House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Nov 1999 (pt 13)

5.17 pm

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Had this debate started at 10 o'clock, I would have spoken for a succinct six minutes, and shared the time available with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon). I went in September to Serbia--the subject of this debate on the reconstruction of the Balkans--with my hon. Friend, and with Tim Gopsill of the National Union of Journalists and Bob Oram of Unison Manchester. However, as it is5.17 pm, I should like to use the opportunity to talk quietly and seriously to my political friend of 30 years, the Under-Secretary of State for International Development. It is no use pretending that there are not deep and rancorous differences of opinion on the Balkan war between myself and the Secretary of State for International Development. What has actually been said can be left at that, although it would be nice if there were a reconsideration as time goes by.

The best way of presenting my case is to give a chronological description of the visit. The first question is who paid for it. Did the Serbs? No, they did not. We paid for it; in no way are we beholden to the Serbian Government.

Because Belgrade airport is covered by sanctions, we arrived, as everyone has to, at Budapest. One has to have transport provided by Serbian authorities, or one does not go. We were met by a senior official of the Serbian embassy in Budapest. That led to several interesting conversations. We were very blunt and said that dreadful things had happened; we never hid that. For example, there was a dreadful occurrence at Rachak. I report his reply to the House. He said that Rachak was awful, but that there had been a terrible occurrence at Waco and asked whether we would condemn a whole nation for what happened there? Would we arraign in court Mrs. Janet Reno, the Attorney-General of the United States, simply because a terrible thing happened?

I do not say that this is the whole story, but the Serbian people deeply resent the fact that they have been blamed when they have more refugees than anywhere else in Europe. Some put the figure at 800,000, some at more than 1 million, starting with the 200,000 Krajina Serbs. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will deal at some length with the refugees, so I shall leave that and consider what happened on our first visit, which was to Novi Sad.

We were met by Professor Budhakov, who got his doctorate at the university of Nashville in the United States and went on to do research at the university of Pittsburgh. There were no language problems and no deep-seated hatred of the west or anything of that sort. Here was a man who was deeply hurt at what had happened. My hon. Friend the Minister has not had the opportunity of going to Novi Sad; I understand that. It is not only that there are bridges down over the Danube. Pictures cannot convey the sheer horror of seeing those bridges dumped there.

That point leads me to my first question: what do the Government think that our obligations are to the countries that lie on this greatest of European arteries? I refer to Bulgaria and Romania in particular. Later, we went to the

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ministry of reconstruction in Belgrade. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will bear out the fact that the people there said the bridges would not be cleared until they got a clear offer on the table in deutschmarks, not only for clearance but for reconstruction costs.

I understand that eight major bridges were destroyed out of the 11 targeted. One cannot be certain about the costs, but I saw an estimate that the cost of destroying them was about £6 million. We were given a rough estimate of £10 million per bridge for reconstruction. In my opinion, and this was also the opinion of my colleagues, the Serbs are determined not to mend the bridges until NATO comes up with a clear, watertight, firm offer that payment will be made.

Secondly, what happens in the winter, when the ice forms? What happens when there is severe flooding down river, as we have been told could occur? I hope that, in his answer--like me, he will have plenty of time--my hon. Friend the Minister will make some serious comments on the state of negotiations between the British Government and the Danube commission.

However, the worst thing at Novi Sad was not the bridges; it was the bombing of the oil refinery. I repeat the question that was eloquently put by the Finn, Dr. Pekka Haavisto. He asked whether, in modern warfare, it is really acceptable to bomb oil refineries and chemical complexes. We must answer that question. At the oil refinery at Novi Sad, no one knows how long the ammonia, benzene, chlorine, mercury, phosgene, pyralene, and many other chemicals and chemical compounds will last; no one knows where they have gone, and how they got into the Danube water. It is not merely a matter of what happens just after the bombing; the chemicals get into the silt at the side of the river, and can last for an extremely long time. I hope that the Minister's brief contains some scientific advice as to the effect on groundwater.

We have turned an awful, local crisis into a Balkan catastrophe. As my notes confirm, the Prime Minister and other Ministers repeatedly stated from the Dispatch Box that we would rebuild the Balkans. As of the end of September, there was not much sign of that in Serbia. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax has been to Kosovo and will talk about Kosovo. Perhaps the Government have a good story to tell--as they perceive it--but very little is happening in relation to Serbia. Whether we like it or not, Serbia was the economic engine of the Balkans. How one can rebuild the Balkans without rebuilding Serbia is beyond the imagination.

At Novi Sad, we came across the first instance of the taste of unemployment. In the second city of Yugoslavia, we were told that 30,000 people were now out of work; many were earning only two fifths of the not very great wages that they received before the start of the conflict. The economic situation is horrendous. The following day of our visit was--if anything--even worse. We arrived in Belgrade, late at night, and, in the morning, were taken to the motor vehicle factory at Zastava, about 100 miles south of Belgrade. That was the site of the motor and vehicle industry, manufacturing the Yugo, not only for the whole of Yugoslavia, but for areas beyond that country.