House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Dec 1993

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Unity has been unable to resolve the conflicts. The Organisation of American States is still unable to deal with several crises in its hemisphere, especially in Haiti.

Obviously, the answer lies in increasing the effectiveness of the United Nations, both internally by improving its decision-making processes and making resources available to implement decisions taken, and externally by reviewing its relationship with member states and the regional groupings of those states. We believe that there is a role for regional organisations, either independently or in conjunction with the United Nations, in resolving most conflicts, which are, after all, almost always regional.

We know that peacekeeping and peacemaking can be brought about not only by sanctions and the use of force but by such means as arms control, disarmament and confidence-building measures, improving the economic and social conditions in the areas of conflict--that is perhaps ignored and not invested in--using effective preventive diplomacy and providing efficient peacekeeping mechanisms. Undoubtedly, the present resources and energy of the United Nations are spread too thin. Member states still prefer action that is low cost with a limited commitment. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it is much easier for the United Nations and its member states to rely on economic sanctions of debatable efficacy which are often broken and unenforceable, and unlikely to address the structural problems of the political systems at which they are directed.

As well as the vast increase in the activities of the United Nations, the concept of peacekeeping is undergoing profound change. That area is under active review not only in the Select Committee's report but in the report entitled "Agenda for Peace" of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. That report is sensible, realistic and challenging.

The Secretary-General proposed that members of the United Nations must provide resources to implement the potential decisions that are given in the report. For example, he suggests that the United Nations should move from peacekeeping to peacemaking, including crisis prevention and the preventive deployment of troops ; that peacekeeping should be expanded to include the imposition of sanctions and involve the training of civilian police in politically neutral military forces ; and that more effort should be made in post-conflict peacebuilding which is essential to ensure that peace, once established, takes firm hold.

Those proposals would require substantial changes within the United Nations. But whatever changes come about, all the other reforms of the United Nations are irrelevant without financial reform. In September 1992, an international advisory group on United Nations financing observed that the United Nations lived from hand to mouth. The committee, which was chaired by Shijuro Ogata and Paul Volker, made some simple suggestions : all countries should pay their assessed United Nations due on time and in full ; interest should be charged on late payments ; the working capital fund should be doubled from the present level ; and other measures should be introduced to improve the financial efficacy of the organisation. Those issues are highlighted in the Select Committee's report.

Whatever is finally agreed, there is an urgent need for a link between peacekeeping operations and the process of political settlement, and for a strengthening of the mandate of peacekeeping forces to ensure the security of personnel

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and prevent parties to the conflict from impeding the conduct of operations. If the United Nations is to be more effective, it must develop the intelligence-gathering facility referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. It is grossly unfair to criticise the United Nations for its operations in certain areas of the world, because it simply does not have the facility to gather intelligence so that it can plan its role in any area almost on a day-to-day basis.

The Opposition are absolutely committed to a future role for the United Nations. We firmly believe that the creation of a new world order--indeed, world peace--relies on an effective international organisation. The search for other structures, for example, such as that that we see in Europe at the present time in relation to NATO and the Western European Union, are not incompatible with the function and role of the United Nations, but they cannot and will not be a substitute for the United Nations itself. I believe that the report by the Select Committee is of significant importance and will be used in any future discussions about the role of the United Nations. But it is important that the House gives unequivocal support for the United Nations and for its development as an effective institution for world peace.

5.10 pm

Sir Michael Marshall (Arundel) : I am sure that the whole House is grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, for the documents that are before us, which clearly underpin so much of our debate today. The whole House will recognise, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) said, that, in many ways, the documents can be seen as important reference works when we look at the grave problems of United Nations peacekeeping activities around the world.

As we are under pressure of time, I shall be brief and concentrate my remarks on the challenges facing the United Nations and its direct British support in the peacekeeping role in Bosnia. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out so vividly in his article in the Sunday Times yesterday, there has been a tendency for media attention to drop away, in that rather sad way we see when somehow it becomes yesterday's news.

All the signs are that the problems in Bosnia are worse now than at any time. The estimates which were made last year for the possibility of half a million dead because of starvation--which, thank God, were not realised-- have become a real concern and possibility in this much harder winter. This is happening at a time when military activity has been stepped up and when there is a feeling that there is a fight to the finish. Against that background, I strongly support what the estimates imply in terms of additional and increased activity in United Kingdom assistance in peacekeeping and in disaster relief for Bosnia.

