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5.51 pm
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow): I am pleased to take part in the debate. The conflict in which this country and NATO took part was absolutely justified. It was crucial that we prevailed.
Anyone who still has doubts about the justice of that action should listen to some of the stories that are coming out of Kosovo day by day from independent reporters. We knew that the situation was appalling from the horrific stories of ethnic cleansing, with old men, women and children being lined up and shot. A description in The Guardian today moved me greatly. A man, describing what had happened, said:
I am relieved that the Government took the stance that they did over Kosovo and that we rejected the isolationist notion that it is justifiable to take military action only when British lives, security or financial interests are at stake. The decision was not an easy one. Clearly, there were problems and reservations. However, the Government, rightly, set out a clear, moral case for action. They took a lead and stuck to it with determination.
There were political risks. It is conceivable that if we had not achieved our objectives, the Government's reputation could have been tarnished beyond measure. It is worth highlighting that point because some people criticise the Government for not having a moral basis to their values. Despite the political risks, the Prime Minister and the Government took the view that the moral principles at stake outweighed those risks. I am pleased that we took that stance.
I shall address briefly some of the points made by my hon. Friends. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) is not in the Chamber. I respect her and have a great deal of time for her as a politician, although I disagree with her in this case. She cited numerous examples of conflicts throughout the world in which atrocities had occurred. She implied that, because we did not act on those occasions, we should not have acted in Kosovo. The logic of that position is that one would never act anywhere. I wholly reject the notion that if one cannot act everywhere, one should never act anywhere. That is a counsel of despair and would allow the world to develop according to its worst excesses.
My hon. Friend also referred to the demonising of Serbs. I have absolutely no disagreement with innocent Serbs, who are human beings like everyone in the Chamber. However, the idea, proposed by my hon. Friend, that there is moral equivalence between the actions of the KLA and those of the Serbian regime under Milosevic is not sustainable when we consider the facts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) made a number of points. I am choosing my words carefully when I say that I begin to get very angry indeed when I hear someone referring to the 350,000 people who were expelled from their homes, and are living in the forests and hills, as settled. To attempt to minimise the scale of the atrocity that took place before even the first NATO bomb had been dropped is to attempt to defend the indefensible.
It is crucial that we learn lessons from the conflict. The first is that we need to pursue vigorously the concept of European defence co-operation. I say that not because I want to undermine NATO--any form of European defence co-operation would be within NATO--nor because I am arguing for a European army. We shall never give up the right of sovereign nation states to determine whether they should take part in military conflict. However, it is certainly arguable that, in circumstances such as those that have existed in the former Yugoslavia for much of this decade, without the over-dependence on the financial resources and hardware of the United States, European nations would rightly have acted sooner if they had had the capability, and would perhaps have been able to prevent some of the atrocities. It is worth exploring whether we should develop a defence capability that would enable us to do that.
The second lesson is that we need to rethink the role of the United Nations. I believe in the UN and that it is a force for good and for peace. However, the conflict has shown up the shortcomings of the UN and the need for reform. The UN was born in a different era, and in a different world. Its charter stresses the territorial integrity and political independence of the nation state. However, during the conflict, Kofi Annan made it clear that the right to national sovereignty does not confer an absolute right for a Government--whether or not they are democratic--to do what they will to their people within the confines of the nation state. Since the inception of the UN, the concept of taking military action for humanitarian purposes has developed throughout the world and has gained widespread international repute. However, the UN charter does not address either of those developments in international thinking.
We need to rethink the UN's decision-making structure. The criticism that there was no explicit authorisation for military action related to the decision-making structure of the UN Security Council, in which one permanent member of the council has an absolute right of veto. Do we really want to preserve the kind of structure whereby, whatever the scale of humanitarian atrocity and however overwhelming the agreement among every other country in the UN, one country, which happens to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should be able to block that action? At the least, we need to challenge that notion.
I realise that time is short and that other hon. Members want to speak. In conclusion, I point out that I am not someone, either as a politician or as an individual, who has a liking for war. War is brutal: it is ugly and, in many ways, it demeans humanity. However, I have never been a pacifist. I know that, in certain circumstances, it is justifiable to take military action to tackle a greater evil. This conflict was one of the occasions on which we were justified in taking such action.
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge):
It is a privilege to speak in this debate which, despite the rather low attendance, has been graced by some eloquent speeches. As a new Member of Parliament, it has been a privilege to listen.
Some events in world history take us by surprise, but some should not. The Kosovo problem did not creep up to take us by surprise; it has been staring at us for decades. The bitter enmity and racial tension between Serbs and ethnic Albanians have often risen to the surface. Hon. Members who have now visited the region will have seen it only in the context of horrendous stories and terrible events, but I am lucky to have known Kosovo in happier times. I also remember being threatened by ethnic Albanians in Pristina more than 20 years ago, because I was speaking Serbo-Croat. I quickly had to return to speaking English, albeit briefly, to establish my identity. That said, many on both sides of the ethnic divide have lived amicably side by side over the centuries, and even today many thousands of ethnic Albanians live in Serbia, including Belgrade.
Today's is the first debate that has taken place since the end of the bombing campaign, and many of the issues that I wanted to raise have already been touched on. However, I do want to say that it has not been easy for those of us who opposed the NATO bombing: we have struggled with our innate patriotism and sense of loyalty to our armed forces and we have been labelled traitors or even Nazi sympathisers.
I am confident that no one in the House supports the ruthless regime of Milosevic. Some of us have been trying in recent years to give help to those who oppose him and his regime and to bring democracy to Yugoslavia. Why, because we dared to speak out--an exercise of our democratic rights which is, I concede, largely denied in Milosevic's Yugoslavia--should we have been so labelled?
I was not a Member of Parliament at the time, but I remember when principled Front Benchers of the then Opposition resigned--some were even sacked--because they opposed or questioned the bombing of Iraq during the Gulf war, even though that war arose from the invasion of one sovereign country by another. However, I do not want to make party-political points, because support for and opposition to the Kosovo conflict has brought together some strange alliances, which has been very revealing.
One aspect of the conflict that worries me a great deal is the use of weapons containing depleted uranium. We have been assured in parliamentary answers that Britain has not deployed such weapons, but it would appear that some of our allies have done so. The use of such weapons should be the subject of a full and open debate, and I hope that the Government will address that issue in due course.
I am also greatly alarmed by the environmental damage caused throughout the region, such as the poisoning of rivers of international status. We have learned of great damage done to the unique habitat of the Danube delta, where both people and wildlife are now suffering. The refugees returning to Kosovo will find not only a country materially destroyed, but an environmental wasteland. Of course, Serbia itself has identical problems.
I turn to the present. We are now in an extremely dangerous position. I pay tribute to all the peacekeeping forces in the area, especially the British armed forces. I have no doubt that they will demonstrate the highest standards of professionalism, and I am utterly confident that they will be as even-handed in their duties as it is possible for them to be.
However, to the Serbs in Kosovo, NATO will be seen as an occupying force. That is why the Russians' input is so utterly important and why I believe--we have heard this repeatedly this afternoon--that they should have been involved earlier.
Unfortunately, the Serb population is leaving Kosovo in droves. The pendulum has swung and the humanitarian disaster is only getting worse. We have heard in the debate that the people who fled from Krajina at the point of a gun are on the move again. They are every bit as deserving of our sympathy and humanitarian aid as the poor wretched people who were driven from their homes in Kosovo to Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, or wherever. We must show equality in our pity and in our actions.
Neighbouring countries must be given as much help as possible because they have paid a great price. Hungary estimated in May that it had lost revenues amounting to
at least $200 million, and its tourist industry is a wreck. Macedonia has also borne much of the burden of the side effects of this action. Its export trade has all but collapsed, as has that of Albania. Principally, we must not forget Montenegro, the country to which, in a strange twist, we were sending aid at the same time as we were bombing it. Real aid to those countries must be given the highest priority.
I disagree with the Government's notion that we cannot help Serbia until Milosevic leaves power--although I understand the sentiment. I think that we must use both the carrot and the stick--and I suggest that the stick has been used against the Serbian people with incredible ferocity. If we are earnest in our desire to bring full democracy to Yugoslavia, we must show the Serbian people more than merely a glimpse of the future: we must give them what the vast majority crave. There has been--and still is--a great deal of opposition to the current regime, but we must allow the Yugoslav people to make their own decisions. We must not dictate to them, but we can show them the choices and the possibilities available.
At this point, I thank the British Yugoslavs. Even in demonstrations, they behaved peacefully in the face of a demonisation that reached great heights. For a few weeks, every crime committed in this country was pinned on the Serbian people.
Before concluding, I draw the attention of the House to another issue that deserves our immediate focus: the perilous state of and threats to the priceless cultural sites throughout the region. The world-famous Gracanica monastery has been affected by nearby bombs, and I believe its portal in particular has sustained a great deal of damage. Thirteen churches in the Veliko Hoce district have been destroyed and their priests have fled. The monastery at Decani--where, incidentally, monks sheltered Albanian Kosovars throughout the conflict--is also at risk. The list is long. Although most of the damage was caused by stray NATO bombs, retreating Serbs have set fire to the famous Islamic library adjacent to the main mosque in Prizren, and reprisals by the KLA against cultural sites remain a great threat. Important sites in Serbia, such as the fortress at Petrovaradin on the Danube, have also been badly damaged.
I have had my doubts about whether it was right to oppose the NATO action. Every day, as we read or see pictures of more brutality and horrors, those doubts remain. The thought "What else could we have done?" echoes around my head. The questions that I leave with hon. Members today are whether, as a result of this action, the region is more stable; whether we have averted the humanitarian disaster; whether we stopped the killings as quickly as we could; and whether the world is a safer place. I fear that, despite everything, some countries will start to build up their military forces again--indeed, I think this conflict shows that our armed forces are at a perilously low level.
"You can't imagine the sound of the scream when a child dies . . . Ismet, who was three, was crying, 'Mummy I want water.' And they shot him in the face."
Everybody in this Chamber, particularly parents, cannot fail to be moved by such a description. I do not cite that atrocity for the sake of it; I ask those who have opposed the conflict from the beginning, used phrases such as "truth is the first casualty of war" and dismissed these tales as the usual pack of NATO lies, to reflect on these realistic accounts.
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