Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
TUESDAY 13 JULY 1999
THE RT
HON ROBIN
COOK, MP, DR
EMYR JONES
PARRY, CMG AND
MR TOM
PHILLIPS
Mr Illsley
300. Can I follow that on, Secretary of State,
in relation to land mines? Are the problems of land mines being
addressed?
(Mr Cook) Yes.
301. Are we being able to remove the mines,
and has there been any co-operation from the Serb forces in the
removal of those mines?
(Mr Cook) Well, it has been addressed, but I would
not wish to pretend to the Committee that it has, as yet, been
solved. First of all, the Military Technical Agreement requires
the VJ to provide maps of where they had laid mines. They did
provide fairly extensive maps, and when I visited KFOR they believed
that they had a reasonable provision of a reasonably honest attempt
to meet that requirement in the Military Technical Agreement.
We are looking at ways in which we can carry out, in partnerships
with others, the clearance of those minefields, and we have sought
a particular partnership agreement with Canada, and some DfID
experts in this matter are already active within Kosovo. Our immediate
estimate is that the position on mines within Kosovo is not as
serious as it was in Bosnia. Nevertheless, it is still very significant.
The Military Technical Agreement did provide for some Serb forces
to return to Kosovo under supervision to lift the mines. I think
it would be fair to say, Chair, that Belgrade is probably not
attaching great priority to fulfilling that part of the Military
Technical Agreement, but we do recognise that this is an issue
that will have to be addressed and Serbia has an obligation to
assist us in addressing it. In the meantime, everybody needs to
be alert on the malign way in which the withdrawing of Serb forces
did leave booby traps and mines around specifically to maim those
who were coming in behind them. Indeed, we even discovered one
mine laid in one of the rose bushes of the British residence within
Pristina. It was drawn to our attention by neighbours who had
seen it being planted, and it was disposed of by KFOR. That had
only one purpose, and that was to maim the diplomats being deployed
for the United Kingdom in Pristina.
Dr Starkey
302. Foreign Secretary, can I turn to the structure
and the process of reconstruction, both in the short and long
term? There are a number of different international organisations
involved in this: the UN, NATO, G8, the European Union, the World
Bank (I think you mentioned) and the IMF. Obviously, that can
be helpful but it could be a recipe for things dropping in between,
and there has been experience from Bosnia, for example, of Member
States agreeing that an international body should do such-and-such
and then not actually coming up with the funds or the personnel
to support those overall objectives. Are you fairly confident
that that will not happen here; that the different organisations
are clear about what it is they are supposed to be doing, and
that the different organisations will complement each other and
not get in each other's way?
(Mr Cook) I can cheerfully say, straightaway, that
there is going to be a challenging multilateral diplomatic environment
in Kosovo, which will require a lot of effort both on the part
of governments and on the part of agencies to make sure we all
pull together and do not leave any holes in between our operations
in the way you suggest. As a broad principle, actually, I am happier
about a plurality of agencies tackling this job than I would be
if there was too narrow a basis for international involvement.
The problem that we face in reconstructing Kosovo is multi-faceted
and it is major, and I think it would be beyond the capacity of
any one international agency. All agencies have to bring to it
their own specialisms and their own particular skills, and I think
that the structure which has been drawn up for the administration
of Kosovo, very intelligently, tries to call upon the special
skills and roles of the different agencies involved. For instance,
it is logical for the European Union and the World Bank to focus
on the economic reconstruction because that is what they have
staff to do, and they have the resources to provide it. It is
logical for the OSCE to be primarily responsible for the democratic
institution building because the OSCE has a long track record
in trying to promote standards of democratic behaviour and, also,
supervising elections. It is logical, obviously, for UNHCR to
be involved on the question of the refugee resettlement. It makes
a lot of sense for the UN to be the lead agency and provide the
umbrella—or the chapeau—for the overall operation,
because this is being done under a UN mandate and could not be
done on any other basis. However, the UN, itself, does not have
either the in-house expertise nor the resources to replicate what
can be brought to the task by all these other bodies acting as
sub-contractors—if I can use that term—for the overall
operation.
303. Your memorandum details the personnel that
the United Kingdom has sent. Is that being matched—particularly
in regard to UNMIK, for example—by the supply of personnel
by other Member States as well?
(Mr Cook) I do not think it would be helpful for me
to get competitive, but I would very happily say that I think
that Britain has made a major contribution to this, reflecting
the extent to which this has been a priority for our foreign policy
and the lead role which we took in many parts of the military
conflict. We are the largest nation in KFOR, we have provided
the command for KFOR, we have provided a large number of the civilian
personnel to UNMIK, we provide the person who has been chosen
to head up the European Union reconstruction part of the operation,
and we have supplied a number of police from Bosnia to try and
provide assistance for the law and order situation. Across a board
of areas we are anxious to try and make this a success, and indeed,
having ourselves played a part in securing success in the military
conflict we are very keen that the outcome should be as successful.
304. Can I ask about the European Union's contribution?
You have said that the European Union would be playing a major
part in reconstruction and you mentioned a sum of 250 million
euro that has been allocated. Which part of the EU budget is that
coming from? Is it from money that was not allocated previously,
or does it mean that less is going to be spent on something else?
(Mr Cook) I have to seek guidance on that, and we
may have to write with the answer. Does anybody know.
(Dr Jones Parry) It comes out of Category 4 of the
financial statement.
305. Which means?
(Dr Jones Parry) Which means that part of the agreement
reached in Berlin that governs the external expenditure. Where
exactly the budget lines work out depends on what is happening
at the moment in the budgetary process. The budget for 2000 is
currently under discussion, but some of it will be out of the
existing programmes for the Balkan region reconstruction and some
additional money is being made available. Our working assumption,
as budgetary disciplinarians, is that there should be no more
money made available in aggregate, but we are not aware, at this
stage, of any other decrease of expenditure which will result
from it.
306. What other areas of spending are within
Category 4?
(Dr Jones Parry) Anything on the external side.
(Mr Cook) Anything the European Union spends outside
the European Union.
307. Including development aid to other regions?
(Mr Cook) Yes, but I am not sure it would be right
to see this as necessarily being an expense of the aid fund. It
does not logically follow that we will spend less in Africa.
(Dr Jones Parry) I think, Mr Chairman, there is a
certain amount of headroom. We are not talking about Lome, we
are talking now specifically about programmes like Aid to Africa,
PHARE, TACIS—that sort of programme—and there should
be sufficient headroom to accommodate that.
(Mr Cook) Before we leave that, maybe we could give
a rough run-down on what PHARE and TACIS are.
(Dr Jones Parry) PHARE is that programme which is
designed for the Central Eastern European countries; TACIS is
for the CIS countries—the former Soviet Union.
308. In the budgetary discussions in future,
would the United Kingdom position—how can I put this—be
that the additional spending on this should not be at the expense
of other countries, who would equally need support?
(Mr Cook) We would be concerned if this was to be
at the expense of, say, Africa, and I have to say that I think
France would share that concern, because the two of us have long
commitments to Africa and tend to safeguard it within the European
budget. So we would not wish to see this happen at the expense
of aid to poorer countries. That said, the British position on
this, as on so much else to do with the European budget, is fairly
robust, and we have given an agreement to what we believe is a
generous overall budget ceiling for the European Union, and we
do not see a case for that budget ceiling being reached.
(Dr Jones Parry) If I may add, there is one other
principle, Mr Chairman, and that is that the efficiency of external
spend can be much improved, and we look to the next Commission
to do that. Just because there is an additional need created it
does not follow that you need more money for it. Both in terms
of headroom and doing better with what you have already got, you
should be able to release money.
Chairman
309. Is there something analogous to the contingency
fund?
(Dr Jones Parry) There is in the sense of spare headroom,
yes. All the moneys are not allocated, but, of course, as you
get towards the end of any given financial year the amount of
headroom decreases anyway.
(Mr Cook) There is a tendency within the European
Union for spending to fall behind a bit, and that can often leave
you with a bit of headroom that is useful at times like these.
Dr Starkey
310. The other point I wanted to ask about is
that, obviously, there is an emphasis, at the moment, on the short-term
reconstruction, but are discussions still going on within the
EU about the long-term political framework within which one might
see the political reconstruction, so to speak, of the Balkans,
and, in particular, the development of new forms of association
between them and the European Union?
(Mr Cook) That is proceeding very actively. Indeed,
we have recently agreed to institute negotiations—I think
I am right in saying negotiations—with Macedonia and to
give instructions to commence the preparation for negotiations
with Albania. So both of those are well under way in terms of
progress. One of the points we argued for very strongly during
the Stability Pact is that what the European Union can bring to
the Stability Pact is trade, technical and political agreements
with the countries of South East Europe, and that we should perhaps
look beyond our traditional conditionality for an Association
Agreement. It was Britain that very much brought to the discussion
the idea that we should have specifically tailored—custom-made,
if you like—agreements that reflect the totality of South
East Europe, which is why what we are now proposing for Albania
and Macedonia are known as Stability and Association Agreements,
which make them rather distinct from what we would normally apply,
because what we normally apply is conditionality, which, frankly,
is beyond those countries at the present time. We believe it is
important in the wake of what has happened to move rapidly to
reach what agreements we can.
Sir John Stanley
311. Foreign Secretary, I think you would agree
that the defining characteristic of NATO's success over the 50
years or more of its existence has been the successful operation
of deterrence; the ensuring that the threat of military action
by NATO is always credible to a potential aggressor. Against that
backcloth, you made, when you came before the Committee on 14
April, a very striking statement. You said: "The fact is
we have a very clear impression that President Milosevic did not
believe that we would take military action". Foreign Secretary,
I agree with your observation that that is wholly borne out by
events. Could you tell us why it was, in your view, that Milosevic
did not believe we would take military action?
(Mr Cook) No, I cannot, because to do so would be
to attempt to read into his mind, and that, I am afraid, is a
difficult task which I am not equipped to fulfil. I think that
any Member of the Committee is as able and as qualified as I am
to make a guess at it.
312. Would you not consider, for example, that
the somewhat discordant voices that were heard in a number of
NATO countries questioning whether NATO should engage in military
action might have created such a false impression in Milosevic's
mind, and that the total absence of any form of forward deployment
by NATO countries when the threat was growing clear might have
also formed the impression in Milosevic's mind that he could get
away with the appalling crimes he did with impunity? Surely, these
questions must have been going round in your mind. Surely, it
is not good enough to say that deterrence has failed for the first
time in NATO's history.
(Mr Cook) That is a different form of test, if I may
say so. I think there is a degree of elision there. We must be
clear about what we are saying is a deterrent. The point of deterrence
in the case of NATO is to prevent attack on Member States. As
yet, Milosevic has certainly not attempted that. On the question
of deployment, if memory serves me right, by 23 March[3]
when he commenced the spring offensive, there was already significant
deployment of military planes in readiness for any instruction
for a bombing campaign, of which he would be aware. On the question
of the views of different Member States, one of the problems here
is not what Member States said; the problem is what was said by
Milosevic's ambassadors within those Member States. I do not want
to go too far into this but we have the impression that some of
his ambassadors were sending him reports which were of the kind
which he wanted to hear rather than reflecting reality in their
capitals. He may have been badly served by his own diplomats who
failed to alert him to the possibility of NATO maintaining resolves
throughout the conflict.
313. Reflecting back, do you think now that
there is more NATO could have done and should have done to reinforce
in Milosevic's mind the credibility of NATO's threat to take military
action?
(Mr Cook) There will always be things one could do
differently. I have reflected upon this over the period since
we successfully concluded the conflict. I cannot recall anything
that we tried or did in the months before the conflict which I
can see as making a material difference to Milosevic's own calculations.
I do not think there is any particular point in keeping it to
myself now but at Rambouillet I twice took the leader of the delegation
aside and made it quite explicit that if they walked away from
this there would be consequences. They cannot pretend that they
were not bluntly told in private as well as in all the many public
statements. In the closing stages, both the senior commander of
NATO and the Secretary General went to Belgrade and made it clear
what would happen. Holbrooke famously spent the last 24 hours
in Belgrade and left him in no doubt of what would happen. Milosevic
I think was taking a calculation. Latterly, in those last few
days, he did realise that there would be military action but he
underestimated the resolve of NATO to maintain that action through
to success. He was calculating that the resolve of the unity of
NATO would crack before he had perceived unacceptable damage.
He was wrong in that calculation and I think that was the primary
reason why, at the end, he himself crumbled.
314. You also, in your evidence on 14 February,
said this: "There was a plan developed in Belgrade known
as Operation Horseshoe which was for the cleansing of Kosovo of
its Kosovo population. That plan had been around for some time."
Can you tell us, in your judgment, did Milosevic give the go ahead
for Operation Horseshoe after the NATO bombing campaign began
or before?
(Mr Cook) The evidence is that the Serb offensive
began before. I have already mentioned that. The Serb offensive
commenced on 22/23 March and a large number of people were made
homeless and the massing of the tanks and of the army that we
had seen on the borders of Kosovo produced what we had feared
for the previous month, which was a military offensive.
315. You said in your evidence on 14 April that
the plan, the Operation Horseshoe plan, had been around for some
time. John Sweeney, in The Observer of 20 June wrote this:
"When NATO attacked at 8pm on the night of 24 March Milosevic
was prepared and gave the order to send in the cleansers. No one
should have been surprised at this. It had all been planned back
in September, code named Operation Horseshoe, the systematic,
ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. German intelligence, the BND, knew
about the plan then." Would the Committee be right in assuming
that the Foreign Office in London knew no later than BND about
Operation Horseshoe?
