| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman is identifying with great skill and clarity the available alternatives. Would he join me in saying that, at every stage, the House should be asked by the Government explicitly to support whatever the current policy happens to be?
Mr. Maples: I have much sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman's view but there have been many statements and debates on the subject. There has been no shortage of opportunities for right hon. and hon. Members to present their views. I know that he thinks there should be a vote on a substantive motion but he is in a better position than me to take that up with his Whips.
NATO seems to be encouraging the Kosovo Liberation Army. We have heard remarks about a phoenix rising from the ashes but we must ask who is arming it. It is getting arms, some of which turned out to be NATO arms obtained from Croatia. There is a United Nations arms embargo. If we are to arm the KLA and use it as part of the forces involved, we must answer some difficult questions. How do we get rid of the arms embargo? How will Russia react? I shall come presently to my concerns about the Russian position and the way in which they might be involved.
What is our policy on that matter? What is NATO's policy? The Rambouillet agreement called for the disarming of the KLA. We must accept that, whether we like it or not, the KLA will be a force in the area. The army exists; presumably it is getting recruits; we know that it is getting arms and has a greater incentive to fight for that territory than almost anyone else. How we use or manage the KLA is an important issue and I shall be interested in the Secretary of State's views on that matter.
Mr. Wilkinson:
My hon. Friend makes a point of real significance. If we fail to support the KLA's aim to liberate Kosovo and to enable the Kosovar people--when they all return home--to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination, is it not true that the KLA will obtain its arms from Libya, Iran or other places? It would be much better for us to work with the KLA than for that army to work with malign forces.
Mr. Maples:
My hon. Friend illustrates the difficulties of operating in that region. However, as I said, a UN arms embargo is in place and I do not think that we in NATO could be seen to be arming the KLA outside it. One of the dangers of the activities of members of the KLA is that they may feed the demand for a Greater Albania, which is part of the potential undermining of the stability of Macedonia and one of the reasons we originally became involved in this matter. There are great threats to the stability of Macedonia that we must consider.
Several of my hon. Friends raised the issue of NATO's credibility in seeing through this matter--my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip-Northwood, for Reigate
(Mr. Blunt) and for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), for instance. The Government have put NATO's credibility at stake and that credibility must be redeemed, because our security relies on NATO.
Our relations with Russia have clearly been badly damaged and I am glad that they are being repaired. I am glad that the Foreign Secretary said that he was in touch with Mr. Ivanov, and also that Madeleine Albright has recently met the Russian Foreign Minister. It would be a good idea to consider including the Russians in the peacekeeping force. There is no reason why it has to be a NATO force; in fact, that is one of the things that is unacceptable to the Serbs. If it were an international force under the auspices of the OSCE or the UN, perhaps the Russians could be included. In the long run, the Russians must be part of the solution to this problem.
I have asked the Secretary of State to consider a moratorium on running down the Territorial Army. He has issued a call-out order under the Reserve Forces Act 1996, but we do not know how long that requirement will last. The whole strategic defence review will have to be reconsidered in the light of the long-term commitments that we make in this area. We cannot sustain such commitments for long under the current SDR. Will he consider reviewing the run-down of the Territorial Army, at least temporarily until we know where we are?
I have previously expressed my concern that there does not seem to be a long-term strategy or plan for the Balkan region as a whole. We seem to have dealt with it piecemeal and at present we are dealing with a particular, and fairly small, part of the problem in political terms--although it is huge in terms of human suffering. We need a Kosovo settlement that will allow the Albanian Kosovars to return with an international protection force. I agree with that. However, if we do not depose or get rid of Milosevic, we shall need an agreement with Serbia if long-term stability is to be achieved. That will involve dealing with the Serb Government, so we should not put ourselves in a position in which that becomes impossible. We need a policy for the sustainability and stability of the whole region and I am not sure that such a policy is in place. However, when it is, it will be clear that Serbia must be part of the settlement.
The atrocities about which we read daily in our newspapers and which we see on our television screens continually bring home to us all the scale of human tragedy unfolding in Kosovo and the sheer evil embodied in the Milosevic regime. The Government are right to want Kosovo's refugees to return to their homes in peace and security. We support the Government in those objectives and we support our armed forces in achieving them and wish them success. However, this is war--with all the uncertainties, dangers and bloodshed that are its constant companions. It is not surprising that events are not unfolding as planned; it would be surprising if they were. Not only is this a war, but it is a war in the Balkans, where instability and conflict have been a recurrent reality throughout history, and where great powers have feared to tread, or have come to grief before.
The Government have put NATO's credibility at stake in this matter, and that credibility must be redeemed. Many hon. Members have put the point forcefully today that our security depends on NATO and we cannot afford to see it fail. We hope that the outcome of these events will be not only a peaceful return to Kosovo by its population, but part of an overall settlement of the
post-Tito, post-communist Balkans. In pursuing the highly principled objectives which they have set themselves, the Government must ensure that we do not become permanently militarily engaged in that complex and dangerous part of Europe.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson):
This is the second full debate on this subject in the House since the commencement of NATO air operations against President Milosevic's repression of the Kosovar Albanians. It is right that the House should have the opportunity to debate those momentous events. Today's debate, like the others, has allowed all shades of opinion in the House to be ventilated, which is in stark contrast to the situation inside Serbia, where dissenting voices are crushed by fear of an autocrat who will stop at absolutely nothing to preserve his power.
I should like to highlight several of the speeches that have been made today. As is inevitable--indeed, it is the very purpose of debate--hon. Members have asked questions, and I hope to be able to answer some of them and respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed. However, I watched the nine o'clock news, in which the BBC's political editor characterised the debate as one that showed "growing concern" about the Government and NATO's position, so let me highlight those speakers who have given general support to the Government's position.
The right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith); my hon. Friends the Members for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for Walsall, South (Mr. George); the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell); the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames); my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Soley) and for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw); my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Ms Kingham), who made a very eloquent speech; my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks); the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples); and the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) all gave support for the position adopted by the Government, while asking the inevitable questions on behalf of the community as a whole. I shall have insulted hon. Members on both sides of the House whom I have omitted, but that list of speakers emphasises the way in which the House has given general support to the Government during this debate. It is worth making that point, not only to those who would take a handful of soundbites from the debate, but to those on the other side of our continent, who will characterise dissenting voices as speaking for the majority.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Robertson:
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for a moment.
Having identified those right hon. and hon. Members who have offered general support--I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was about to join them--I turn to the other speakers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) made his usual eloquent but predictable speech, saying that we should not get involved in any action. He called in aid the United Nations, but let me remind him of what Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said last week. It is significant that Mr. Annan not only endorsed NATO's objectives in Kosovo but said:
"Emerging slowly, but I believe surely, is an international norm against the violent repression of minorities that will and must take precedence over concerns of State sovereignty."
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvin (Mr. Galloway) again made his dissident speech, which he is entitled to do, although I consider him to be wrong. However, let me remind him of what he said on 12 July 1995, when he was addressing Malcolm Rifkind, the then Foreign Secretary. Then the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead, he said:
"What does the Secretary of State, who in his previous job had quite a line in bellicosity, say to the charge on the lips of millions of Muslims around the world this morning, that, if oil was flowing in the streets of Srebrenica rather than just blood, 29 countries would quickly have assembled a vast armada of armies and air forces to come to the rescue of a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations that is being invaded and subjected to brutal aggression?"--[Official Report, 12 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 960.]
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |