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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): Before my right hon. Friend develops the point about the reconstruction of Kosovo, as all the broadsheets today lead on their front page with some of the horrifying atrocities that were committed during the last months of the Serbian regime, will he again consider the point that I made to him earlier this week, namely, that a White Paper on the atrocities should be presented to Parliament? I realise that a war crimes investigation will continue and, hopefully, prosecutions will occur.
Mr. Cook: I am considering how I can best respond to my hon. Friend's point. I am not sure that a White Paper would necessarily be the best way forward, but we have placed in the Library details of the atrocities of which we are aware to date. Certainly I shall consider what further document we can make available to Parliament and the public.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): On the point about press freedom and encouraging the forces of
democracy within Kosovo, will my right hon. Friend consider what help might be given by the World Service of the BBC, for which there is enormous respect in the region, not only in terms of reaching right into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, beyond the leaders, but in training journalists in that area?
Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The House will be aware from previous debates that the broadcasts from the BBC World Service to the region have greatly increased throughout the period of the conflict, and that is one of our tools for making sure that we get the truth past the poisonous wall of propaganda built by President Milosevic. If, over the coming months, we can establish a real, free democracy in Kosovo, with a real, truly open media, it will provide inspiration and encouragement to Opposition forces in Serbia who will see Kosovo enjoying freedoms denied to the people of Serbia.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) anticipated what I was about to say about the victims of war crimes within Kosovo. In some ways, Veton Surroi is among the lucky ones. He has survived, while more than 10,000 others have been murdered. I want those who ordered the murders, the brutality and the tortures to know that we shall spare no effort in bringing them to justice.
One of the toughest negotiations over the text of the Security Council resolution related to the reference to the International War Crimes Tribunal. Throughout those negotiations Britain insisted that there must be a strong, clear commitment to the work of the tribunal. By the end of the negotiations, we had secured a demand for full co-operation with the tribunal by all concerned. Britain will lead the way in providing that full co-operation. The first task falls to our troops in KFOR to identify the sites of war crimes. In village after village that our troops have entered to provide security, they have been confronted by the most harrowing evidence of the atrocities committed against the people of Kosovo.
Only 10 miles into Kosovo at Kacanik, our troops came across the freshly dug earth and the putrid smell of a mass grave. Local villagers have given evidence that about 100 people were killed in April, including the women and children of the village. In Pristina this week, the Parachute Regiment uncovered a regional police headquarters that had clearly been used as a torture centre. In a building with five floors and a cellar, British forces found knives, rubber and wooden batons, baseball bats with Serb slogans carved into them, and drugs, presumably used to sedate the victims. Outside the building, a trail of charred paper led to an incinerator--as the Serb forces left, they appeared to have tried to burn any documentary evidence of their crimes. However, the instruments of torture left behind tell their own story. Investigators for the International War Crimes Tribunal are now visiting the scene.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
Before we leave Kacanik, I do not doubt that those terrible things occurred--
Mr. Winnick:
That is good of you.
Mr. Dalyell:
I think my hon. Friend might wait.
Will my right hon. Friend examine the circumstances at the end of February, in which the Serb police inspector, Bogulduk Staletovic, who was trying to bring together the ethnic Albanian community and the Serbs, was murdered, together with several of his friends? Does my right hon. Friend accept that both sides were involved in brutalities--in some areas, one side was more involved than the other? If there is to be an investigation, the full truth should be revealed.
Mr. Cook:
As I told my hon. Friend on Monday, when he put a similar point to me, the remit of the International War Crimes Tribunal is without regard to ethnic identity or nationality. The tribunal will resolve for itself which war crimes it pursues. In Bosnia, the tribunal has already proved that it is blind to ethnic identity when it comes to examining a war crime.
I must rebut my hon. Friend's closing statement. It is wholly false to imply that there is any kind of equivalence between the isolated, occasional examples of violence against the Serb population and the wholesale, co-ordinated, premeditated, pre-planned deportation of a whole people at the point of a revolver, and under pain of brutality and systematic rape. Yes, of course we shall also pursue those responsible for crimes against the Serb people, but I do not think that my hon. Friend--for whose wisdom and intelligence I have great respect--should blind himself to the wholly different character of the sustained brutality launched by Belgrade against the people of Kosovo.
I was about to assure the House that Britain has committed a 15-strong team of police officers experienced in investigating scenes of crime. Those officers are already deployed at Kacanik. Theirs will be the grislyand unpleasant task of exhuming the mass graves and recording the cause of death. Their forensic skill and professional commitment will make a vital contribution to bringing to justice those responsible for the atrocities that have been committed in Kosovo.
If we are to discourage the survivors from taking the law into their own hands and seeking revenge, we must convince them that the international community means business when it offers a legal remedy against those responsible for the atrocities. Reconciliation will not be easy after the horrors of the past year, or of the ethnic cleansing of the past three months. However, we are determined to make every attempt to create a pluralist, multi-ethnic Kosovo. Our objective was to reverse the ethnic cleansing. Having fought that campaign to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians, we will not now tolerate the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population in Kosovo, nor of any other ethnic minority. The Balkans do not need another tragic round of revenge killings. We must break the cycle of violence that perpetuates ethnic hatred and fear.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde):
Long before Rambouillet, in response to a question I put to him, my right hon. Friend gave the House an assurance that, in any settlement, he would ensure that the human rights of the Serb minority were protected. The idea that Kosovar Albanians and Serbs can live together in peace is something of a pipe dream. We find it hard enough to persuade Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland to
Mr. Cook:
My hon. Friend puts his finger on one of the true tragedies of the Serb population of Kosovo. Some of them have complained that Milosevic betrayed them when he abandoned them; in truth, he betrayed them when he failed to sign up to the Rambouillet peace accords, which would have provided that Serb population with full protection and with their own elected national community leaders to protect their culture, their language, their religion and their customs. That opportunity was lost by Milosevic, and that was the great betrayal of the Serbian population of Kosovo. I agree that it will not be easy to persuade people to face the future without feeling the bitterness of the past, but there can be no long-term future of stability, peace and prosperity for the Balkans if we try to sweep every ethnic group into its own pure cantonment where it has no contact with any of the many other ethnic groups of the Balkans region.
I intend to visit Kosovo next week. Throughout the crisis, I have consulted almost daily with my colleagues, the Foreign Ministers of our major allies, and on behalf of us all I will deliver in Pristina two clear messages to the peoples of Kosovo. To the Serb population I will say, "KFOR is there to protect you as well." The Security Council resolution makes it clear that the obligation relates to the security of Albanian and Serb citizens alike. We ask those Serb residents now fleeing Kosovo to turn back and to contribute to a multi-ethnic Kosovo that respects the human rights of every citizen, irrespective of ethnic identity or religion. To the Albanian population, I shall say that anyone who takes the law into his own hands undermines the opportunity for Kosovo to become an open democracy based on the rule of law. I understand the appalling emotional distress that must be experienced by those who have lost husbands or wives, fathers and mothers, but to pursue revenge for the past will only make it impossible to secure a future without violence for their children.
We have now secured one of the two military priorities set out in the Security Council resolution: an agreement for the withdrawal of all Serb forces. To guarantee the ceasefire throughout Kosovo, it will now be necessary to make progress on the other immediate priority: demilitarising the Kosovo Liberation Army. At Rambouillet, the KLA accepted the principle of demilitarisation in the context of a NATO security force. We are now negotiating the practical arrangements for observance of the ceasefire by the KLA, and we hope soon to have its signature to an undertaking with KFOR for demilitarisation. I hope to speak later today with Hashem Thaqi, the leader of the KLA, to urge an early signature to the undertaking.
By early next week, we expect KFOR to have fulfilled its planned deployment throughout Kosovo. That is based on five sectors, led by Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States. Other allies, such as the Dutch, Belgian and Canadian forces, are already contributing units to one or other of those sectors. Today, the United States hopes to reach agreement with Russia on the basis for a Russian participation in KFOR. Madeleine Albright and Bill Cohen will report tomorrow to a meeting of NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers. We might then be in a position to finalise the arrangements whereby the Russian
contribution can play its part in the command structure within one of the allied sectors. Only a fortnight to the day from the date when President Ahtisaari securedthe capitulation of President Milosevic, we are already on the way to making a reality of the peacekeeping military presence in Kosovo with NATO leadership.
However, it will take much longer to undertake the immense task of civil and economic reconstruction in Kosovo. It will take the full commitment of all available international agencies to measure up to the task, which will not be over until the last refugee has returned to his or her village and we have ensured that all refugees have the shelter they need for the next winter. When she winds up the debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will speak more fully about our contribution to the return of the refugees and to the urgent task of providing emergency relief to all those who have been trapped hiding among the hillsides and forests of Kosovo for the past terrifying three months.
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