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Mr. Hogg: It must be proportionate.
Mr. Clark: It must also be proportionate, as my right hon. and learned Friend says. If NATO continues to behave in its present reckless, indiscriminate and brutal manner--devoid, it seems, of any comprehensible, tactical plan--which is greatly separated from the original concepts under which the organisation was set up and from the deference that it originally owed, and should owe, to the Security Council of the United Nations and
the resolutions thereof, the alliance will have been gravely damaged. The outcome of its activities will be uncertain and will probably give rise to disappointment, disillusion and much human suffering.
The House should be aware of those matters and of their undercurrents. I know from my own mailbag that the anxiety that is felt in the Chamber is an echo of the anxiety that is felt throughout the country as to what is being done in our name and in the name of our country.
I wholly reject any suggestion that to say those things is unpatriotic in some way. Is it unpatriotic to remind the House of Commons that members of our armed services enlist to defend British people and British interests--not to kill non-combatants? Is it unpatriotic to point out--as I have been reproached for doing in this Chamber--that, where non-combatants have been killed, it is not, and never has been, the fault or the responsibility of our armed forces? It is the responsibility of those with whom they are currently associated.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
The debate says much about democracy in this country in that, 60 days into the bombardment, there has been no substantive vote in the British Parliament on the authority of the Government to proceed with the bombardment of Yugoslavia. There has been no vote on whether there is to be a declaration of war, nor on the appropriation of vast amounts of money for this programme and there will not be a substantive vote either today, or, I suspect, on any other day. It ill behoves us to lecture the rest of the world on the rule of law and democracy when we have the archaic system of the royal prerogative handled by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to decide whether this country is at war.
Under the cloak of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, there has been a vast expansion of the work of that organisation. NATO knows no democratic control whatever; at any one time, 90 per cent. of British troops are under the control of NATO generals, answerable only to the President of the United States. Legislation under the Visiting Forces Acts removed many powers that we held; the expansion of NATO has done so entirely. Those people who hoped that the end of the cold war would bring about a more rational system of peacekeeping and security in Europe and, indeed, a more rational world order, and who now support the bombing of Yugoslavia, should think very carefully.
At the end of the cold war, the Warsaw pact collapsed; NATO should have been collapsed too. Instead of promoting NATO and the massive armaments that that involves and instead of joining up other countries, we should have been promoting the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe as a way of maintainingpeace and a sense of security in Europe. Now, we are undergoing a massive armaments campaign.
Likewise, there has been a systematic denigration of the peacekeeping powers of the United Nations and of its ability to promote peace throughout the world. It is
ludicrous that a system has pertained since the end of the second world war in which the five victor powers of that war hold the power of veto over the United Nations. It is time that the veto system was ended and the United Nations was treated with the respect that it deserves, so that it becomes the centre point of world government and world peacekeeping. The actions of NATO, the expansion of NATO and the way in which the British andAmerican Governments, in particular, have systematically undermined the work of the UN Secretary-General during this conflict bode ill for a good future for the United Nations.
I am fed up with Prime Ministers and Presidents of extremely powerful countries who go to the UN,praising UNICEF--the United Nations Children's Fund--UNESCO, the environment summit and all other things to do with the UN, but who completely ignore the UN on the crucial issues of war and peace and send in NATO instead. It is time to do something different in that respect.
The idea that the agreement on offer in Rambouillet would ever bring about peace is laughable. No country would ever have signed up to anything under the Rambouillet agreement. Despite the Foreign Secretary's earlier remarks, it is clear, from information that was published after Rambouillet, that there was never any intention of achieving an agreement; it was always to be an ultimatum to Yugoslavia and the start of the process by which the bombardment would take place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) referred to the rule of law in the future. He conceded the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) that there is no legal basis whatever for the bombardment of Yugoslavia that is taking place. If there was a legal basis, presumably Britain and the United States would have returned to the Security Council to try to obtain it. They knew that they could not do that, so they bypassed the matter. That is not the way to show respect for the rule of law. What is going on is illegal. Indeed, the International Court of Justice in The Hague--I visited that city last week to attend a peace conference--is currently hearing an application from the Yugoslav Government in respect of the bombardment. If that court finds against Britain, America and NATO, what will happen to the whole fiction and to the fig leaf of legality that surrounds the arguments that have been made?
As a parallel, some hon. Members have referred tothe question of General Pinochet. I spent 25 years campaigning for peace, democracy and freedom in Chile. A great deal of progress has been made, but at no stage did the Chilean opposition ask people to bomb Santiago or to invade. No; at great personal risk and danger, they campaigned to get rid of Pinochet. They have campaigned ever since to have him brought to trial. To me, that, rather than the NATO bombardment, is the way forward.
We have to recognise the way in which Yugoslavia, which stood out as part of the non-aligned movement and stood out against the cold war in the 1950s and 1960s, was not supported. It was allowed to get into enormous debt and to develop huge economic problems, on the back of which petty nationalists such as Tudjman and Milosevic rose to power. The ghastly process of ethnic cleansing commenced and has continued ever since. We hold some responsibility for the way in which those people rose to power, just as we are responsible for the
way in which the treaty of Versailles resulted in fascists rising to power in Europe. We should think carefully about how we treat other countries' economies.
After 60 days of bombardment, we have to ask: what has been achieved? A ghastly situation in Kosovo has been made worse: hundreds of thousands of people have been forced out of Kosovo and into refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia, with regrettably few being offered places of safety in other parts of western Europe. We were told that the bombardment of Yugoslavia would be over in a short time and that only military targets would be bombed. Since when was a television station a military target? Since when was an oil refinery a military target? Since when was a bridge a military target? Since when were all those civilian casualties who have suffered as a result of the bombardment of Yugoslavia military targets?
Our actions have resulted in a brutalisation of the people of Yugoslavia that will unite them behind Milosevic--a people who, two years ago and less, demonstrated in their hundreds of thousands to remove the Milosevic regime. We have created a polarised society in that state, with which we shall have to deal. Then, we have the problems created by the bombardment itself. I mentioned the bombing of oil refineries and other targets, but the depleted uranium used in the bombs being dropped by NATO will pollute the whole region and kill people in every country in the region. The fall-out from depleted uranium does not respect national boundaries, any more than it respects the colour of a soldier's uniform.
I spent last week at an international peace conference in The Hague--the centenary of the 1899 attempt at peace. The British media reported not one word about it, despite the fact that 5,000 people attended and Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others spoke, overwhelmingly in condemnation of NATO's action. They did not in any sense support the actions of Milosevic and his regime, but demanded a search for a peaceful solution. Everyone must recognise that we cannot go on bombing for ever: at some point, there has to be a ceasefire; at some point, there have to be talks; at some point, there has to be agreement; at some point, there has to be respect for human rights and the right to live in the region.
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