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Mr. Galloway: The Secretary of State's latter point is crucial. Bosnia-Herzegovina was a sovereign state that was attacked from the outside, whereas Kosovo is part of Serbia. That was our position until a few months ago. We have joined a civil war within Serbia on the side of an organisation which last year was on the US State Department's list of international terrorist organisations.
Mr. Robertson: So it is all right to attack, rape and murder Muslims so long as they are not in an independent state which is not Kuwait. That seems a very strange attitude to adopt.
On the eve of NATO's 50th anniversary, hon. Members should reflect on the origins of the alliance and its purpose. It was born out of a desire to secure a just settlement in Europe in the aftermath of the second world war. It preserved freedom in western Europe throughout the cold war and eventually triumphed over the dictatorship of the Soviet Union.
Today, in Milosevic, NATO faces a man who seems not to have learned the lessons of history and a man who believes that literally anything justifies his desire to cling to power. Europe at the end of the 20th century cannot accept that political problems are solved by recourse to the tactics of Hitler and Stalin. If we were to do so, we would put at risk the very ideals that NATO stands for: democracy and the rule of law.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary--whose role in the current events has been exemplary and whose conduct has been praised widely--described NATO's response to the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Milosevic and our determination to force Milosevic to comply with the demands of the international community. I add my thanks and congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, who has done much on the humanitarian front to move forward the great convoy that has saved so many lives in the Balkans.
I shall address some of the concerns and issues that right hon. and hon. Members have raised during the debate. Several hon. Members sought clarification--yet again--of the objectives of the military action. I thought that they were clear--they should certainly be clear in Belgrade because we have told them often enough; indeed, the Secretary-General repeated the military objectives last week when he was in Brussels with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, I shall repeat them again tonight.
The political objectives of the campaign are: a verifiable end to all Serb military action and the immediate ending of violence and repression; the withdrawal of Milosevic's military, police and paramilitary forces; agreement to the stationing in Kosovo of an international military peacekeeping force; the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons and unhindered access to them by humanitarian aid organisations; and a credible assurance of a willingness to work on the basis of the Rambouillet accords in the establishment of a political framework for Kosovo in conformity with international law and the charter of the United Nations.
From the beginning, our military objectives have been the disruption of Milosevic's repressive operations and the weakening of his forces. They support the political objectives that we have set out, and NATO will continue its military actions until its objectives have been achieved.
Mr. Robertson:
I have a very limited amount of time in which to speak and I want to respond to some of the points that have been raised.
Many hon. Members referred to ground forces and the question of an opposed invasion of Kosovo. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon mentioned that, but, unlike other Conservative Members, he also recognised the comments of the Leader of the Opposition when the Prime Minister made his statement about this matter. It is worth remembering the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition on 23 March:
The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Casale), the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) and the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife all raised that issue and suggested that we should have deployed troops to engage in operations on the ground. They suggested that if we had done so, we could have averted the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. They are wrong to imagine that a ground campaign would have prevented the suffering of innocent civilians, but NATO's air campaign has succeeded in disrupting Serbian military operations in Kosovo.
Day by day and night by night, we are cutting into Milosevic's military capabilities. The air strikes will continue until NATO's objectives are met, and there is every chance that the Serbian leadership will soon see sense and decide that the game is no longer worth the candle. If it does not, and if the Serb forces maliciously continue to expel the Kosovar population and seek to hold the territory regardless of the strategic position, NATO will increasingly direct its fire against them.
So far as a ground force is concerned, NATO is of course committed to providing a force to go into Kosovo once the Serbs back down, and part of that force is already in Macedonia, ready to move at short notice. NATO will be updating its planning for that force to take account of the new situation in Kosovo, including the ravages inflicted by Milosevic, the effects of NATO air strikes and NATO's new demand since Rambouillet that all Serb forces should withdraw immediately.
The United Kingdom has already decided to send more of that force to Macedonia so as to be ready to deploy as soon as Milosevic backs down. We are determined that an international military force will be deployed in Kosovo once air strikes have done their job, so that the Kosovar people can return to their homes. At the end of the day, Milosevic will not have a veto.
A number of hon. Members referred to the humanitarian crisis that is now afflicting the countries in and around the Balkans as a result of the expulsion of the Albanians. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) made a powerful speech this evening, following his visit to Macedonia. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley spoke with her usual power about the plight of those who have been left the casualties of these dreadful events.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, asked about humanitarian air drops to the thousands of displaced people left inside Kosovo. I say to him and others who have asked that question--it is a good question which demands an answer and we have spent a long time considering it--that air dropping of food and other supplies to internally displaced people in Kosovo is not an easy option.
The many insurmountable problems include accurately locating where those people might be hiding and seeking refuge, and accurately and safely dropping supplies to them. There would be hazards to NATO planes if they were to undertake such a mission, and there would be a potential for the supplies to fall into the hands of the Serbs, who might use them as a lure to the refugees. We would also face the sheer difficulty of moving the amount of aid required. We continue to examine the options on that.
I put this powerful point to the House: the responsibility for the human tragedy inside Kosovo, including the miseries being inflicted on those who have been displaced, lies purely with the Serbian leadership, and Slobodan Milosevic in particular. He will be held to account for what happens to those human beings. Frankly, those who are in danger will cease to be in danger only if the campaign of air strikes organised by the 19 Governments, the 19 nations, the 19 Parliaments of NATO is a success.
Hon. Members have raised the issue of the costs of the campaign, which I cannot pretend will not be significant. The estimated costs will be substantial, but I ask the
House to consider the cost of not acting. What would be the cost to all of us on our continent and, indeed, beyond, if we were to stand by, wring our hands, and allow such ethnic cleansing to go ahead and succeed? I estimate that, up until 8 April, the costs that have been incurred total some £17 million, excluding the costs of replenishing stocks of ordnance expended.
The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) mentioned the cost of humanitarian assistance partly being met by the Department for International Development. I say to him, as I say to those who ask about the defence budget, that, of course, access to the contingency reserve will be sought by the Ministers concerned in the normal way.
A very important issue has been raised both in the House and elsewhere: how NATO selects and clears the targets assigned to aircraft. At the outset of the air campaign, NATO Ministers collectively agreed to certain categories of targets--the first of which was, self-evidently, the Yugoslav air defences. We subsequently agreed to widen the range of targets to include strategic assets such as bridges, barracks and headquarters.
Within those broad categories, an assessment is made of priorities. One of the main factors in reaching decisions is the possibility of causing civilian casualties or damage to civilian buildings--known as collateral damage. More than in any other previous campaign we have used precision-guided munitions to ensure that such damage is avoided.
"Although we support the use of ground troops to implement a diplomatic settlement, we shall not support their use to fight for a settlement."
He asked the Prime Minister to
"confirm that those strikes are not a prelude to a ground war and that ground troops would be used only to implement a diplomatic settlement".--[Official Report, 23 March 1999; Vol. 328, c. 163.]
It is worth Conservative Members' remembering what their leader said.
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