I shall concentrate on the degree to which the efforts of the United Nations, our Government and national resources may be backed up by parliamentary endeavour. As I have said, I recognise the important role that is played by the two Select Committees, whose reports we are considering. I recognise, too, the roles that are played by

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others who are represented here today, including the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and by many of our colleagues involved in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and in the Council of Europe. I do not seek to make any special claim for initiatives to which I and the organisation that I have the honour to lead in the Inter-Parliamentary Union can lay claim.

I returned yesterday from Geneva after a meeting at the weekend of our executive in which we tried to decide how an international parliamentary mission might be of use in this grave situation. Like so many others before us, we have found real difficulty in identifying practical and effective steps to end the tragedy. However, we are conscious of the fact that the mandate which was given to us by 125 Parliaments, which was brought forward at our conference in New Delhi in the spring, clearly called on us to hold consultations on human rights and to support efforts for peace in the region. As a result, I took the opportunity in June to accept invitations from the Speakers of the Parliaments of the former Yugoslavia, now Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia, to visit them. That was as a direct result of their memb to that a dialogue, through first-hand experience in Bosnia, particularly in Sarajevo--although we have no formal links as such with Bosnia.

A number of elements have become clear from all the discussions we have had during our meetings over the weekend involving the 13 countries represented on the executive. The problem is by no means confined to the countries in Europe. The concerns, especially for the Muslim peoples of the former Yugoslavia, are widely shared by our membership. Attempts are being made to find practical methods and to achieve co-operation between north and south. At the same time, we do not wish to be seen simply to be going on for "me- tooism" or to get in the way of those involved in the critical task of disaster relief.

In that particular task, it is clear that our country, our military forces and those who support them are playing an outstanding part. We asked ourselves what were realistic objectives for a mission of this kind. It is important to understand the unique nature of our links with the country of Yugoslavia--Serbia Montenegro--which, because of its continued membership, meets us regularly. We have access to it, yet it is in a situation which shows a weakness of the United Nations--it has been effectively ruled out of any activity in the General Assembly.

Such opportunities for activity are virtually non-existent, and the country's links are confined to technical committees such as the Economic and Social Council. It seemed to many of us that there were opportunities to pursue, for example, the issue of war crimes in discussions in Belgrade, and that, recognising that war crimes were by no means confirmed to one of the three protagonists, those talks should be extended to discussions in Zagreb, with the added interest and support of Slovenia, with the Parliament of Ljubljana, which has been particularly constructive in the dialogue.

Because we recognise many of the anxieties that have been expressed by hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Minister, about the United Nations' difficulty in taking action on war crimes, particularly with respect to access to those identified, it seemed appropriate to try to

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work out a range of proposals which we hoped would help. We came up with three objectives. The first was to encourage the promotion of domestic prosecution of alleged war criminals who found themselves on the territory of any of the three states under the appropriate Geneva conventions.

The second was to promote mutual assistance between parties in criminal matters involving grave breaches of the Geneva conventions and protocol 1-- for example, additional protocol one, article 88--and co-operation with the United Nations under additional protocol 1, article 89. Although I cite those technical details, in the interests of time I will not spell them out. Their deterrent effect will be familiar to many who are in the House tonight.

Thirdly, it seemed to us that there was an obvious opportunity to promote better respect for human rights in all the countries that would be visited by such a mission ; but, particularly in Bosnia Hercegovina, we felt that, although in the overall sense we were looking at human rights, we should clearly devote every effort to support peace efforts. That included support for our own military, and others on the ground.

I have therefore written today to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, seeking direct support by Her Majesty's Government in facilitating the mounting of such an expedition. It is envisaged that it will be made up of representatives from Australia, Argentina and Scandinavia. with my own oversight as president and possible involvement in leading the delegation, in whole or part, depending on logistics and the opportunity to fit in with others in the mission. Although we will also seek the support of the United Nations through our Geneva headquarters, the reason for seeking support from Her Majesty's Government to what essentially is an international expedition stems in part from past experience ; we had outstanding support in the visits made last June to Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford said, we have all found that our diplomats and those in the field have had a particularly useful and well-organised approach to providing access not just to the people whom we might normally expect to meet but to the media, opposition parties and others who want to put forward a more critical line than we would simply receive if we met those representing the Government parties.

