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Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central): I think that the right hon. Gentleman and I will disagree on this point. What was Mr. Penfold doing when he was holding meetings with mercenaries throughout the Christmas holiday, when he was back in the United Kingdom? That is the $64,000 question: why was he negotiating, or dealing, with mercenaries?
Sir John Stanley: The answer to that question will be clear when I turn to my second point--the responsibility of Ministers--but Mr. Peter Penfold was by no means alone among Foreign Office officials in having contacts with Sandline International.
It is abundantly clear, indeed indisputable, that what impaled the Foreign Office on the Sandline International affair was the decision, which was conscious and deliberate, to misdescribe the arms embargo policy. I am in no doubt that all the diplomatic service officials who have been before us are men and women of integrity, and that, if all the officials concerned had been clear that the arms embargo applied to all the parties to the Sierra Leone crisis, including the Government of President Kabbah in exile in Guinea, the Foreign Office would not have become involved in Sandline International's activities. It was the misdescription of the policy that lay at the heart of the Foreign Office's difficulties.
The misdescription started at an early stage and continued from the autumn of 1997 through the rest of that year to the time when President Kabbah was restored.
It is not adequate to say that officials were responsible for the misdescription of the policy. Ministers are responsible for policy and its presentation. It was not simply an external matter. The misdescription was carried through into the internal communications of the Foreign Office.
Three Ministers were associated with the misdescription: the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd). As chair of the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in October, the Prime Minister must take responsibility to a degree for the fact that the communique of 27 October misdescribed the arms embargo policy. Indeed, if that communique had correctly described the policy--if President Kabbah had known what the real policy of the British Government was--I am certain that President Kabbah, who had attended the conference by invitation, even though he was no longer in government in Freetown, and had been delighted to be at that conference, would have been furious. As Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman must, without question, have been associated with and played a role in approving the communique at the end of the conference.
I found extraordinary the way in which the Foreign Secretary sought to dismiss the Minister of State's description of the arms embargo on 12 March last year. Far from being irrelevant, 12 March was a critical date in relation to making it clear to whom the arms embargo applied because, two days previously, on 10 March, President Kabbah had been restored to Freetown. The arms embargo applied to the very Government who were now in post in Freetown. Therefore, if there had been a time in Parliament when it was necessary to make it clear that the arms embargo applied to President Kabbah, it was precisely that moment on 12 March.
I find it singularly unattractive and somewhat distasteful that throughout, Ministers have sought, on the Floor of the House and in evidence before the Foreign Affairs Committee, to lay the blame for the misdescription of the policy at the door of officials. It is unacceptable that, on such a central issue, Ministers have not accepted their responsibility for the misdescription.
Mr. Gapes:
The right hon. Gentleman has long experience of being a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Indeed, he and I served on the Committee for five years in the previous Parliament. It is in that context that I want to ask him to confirm that the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Committee report on Sierra Leone do not criticise Ministers, whereas he, my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and I were on the Committee in 1994, when, with a Conservative majority, it produced a report on the Pergau dam that explicitly condemned Ministers, including the former Secretary of State for Defence, for their behaviour with regard to the House and for the way in which they had dealt with that matter. Will he confirm that the latest Select Committee report does not specifically condemn Ministers?
Sir John Stanley:
I am delighted to agree with the hon. Gentleman that, in the previous Parliament--and I do not wish to be called out of order--the Conservative Members on the Foreign Affairs Committee, who were in
Mr. Illsley:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir John Stanley:
I know that other hon. Members want to speak in the debate and I am anxious to help them, but I will give way once more.
Mr. Illsley:
The right hon. Gentleman referred to misdescription, as has the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who refused to give way earlier on the same point. Following parliamentary questions that were tabled by me and by one of my colleagues, it became apparent that, from 1979 to the present, Orders in Council confirming United Nations embargoes in relation to various countries had described policy and been circulated in exactly the same manner as they have been by the present Government. Therefore, in terms of misdescription, the Government appear to be doing nothing different from previous Governments.
Sir John Stanley:
Based on a written answer that the Select Committee received, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The practice had always been to circulate United Nations Security Council resolutions in toto, rather than the Orders in Council themselves. That policy has been stated by Ministers. It has, apparently, been a long-standing practice. However, I am not aware of a previous occasion when Ministers have described, as they need to do in a single sentence or two, the ambit of the criminal law on an arms embargo conspicuously inaccurately.
I move to my central point: the issue of Sierra Leone policy, which has been seriously neglected. The Foreign Secretary spoke as if the British Government's policy was the most committed of any country towards the restoration of the democratic regime of President Kabbah. The right hon. Gentleman, perhaps not for the first time, was highly selective in his description. It applied to the period from March 1998 onwards, after President Kabbah was restored to power.
The following question is central to the debate: what was the British Government's policy between May 1997, when President Kabbah was ousted, and March 1998, when he was restored to power? That is the critical period for the purposes of the report.
The policy was established within a matter of weeks of the ousting of President Kabbah. As far as I am aware, the policy was stated for the very first time in the written answer that the Minister of State gave me on 11 July 1997, at column 625. It was the first time on which it was explained that the Government's policy was based on a peaceful solution to the crisis. That policy, having been stated, became set in stone. It was, of course, reflected in the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution, and continued to be repeated right up to the point at which President Kabbah was restored to power.
The question that I have to ask is how realistic was that policy? Military juntas--particularly an extremely nasty military junta like the one in Sierra Leone--do not have a very good track record of going peacefully out of power, and that junta was absolutely no exception. After going through all the Legg documentation, I have seen not one piece of evidence that the British Government's policy of peaceful solution had any impact on the junta's policy. I do not believe that the policy ever had any chance of success. It was doomed to failure from the outset, and fail it did. President Kabbah was restored not because of British Government policy but in spite of British Government policy.
Some officials, of course, became increasingly concerned about whether the policy could be sustained. However, it was what Ministers decided to do. It was their policy; it was a cul-de-sac, leading nowhere.
If I make those criticisms, hon. Members are perfectly entitled to come back at me and ask, "What should the policy have been?" I do not agree with the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney that there were only two options--either continue the policy of peaceful solution, or arm the Kamajors. The third option, which I believe is the one that should have been followed, was not to send in British troops--as I believe that there was absolutely no case for putting at risk in that particular theatre the lives of British service men and service women--but to give logistical and intelligence support to ECOMOG. It is the very policy that is now being followed.
As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney made it clear, there was a significant point of difficulty in that policy. As we know, the difficulty was that ECOMOG was Nigerian-forces led. Moreover, we are talking now about the Nigeria of Abacha.
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