House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Jun 1999 (pt 22)

4.31 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): I take the view that there should be some time sharing among us when colleagues have been waiting all day to speak, so I hope to be succinct and shall put my speech in the form of questions.

The first question arises out of the speech of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis). I listened extremely carefully to what he said about air power, and this question is perhaps less to him than to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. Is it true that air power was decisive? As I understand it, the attacks round Mount Pastic by the KLA guerrillas early last week threatened to split the Yugoslav forces by capturing the road linking Prizren and Pec. At that point, they had to come out from bunkers and from their positions to deal with what were, in effect, land forces.

The KLA fighters were land forces at the time and, in those circumstances, the Yugoslavs took serious casualties--they had to deploy large units and therefore became relatively easy targets, for the American Warthogs in particular. If that is considered accurate by the Ministry of Defence, does it not suggest that land forces were indeed decisive in persuading the leadership in Belgrade to act as it did?

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Secondly, I was asked--in rather strident terms at business questions and far more courteously by the Secretary of State for Defence--to apologise. There will perhaps be an apology from me, but it will not come until five years have elapsed. I think that Pandora's box has been opened and the horrors that have been unleashed by the bombing are almost unimaginable.

I say that partly out of experience of Bosnia. As one of those who never wanted us to go into Bosnia in the first place, I have to agree with the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock): how on earth and--this question has to be asked at an early stage--in what circumstances will we ever get out of Kosovo? I do not think that we will do so in my lifetime and I rather doubt whether we will do so in the lifetime of the youngest among us.

My third question is, how exactly do the Government think that the Russians fit into this picture? What is to be the Russian chain of command? Is it not true that the war ended earlier than it would have done because of remarkable Russian good will? That is ironic, because the Russians were sidelined by the United States and the United Kingdom for at least a fortnight at the beginning of the conflict. When we found that immediate bombing did not work, we realised that we needed the Russians.

I shall quote briefly my friend Paul Wilkinson, who is a professor at St. Andrews university. He says:

"A major lesson is that Russia, for all its domestic problems, is still a key player. It is foolish and dangerous to world peace to try to exclude Russia from the top table of international decision making. The same is true of China".

I have a particular question about the Russians, which has been eloquently put in a letter from a man I do not know, Albert McFall, to The Independent. He says:

"If a Nato and Russian peace-keeping force does eventually enter Kosovo, there could be problems in the future.

If as seems very likely the Serb government breaks agreements and resumes ethnic cleansing, Nato would presumably withdraw its peace-keeping troops. The air attacks would start again and Nato would then be bombing Serb and Russian troops who would remain. Would Nato also attack Russian lines of communication such as ships and transport aeroplanes?"

That question needs at least a comment.

The military advisers to Mr. Chernomyrdin, as I understand it, were insistent that there should be an autonomous Russian chain of command and it is reported that there was some conflict between him and his military staff officers. He had to say rather sharply that he alone had President Yeltsin's authority to negotiate, but those people are still there in Moscow and we should take notice of that. What is the Government's understanding in respect of the treatment of Russian troops who may be in Kosovo for a long time?

My fourth question refers to the Kosovars. They think that they are to go back to Kosovo and will get independence, although they also think that we may have gone back on that. Have we inherited another Balkan protectorate? The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South raised very powerfully the question of the KLA, which is now a tough little guerrilla army. Those partisans are unlikely to welcome the transition from beneficiaries of NATO close air support to disarmed wards of NATO peacekeepers now serving as the outriders of Serb sovereignty, if it be the case that Serb sovereignty is to remain.

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I think that disarming the KLA is an horrendous prospect, partly because I am sufficiently old to remember my contemporaries going to Malaya when I was in the Rhine Army. One of the problems in Malaya was that we could not tell the difference between a civilian and a guerrilla. It would be the easiest thing in the world for the KLA fighters to melt away, pretend to be civilians and then--unless there is a rigorous chain of command, which I gather does not exist in such a form--simply reappear.

It is difficult to be sanguine, and how on earth will we make sure that the KLA surrenders arms? I am afraid that my question of Tuesday to the Prime Minister remains: is there any evidence that the KLA will be any more willing to give up its arms than the IRA? If NATO troops enter Kosovo, the peacekeepers may find themselves having to protect Serb civilians from the KLA. It is undoubtedly true that Agin Ceku--who, incidentally, is a Croat--and Hashem Thaqi, who is one of the political leaders, are among a whole group who are absolutely determined on revenge. It seems that we will be in Kosovo for a very long time.

On 8 June, in The Independent, Timothy Garton Ash wrote:

"So you thought it was all over? Don't fool yourself, please. There are several nightmares still ahead. Even if the Yugoslavian military finally accepts withdrawal terms, they--and especially the paramilitaries--can make a last round of bloody mayhem on the way out. On their heels will follow the KLA, a rag-tag army of furious young men, who have seen comrades killed, sisters raped, families deported.

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn.

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.