In all those arrangements, it is proposed that our mission should be staffed by the head of the IPU presidential office in London, whom I shall mention, no doubt much to his embarrassment. Mr. James Radcliffe is well known to many hon. Members as an example of what, through secondment from the Foreign Office, it is possible for an international parliamentary organisation to achieve in a partnership between Government and Parliament.

I am aware of the efforts of others. I make no special claim that our mission can produce something dramatic, but the point must be fairly made that our group, because it mirrors the United Nations, has a broader spread than any other international parliamentary organisation. It has a proud history of foundation by a British and a French parliamentarian more than a century ago. It may be able to demonstrate, as many in the Chamber will agree, that parliamentarians can undertake international tasks.

I hope that it will be seen as an example that gives the lie to those who regard such activities as frivolous or part of the travel club syndrome. The nature of such international representations from countries that have no

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obvious and direct linkage with the problems of the region shows how such problems can be considered and worked upon in the wider international parliamentary community.

Any mission such as this, which has the opportunity to see and encourage at first hand the staggering efforts of those working for relief in Bosnia, is to be welcomed. Having seen the work of our people as part of UNPROFOR in Zagreb, I am anxious that we should extend that work, especially to support the United Nations command headquarters in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I hope that such a mission will command the general support of the House and of Her Majesty's Government. I recognise that I am raising a matter of which I have given my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister virtually no notice, but it is a small example of the way in which parliamentary diplomacy can supplement preventive diplomacy, as urged on us by the UN Secretary-General. I hope that our mission will be seen not only as a contribution to the work of the Select Committee and the estimates which are before us but as something on which we may build in years to come.

5.22 pm

Mr. Calum Macdonald (Western Isles) : I agree with what the hon. Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) said about the mission that the IPU is hoping to undertake. I wish it well, and I hope that it gets the co- operation that it needs from the Foreign Office. It is important that we have not just one-way traffic between Parliaments in the west and elsewhere --for example, the Balkans--but two-way traffic. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is next to impossible for the Members of the Bosnian Parliament in Sarajevo, a city under siege, to respond to invitations to visit other European countries. It is as important to break that aspect of the siege of Sarajevo--the spiritual siege of Sarajevo--as it is to break the material siege. The right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) spoke of the high hopes at the end of the cold war and of how those hopes have been disappointed. As he stressed, it is important not to overdo the gloom. The opportunity for a more proactive, more interventionist role in regional conflicts, provided by the end of the cold war, is still there. The end of the cold war did not mean the end of those regional conflicts and disputes and they are no less complicated or intractable.

However, one important dimension has been removed from them, and that is the fear that intervention could lead to the wider entanglement of the two rival super-powers. The removal of that dimension provides the international community with an important opportunity, which it has to grasp and of which it must take full advantage. Over the past couple of years, we have run up against various obstacles and difficulties with the mechanisms and procedures to try to deal with regional conflicts, principally the mechanisms of the United Nations.

Before I say anything about those difficulties, let me add that, in trying to be more active in responding with help to resolve regional conflicts, the outstanding principle that we must defend is that of non-aggression. We must maintain respect for internationally recognised frontiers. The words "internationally recognised" are perhaps the most important in that phrase. We must not distinguish between frontiers in terms of whether they are thought to be artificial or of recent establishment, that they might be seen

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by some to be unfair, that they might divide communities or that they might lead people on one side of a border to wish that they were on the other.

We cannot bring those factors into play when we try to maintain the principle of respect for internationally recognised borders. One of the causes of our failure in the Balkans is that we tried to distinguish between borders and frontiers that we felt were more durable, more just, more correct and more defensible and those that we thought were more artificial. We cannot make those distinctions. If we try to do so, we shall quickly find ourselves on a slippery slope.

Not many borders in Europe, particularly in eastern Europe, would stand up to the kind of scrutiny and examination that some people have tried to use on the new borders in the Balkans. The key has to be that if the borders are recognised by the international community, they must be maintained by the international community. I fear that the fact that we have not maintained that principle in the Balkans has been a great blow to our hopes of the new world order.

Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) : Is my hon. Friend arguing that the situation in former Yugoslavia would have been resolved if people had taken a different attitude to the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, or is he arguing--this is how I interpret his remarks--that it does not matter what the historic lines on maps are, we can have a process of almost permanent instability so long as some people somewhere think that they should have "self-determination" and that everybody else should recognise that? I was not entirely clear which road my hon. Friend was following.

Mr. Macdonald : It was neither, which shows that I was not getting the point across. I was trying to say that, whatever border is internationally recognised, that is the border which the international community should be defending with every means at its disposal. We should not distinguish between borders that may be internationally recognised but are difficult for us to defend and those that could be argued by some to be an artificial creation or a recent creation.

Some of those attributes may attach to all borders, but if we are to maintain international order the international community must be prepared to rigorously defend any borders that it has recognised as a legal border, no matter how recently brought into being. If the line has been recognised by the international community, the international community must defend it. If we fail to do that we will be on a slippery slope. We will end up making excuses about certain conflicts and certain kinds of aggression by putting forward the argument that the aggression does not matter so much because the border is recent, controversial or open to dispute.

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) : Is it not more complicated than that? I accept the main thrust of the hon. Member's argument, but is there not another case? In Cyprus, for instance, the two sides fought themselves to a standstill, and the United Nations is quite properly monitoring the line along which they did so. That was not an internationally recognised border until the war caused it to be one.

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Mr. Macdonald : The key point is that the international community still does not recognise that border. That is a line between two communities which was determined by aggression. The international community has rightly refused to recognise the line that has been created, and continues to insist that the original border of Cyprus, the original integrity of Cyprus--as recognised by the international community before the fighting--must continue to be the base point.

Mr. Rogers : I agree with the general thrust of my hon. Friend's argument, but I am not sure how we would put it into operation, for example, in the former Yugoslavia. When do we stop the clock? In 1945, one of the subscribers to the United Nations was the country called Yugoslavia. Is my hon. Friend now arguing that the function of the United Nations should have been to support the Government of Yugoslavia in maintaining their sovereign territory, or do we move the argument forward two or three years, or 20 or 30 years, until we get to a time when Yugoslavia is broken up, and say, "Well, those are now the boundaries that have to be defended, and the United Nations should acknowledge and support them"? I accept the general thrust of my hon. Friend's argument, but there are enormous difficulties in following it in such a simplistic way.

Mr. Macdonald : The question of internal borders is very difficult. While we all support the principle of self-determination of nations, communities or minorities within states in its broadest sense, we must be careful not to allow support for the principle of self-determination to become automatic support for the principle of secession. It is important that we try to maintain the integrity of nation states, which are the building blocks of the international community.

The constitutions of some nation states allow for various parts of those states to secede. Similarly, the international community may recognise the constitutions of those states as well as the federal constitutions of various parts of those states and their right to secede. It could be argued that, from 1974 onwards, the republics within Yugoslavia had a constitutional right to secede. I agree that we must be careful not to allow our respect and support for minority rights and for the principle of self-determination of communities to lead to an interminable fracturing of existing states. That is a danger which we must guard against.

My hon. Friend is also right that the principle I am putting forward is, in many ways, a simplifying principle. Unless we try to put forward such a simplifying principle, any hope of maintaining a consistent line and policy when we face the challenges that will come from eastern Europe and elsewhere during the rest of the decade will disappear. It will then be difficult to maintain the kind of stability and order that we seek. If we allow disputes to arise, and the resolution of them by aggression to succeed, many borders in eastern Europe could be disputed. That is unfortunately what we have done in the former Yugoslavia.

As to the United Nations, the problems that we have seen over the past couple of years have diminished our original optimism. Those problems can be divided into three categories : lack of material resources for the United Nations, the problem of its internal organisation when it

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comes to peacekeeping, and a certain lack of will when faced with various conflicts that we should try to do more about.

As to the material resources of the United Nations, there is no doubt that those available for peacekeeping have to be built up. A recent report of the United Nations revealed the startling statistics that its peacekeeping budget in 1991 was less than the combined budget of the New York fire and police departments. That was in a year when there were already several peackeeping operations in place around the world. There is no doubt that the budget is utterly inadequate for the tasks that the United Nations will be asked to perform during the rest of the decade.

