraq, it can easily be applied to the former Yugoslavia. That is a difficulty which all of us who think that sanctions are an effective and relatively peaceful way to bring pressure to bear have to face up to.
Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : Is not the problem with sanctions that they are put forward as an alternative to engaging in military action? The hon. Gentleman has already spoken of the devastating economic effects ; sanctions work in Kosovo as well and cannot be doing anything to help the situation there.
Sir Russell Johnston : Supposing I accept everything that the hon. Gentleman says, what else can one do? There is only the military action that we have been talking about, but there is a lack of will to do that.
Owen is wrong on Kosovo. I heard him say in the plenary session of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg that he thought that the people of Kosovo ought to accept that they are part of Serbia, and that should be the end of the matter. I understand that he has said that elsewhere as well. However, that cannot be the end of the matter. There is a population of 1.75 million, which is relatively homogenously dispersed in a compact geographical area, 90 per cent. of which is Albanian. It is all very well saying that there was a great battle in 1300-odd against the Turks which was lost and the area is now part of the soul of Serbia. I understand that and I understand nationalist feelings, but, in the 20th century verging on the 21st century, we cannot listen to such an argument.
We must look at the disarmament of Serbia--I have mentioned Vojvodena. That is a major issue, to which sufficient attention has not been devoted. Even if we got peace in Bosnia and an agreement in the areas that I mentioned, we would still be left with an embittered population. Milosevic could still be in charge, and we know what he did with the opposition within Serbia. If he has to hand powerful military forces, he may well use them.
I have two short specific questions that have not yet been properly mentioned. If the Minister has a proper opportunity to reply, I hope that he will. First, what is going on with the war crimes tribunal which was proposed in the United Nations? What has happened about the inquiry into the rapes which was instituted following the
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