(Mr Cook) First of all, I am not briefed on when we
had been informed or what nature of contact we had with BND. Secondly,
if I was briefed, I certainly would not share it with the Committee
in open session.
316. Would it be fair for the Committee to assume
though that the Foreign Office were well aware of Operation Horseshoe
some time before Operation Horseshoe was given the go ahead by
Milosevic?
(Mr Cook) I think one can be a little bit too precious
about this. The idea that the Foreign Office or myself was not
aware of the blood curdling nature of Milosevic's brutality is
rather forced. After all, leave aside what he may have said on
paper; what triggered the Contact Group ultimatum to Milosevic
to come to Rambouillet was exactly the kind of massacre that we
saw, subsequently repeated, which first took place at Racak where
45 of the villagers were shot at close range, something that has
been repeated now across Kosovo. Secondly, the roots of Milosevic's
behaviour in Kosovo can be seen in wearily familiar detail in
the Bosnian civil war and the treatment which he meted out then
to the Croats. One should not treat Operation Horseshoe as though
this is some step change or some radical innovation in Milosevic's
approach. It is the approach that he and those around him have
adopted for the best part of ten years, of which we had already
seen evidence in the preceding ten months in Kosovo.
317. Foreign Secretary, that indeed confirms
my view that it was a very widespread and well founded expectation
that Milosevic was bent on doing appalling things to the Kosovo
Albanians given the chance and the opportunity, as he would see
it, if he could get away with it. Against that background, was
there not a tremendously important obligation on all NATO leaders
in all the NATO countries, obviously not only this one, to exercise
the most extraordinary care in the wording they used as to the
circumstances in which military action might be adopted and the
form that military action might take? Can I put this to you: when
you said in the House on 24 February, approximately one month
before the NATO bombing campaign began, "There is no question
of our entering Kosovo with military force in circumstances in
which there is no peace agreement to police. We have made that
clear repeatedly. We do not intend to fight our way into Kosovo.",
against all the background that we have been discussing in these
exchanges, was it not extraordinarily injudicious to say that
at that point?
(Mr Cook) Certainly not. First of all, what are you
suggesting? That the British army should fight its way in without
support, because that is exactly what I would be committing to
on 24 February. If I had said that to the House, the House would
have thought I was mad and exceedingly injudicious. Secondly,
at no stage did we fight our way into Kosovo. We have secured
what is a complete success in securing our objectives without
fighting a single inch of our way into Kosovo. I do have to say,
in the position in which I said that on 24 February, given the
outcome of our military campaign, what I said was absolutely correct.
318. If you feel that was absolutely correct,
then there is a very, very striking contrast between the wording
which you have used today and which I very much welcome in relation
to possible developments in Montenegro. You have just told the
Committee in your earlier evidence that—I took it down directly—"We
have deliberately left Milosevic guessing what the grave consequences
would be if he tried to destroy democracy in Montenegro."
Your Political Director in his own intervention used the formulation
that was eventually, far too late in my view, used at the end
of the war in relation to Kosovo. Dr Jones Parry used the formulation
that all options are open. Can I put it to you, Foreign Secretary,
that those wordings about grave consequences, about all options
open, would have been much more appropriate and possibly have
done something to deter Milosevic from going ahead with Operation
Horseshoe?
(Mr Cook) With respect, Sir John, I am more criticised
for having spelt out that there would be grave consequences on
Milosevic if he acted in Kosovo over a period of time rather than
for under playing it. I could not have done more to make it plain
to Milosevic that, if he acted in the way that we anticipated
in Kosovo, there would be military action. There was and that
military action was successful.
319. You ruled out the form of military action
that he probably feared most of all which is the forced entry
into Kosovo of NATO forces.
(Mr Cook) I am not sure about that. First of all,
if we were to mount an expeditionary invasion of Kosovo, it would
have taken three or four months to have got to the point at which
it could be sent across the border. Even now in circumstances
in which there is total absence of resistance we are still only
two-thirds of the way to the total numbers of KFOR. Secondly,
somebody earlier in this Committee referred to the large numbers
of military formations in Kosovo even after the 79 days of air
bombardment withdrawing from Kosovo. I do not think that it is
likely that the military commanders within NATO would have recommended
to politicians that we were sensible and sane to commit British
and other forces against that amount of military formation.
3 Note by Witness: the correct date is 20 March. Back
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