The right hon. Member for Guildford raised the point about the United Nations Organisation. The United Nations lacks an independent intelligence gathering capacity and has difficulties with command and control of United Nations operations. Another great problem is the lack of co-ordination between forces that are unused to working with each other and have different levels of equipment and training. I visited NATO with a group of colleagues earlier this year, and we were told by General Sir Richard Vincent, the chairman of the military committee, that, in deciding the number of troops he thought necessary for the implementation of the Vance- Owen proposals, he had to take into account all those various deficiencies in the United Nations organisation. Given those deficiencies, in order to do its job the United Nations has to deploy many more troops than would otherwise be necessary.

The important point about standby forces has already been made. We must look more and more to regional organisations to help to carry the load for the United Nations. We should be looking to regional organisations in Africa, Asia and Europe to share some of the burden. We in Europe have to take a very hard look at how we organise our forces, particularly in the European Community.

The European Union now has more than 2 million men under arms, yet it protests its absolute impotence and inability to act to sort out regional conflicts in Europe without massive help from the United States, particularly with ground troops. Such a position is unsustainable and the European Union must look towards integrating its forces, particularly in an era of diminished resources all round.

The third factor that has led to a decline in optimism about the abilities of the UN is the difficulty met in imposing political will, as has been obvious in the Balkans. I do not believe that it has been the failure to impose military will that has held western Governments back from intervening in the Balkans on a grand scale. My conversations with General Vincent and his predecessor, General Eide, have convinced me that a lack of political will has been the key to the failure of the West to intervene more aggressively in the Balkans.

Western Governments had hoped that the conflict in the Balkans could be contained, that the war in Bosnia could be limited to Bosnia and that it would eventually burn itself out. That hope will be dashed in months and years to come. Our failure to intervene at an earlier stage in that conflict, perhaps during the bombardment of Dubrovnik, means that when we do eventually intervene with military forces--I am sure that that will be necessary--the operation will be far more painful than it would have been had we intervened earlier.

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Even those who disagree with me about the need for military intervention in the Balkans must agree about the importance of maintaining the flow of humanitarian aid to the region. A couple of colleagues and I visited Sarajevo in October and we saw the privations caused by the siege. The aid that is getting through is nothing like enough to relieve the population.

The figures may sound impressive : 6,000 flights delivering 60,000 tonnes of aid by air to Sarajevo in two years. That should be compared, however, with the 40,000 tonnes of aid that was delivered in one month by air to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf crisis. More tellingly, it should be compared with the 200,000 flights that delivered more than 2 million tonnes of aid to Berlin in 1949--a city which suffered a shorter siege than that of Sarajevo. Such comparisons raise a giant question mark about the serious intent of western Governments' aid efforts in Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia.

I have raised this matter with the Foreign Secretary. The Minister of State has written to me to explain that an attempt will be made to increase the tempo of the airlifts to Sarajevo. He stressed the difficulties that have been encountered because there is only one flight path in to and out of Sarajevo and because no night flying is allowed due to the supposed greater dangers that such an operation poses. He argued that that one flight path meant that planes were given a 30-minute time slot to land and take off from Sarajevo. Such excuses are inadequate. I do not see why it is not possible to establish more than one flight path and to organise night flights to deliver aid. I do not know why each plane needs a 30-minutes time slot when planes land at Heathrow every couple of minutes and planes landed every minute and a half during the Berlin airlift. Those excuses are not credible and I fear that western Governments' seriousness of intent in delivering humanitarian aid is no greater than their seriousness of intent in maintaining international law and the principles previously enunciated in the Balkans.

5.44 pm

Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Upminster) : As my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) said, the Select Committee on Defence published a report on the United Kingdom's peacekeeping and intervention forces on 9 June and the Government replied on 3 November. I should like to take this opportunity to refer briefly to our report and to draw to the attention of the House a couple of our specific proposals.

It is a pleasure to agree entirely with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) about the need to support the role of the United Nations. It is the only international body that can possibly give legitimacy to the peacekeeping operations which various countries are attempting around the world. If we allow the United Nations to fail, we will go down the route that we followed in the 1930s with the League of Nations and, in the end, the world will once again descend into a massive conflict and an era of instability. The United Nations must be supported and Great Britain has a particularly useful role to play in providing our share of that support.

It also gives me great pleasure to agree with the Ministry of Defence--I do not always find myself able to do that, nor does the Select Committee on Defence--about the wisdom of not attempting to earmark specific forces for

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use in the United Nations arena. Were we to do so, we would fall into the trap of trying to anticipate the unanticipatable and provide forces for something that might never occur.

It is important to train specifically the forces that will be used in United Nations peacekeeping in certain areas. I welcome what the Government said of that requirement in their reply on 3 November to the Select Committee's report :

"It may be necessary to refine some skills (for example, environmental hygiene, first aid and mine awareness) and to teach some new skills (such as mediation, conciliation and integration with non-governmental agencies) which would not normally be required for military operations. In this context, it may be helpful to think of peacekeeping as a separate environment (in the same way as jungle, mountain or Arctic operations) for which trained forces need specific familiarisation training in order to be as effective as possible." That is a good analysis of the need to train our forces to enable them to play a full part in peacekeeping. Our experience in Northern Ireland makes us the world leader in providing that kind of training and producing the forces that are capable of fulfilling that role. I also welcome the fact that the Government affirmed in paragraph 39 of their reply that employment in peacekeeping operations should enjoy a high status and stated :

"We are keen to deploy high quality personnel to such 36appointments".

I am still concerned, however, about the way in which United Nations operations are funded. We are in great muddle about providing the funding for the forces that we use in various peacekeeping roles. Because of our current deployment in Bosnia, for example, the Ministry of Defence is left with a big bill for enforcing the no-fly zone with the Jaguars and the Ark Royal group in the Adriatic. That bill is met from the defence budget.

I understand that the Ministry of Defence reclaims UNPROFOR costs-- "additional" ones only, I believe--from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which, in turn, needs extra money from the Treasury to meet that claim. We all pray that, in due course, the United Nations will reimburse us, but that seems highly unlikely to me. The flow of money takes an extremely circuitous route and the Select Committee recommended :

"Additional financial provision should be made available to the Ministry of Defence specifically for peacekeeping expenses in the next public expenditure survey."

It was not.

The Government reply to the Defence Committee stated :

"The relevant interdepartmental financial arrangements have existed for some years, and are clear and well-understood by the Departments concerned."

They may be understood by the Departments concerned, but I do not think that the logic behind them was understood by anyone else. The Select Committee on Defence, with, I hope, the support of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, would like that to be reviewed. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, will join that request. I cannot believe that it is in the interests of the Foreign Office occasionally to find sums levied through it by the Ministry of Defence. For example, in Cyprus, some of the money that is claimed from the Foreign Office by the

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Ministry of Defence errs on the side of over -generosity. The cost of the Ferret squadron that was with the United Nations forces in Cyprus was charged through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at £4.3 million a year. Fond as I am of asking the Ministry of Defence for more money, I find that sum hard to justify in those circumstances. I hope that we shall find a more sensible way to fund our United Nations requirements and to stop the circuitous route by which it is done.

I am conscious of the fact that many of my hon. Friends want to speak, so I shall briefly consider two specific areas where there are United Nations peacekeeping forces at the moment--Cyprus and Bosnia. The Select Committee on Defence visited Cyprus in May and found the Canadian forces on the point of withdrawing, as were the Danes. At that time, Britain was dramatically reducing its contributions and no substitution had been found for the Danes. The thin red line between the Turkish and Greek sectors was looking extraordinarily thin. I am glad to be able to say that an Argentine contingent replaced the Denmark troops. None the less, there is a sad lack of forces between the two communities in Cyprus.

Mr. Lester : Is not one aspect that concerns people on the subject of putting troops into Cyprus the fact that it has taken an inordinately long time to reach any solution? I met Canadian officers who had begun as lieutenants and have now returned as brigadiers because they were there for so long and there is still no further move to settle the problem.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor : I accept my hon. Friend's point. It has taken a long time to find a solution. I am not sure what the solution is or whether my hon. Friend would care to offer one. I am certain that the conclusion that should not be reached is one in which the Greeks and the Turks begin fighting each other in Cyprus.

When we returned, we expressed our concern that the Ferret scout car squadron, which was with the United Nations forces, was being withdrawn and was not replaced at that time by any other armour. The reconnaissance squadron was withdrawn from the sovereign base area and, at the same time, the armour that was hitherto held by the 34 Squadron of the RAF regiment was being replaced by Landrovers. At that time, the only armour left to any of the British forces in Cyprus were the Ferret scout cars, which the commander had the presence of mind to transfer from the armoured squadron to the infantry regiment and to train some of the infantry to drive. There was at least some armoured cover in the event of trouble. There has been a proposal, although it has not been dated or allocated numbers, to send some Saxons out to the sovereign base areas.

When we made our criticisms, the Ministry of Defence said : "The security situation is much more settled and, put simply, UNFICYP has less to do than in the past".

That statement must have been drafted, if not published, before the Greek elections, because that is certainly not the case. From all the news that I have received from that part of the world, it seems that the new Greek Administration are likely to be much more aggressive in their support for the militants in the Greek Cypriot community than their predecessors. I am seriously concerned that if the United Nations showed any sign of weakness in its determination to keep those communities apart, we might find ourselves again facing serious problems.

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Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : Is not the role of the United Nations in Cyprus more than a question of keeping the two communities apart? Is not its equally important function to be able to introduce some confidence-building measures? Is not that what the United Nations is doing at the moment--trying to open up Nicosia airport and use the military zones as a point of contact for the two communities? It is not just a question of keeping the two sides apart ; we need to get them together.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor : The hon. Gentleman is quite right. I am not trying to deal with the issue in that way. I am concentrating on the military consequences of United Nations participation in the military arena and I am presenting the report of the Defence Select Committee. Iary. That is a separate and more important facet of the problem in Cyprus.

I am also concerned that the Cyprus problem must not be allowed to become a catalyst, by which the two eastern members of NATO--Turkey and Greece--find themselves in military conflict. That would have an extraordinary wide effect on the whole NATO security position and on the security of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. We must keep sufficient United Nations forces there until diplomatic negotiations succeed, to ensure that there is not a flaring up of military or generally aggressive antagonism between the two Cypriot communities. There seem to be two clear objectives for the United Nations to follow in Bosnia--to limit the conflict so that it does not spread to Macedonia, Kosovo and through the eastern Mediterranean countries and to find a solution whereby Bosnia can be divided in a way that is equitable, sustainable and acceptable to all three communities in that devastated country.

I visited Bosnia in March and I have never seen such a desolate and inhuman place. All natural human feelings seem to have disappeared. I read a letter from a serving soldier in which he described it as being like the kingdom of Mordor--all sense of justice, humanity or religion seems to have been thrown out the window and all three sides are behaving with unacceptable bestiality towards each other. In those circumstances, it is extremely hard to see how a solution such as the one that I have outlined as necessary can be found, but I wish Lord Owen and his team every success in their endeavours. Sooner or later, the participants must become war-weary and reach some kind of arrangement so that the conflict can be brought to an end. When that occurs, I have no doubt that the United Nations must move in and enforce the newly agreed areas and divisions so that the position can be stabilised and all three communities learn to live in peace--if not together, at least next to each other.

In the meantime, I believe, as does the Committee, that the humanitarian role that our troops perform magnifi-cently cannot go on indenfinitely. The troops in Vitez are surrounded by forces that are likely to become more directly hostile to the United Nation forces in their midst. There must be a clear time limit within which we shall have to withdraw troops if no solution can be found along the lines that I have suggested. I do not believe that we can keep our humanitarian forces in place in Bosnia for much longer. How long that will be is a matter for Her Majesty's

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Government, but I should be reluctant to accept a decision to keep our forces there through another winter. However, I would be equally unlikely to wish to remove them now, as they still fulfil a useful humanitarian role this winter.

Those are the two major United Nations commitments in which our troops are involved, and there are few others, which is one reason why I do not especially look forward to the defence review. The defence requirements are clear and unarguable. The requirements are that we look after Northern Ireland, that we look after our interests in Germany and NATO and that we produce troops for the United Nations when we are requested to do so and when it is within our capability and in our interests to comply.

We currently have few other commitments. Our commitments in Cambodia will soon be finished. We pulled out of Sinai a year ago. In their reply to the Defence Select Committee report, the Government announced that they had decided to withdraw our 15 officers from MINURSO, the United Nations mission charged with facilitating a referendum in the western Sahara. I believe that it is right that they have done so. We sent only two Hercules to Somalia. In retrospect, we might have been better advised to play a slightly bigger role. Our advice might have been helpful in obtaining a more precise definition of the targets in that area.

We have no commitments other than those that I have outlined. However, there is no doubt that we shall have others. The way international affairs are going, I am sure that the United Nations will ask us to participate in missions--if nowhere else, certainly in Bosnia once peace is declared. We shall be asked to help enforce the peace agreement. The United Kingdom would be requested to send at least a brigade and probably substantially more. We would find it almost impossible to comply with that request, certainly for any length of time, without seriously disrupting our other defence commitments.

I welcome the Government's statement in paragraph 27 of their reply to our report setting out the terms on which they would be prepared to give further support to the United Nations. They said : "Requests to participate will continue to be considered case by case in the light of other commitments, available resources and foreign policy objectives. Specific factors taken into account include the likelihood of the operation achieving its stated aim, whether it can be expected to contribute to a lasting political settlement, and whether it calls for capabilities that British forces are especially well able to provide, and whether the objectives and mandate proposed for the peacekeeping force are clear and precise." I am glad that I did not draft that sentence. Its grammatical weakness speaks for itself. I hope that the requirements for the peacekeeping force will be clearer and more precise. The Government continued :

"The cost and likely duration of the mission are also important considerations We can confirm that full consideration is also given to the scarcity of particular assets, and the disproportionate impact of supporting a number of small operations."

Those criteria are well expressed. They are the ones that the Government should follow.

My anxiety is that, even in the case of Bosnia, which is fairly predictable, we could not fulfil the requirement that we are likely to be asked to fulfil without impacting badly on our other commitments. I am also worried that the number of small conflicts to which we are asked to send some peacekeeping forces disrupts badly our ability to train our armed forces for their primary role, which is to defend us in time of war. It is almost impossible to get together a brigade, let alone a division or any larger unit,

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to train artillery, infantry and armour together because of the number of commitments which each of those sectors is called on to fulfil in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

The proposal of the Defence Select Committee, which I endorse, is that there should be an increment in our armed forces sufficient to match the likely overall requirement of United Nations peacekeeping, just as we have an increment for leave, for training abroad and for the times when a soldier is away from his unit for various duties. We should do exactly the same thing on a larger scale for United Nations commitments so that although we do not earmark soldiers, sailors or airmen for United Nations peacekeeping activities, at least we can be confident that we have the number to do so whenever necessary without disrupting all our other military commitments.

6.3 pm

Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead) : I am not sure on what basis the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) opened the debate, but it is appropriate in any case that I should apologise to him and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for missing much of his opening speech. I was unavoidably detained.

Although the Minister of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), has temporarily left his place, I should like to convey through him to the Foreign Office staff, with whom many of us in the House have regular contact, my personal gratitude for the courtesy and efficiency with which they always deal with requests for information and assistance such as I have had cause to make of late. It is worth making the point to the House and to the public that we employ some first-class people in the Foreign Office in embassies around the world and in the offices in Whitehall. I wished to grab a moment to make that clear.

The main burden of my remarks relate to the peacekeeping operation which the United Nations are mounting with British support and British funds in, over and around Iraq. From my personal experience, we are creating devastation in and around that area and calling it peacekeeping. Some aspects of that peacekeeping greatly worry me and, increasingly, civilised opinion around the world.

I had cause at the weekend to call the office of the Minister of State to make inquiries, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), with whom I spoke several times at the weekend. The House will be glad to know that he is recuperating from his operation and hopes to be with us again in February. None the less, he is taking a close interest in parliamentary affairs from his sickbed.

He and I were both concerned at the weekend by reports that appeared in The Guardian on Saturday. On subsequent investigation, it turned out that the reports flowed from an item that was gazetted by the Government in the London Gazette on Friday--that the United Kingdom Government had sequestered £186,000 from funds which belong to Iraq and are frozen in this country. The Government have transferred those funds to the United Nations "in support"--I think that that was the phrase--of UN efforts.

Of course, it depends on the purposes for which the funds are to be earmarked whether I and others like me think that the sequestration is a good thing. I should like to

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