| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Dalyell: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, as he is not time limited. What does he think are our obligations towards countries such as Bulgaria and Romania? They went along with NATO in good faith and are now desperate to have the Danube unblocked--of which there is no possibility. Do we have some obligations to such people?
Mr. Campbell: Yes, we do. Indeed, I have pointed that out in the House. Those countries made great political sacrifices--in the case of the Bulgarians, because they thought it might enhance their application for membership of NATO--but they are certainly entitled to proper treatment now. I may surprise the hon. Gentleman, because I would go further: it is not right to ban all humanitarian assistance to the people of Serbia. It will not do much good for the cause of intervention, or the cause of the west, if we allow people in Serbia to die of hunger or cold throughout the coming winter. I put that point to the Prime Minister, and received a pretty dusty reply. However, I still believe that it would be the right thing to do. It is time for a recognition and a codification of a right of intervention based on those criteria.
I feel a considerable sense of discomfort as to Chechnya. We have seen the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of citizens and the prevention of humanitarian effort by the United Nations. We have seen the denial of free passage for refugees. The two situations--Kosovo and Chechnya--are not the same. However, I hope that when the Secretary of State was arguing with--or, perhaps more correctly, putting his points to, or making a demarche on--Mr. Ivanov, he not only raised the question of International Monetary Fund support but raised what seems to me to be a compelling matter in all this: the extent to which things are being done for the domestic political aspirations of Mr. Putin and others in the Yeltsin camp.
The Government set out to achieve a foreign policy with an ethical dimension, and there are some achievements of which they can rightly be proud. Among those are the Ottawa treaty on land mines, ratified pretty well in the course of a day, one Friday, here in the House of Commons; the publication of an annual human rights report; and a European Union code of conduct on arms sales where none previously existed. But arms sales are as effective a test of the ethical dimension as any other, and both the present Government and their predecessors experienced considerable embarrassment in relation to Indonesia and the repression that was carried out in East Timor.
New legislation is required. The Queen's Speech should have announced a new strategic arms export Bill, because in his report on the arms to Iraq affair, Sir Richard Scott was very critical indeed of the rather clumsily named Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939. As its date tells us, it was passed through the House at a time of national emergency. Surely different considerations now apply, and a new Bill should license and regulate arms brokers, tighten end user controls, bring forward criteria for control of licensed production in third countries and establish a Select Committee of Parliament to monitor arms export policy and to scrutinise individual export licence applications above a certain size. If the right hon. Member for Bridgwater can be trusted to scrutinise MI5 and MI6 along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), surely Members of that stature in the House could be trusted with the responsibility of monitoring arms export policy.
Let us also have an annual report on arms exports which is intelligible, and which contains detailed and easily understood information showing what arms have been exported, and to which countries. Categories that include a jet fighter aircraft at one end of the spectrum and a parachute at the other are not readily intelligible even to those who make a special study of these matters.
The arms to Iraq and arms to Sierra Leone affairs were both significant. They had significant domestic consequences, but they also seriously damaged the reputation of the United Kingdom abroad. I believe that if a Select Committee had been in place, it would have prevented them.
I feel profound disappointment that there is no Bill in the Queen's Speech to achieve ratification of the statute establishing the international criminal court. I know that there is a promise of draft legislation, but that is not the same as the indication of determination to publish a Bill and take it through the House. As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs pointed out, the Government's 1999 human rights annual report promised that the United Kingdom would be among the first 60 states to ratify.
There is too much uncertainty surrounding the Government's intentions. This could be the last full Session of Parliament before the general election. Would there be time, in a truncated Session before a spring general election in 2001, for the ratification of the treaty?
Without difficulty, I reach the following conclusion. A foreign policy with an ethical dimension would look a little tattered if the Labour party faced the electorate without the ratification of the treaty establishing the international criminal court.
Let me finish by discussing nuclear weapons. Article VI of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty imposes a legal obligation on the United Kingdom to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. That obligation was renewed in 1995, when the Conservatives were in Government. What steps will Her Majesty's Government take in the coming year to fulfil that obligation?
It is a curious treaty because India and Pakistan are, technically, non-weapon states under the NPT, although they have now, as we all know, exploded nuclear devices. What steps will the Government take to persuade them to adhere to the obligations incumbent on weapon states in the NPT? We would all have hoped to persuade India and Pakistan to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty, but the decision of the United States Senate to refuse to ratify has made that prospect remote, to say the least.
The difficulty of relations with Russia is compounded not only by the failure to ratify the CTBT but by an apparent determination in the United States to depart from, or at least renegotiate, the anti-ballistic missile treaty. What steps will the Government take to persuade those in the United States who stood in the way of the ratification of the test ban treaty that they should now ratify it? What steps will the Government take to persuade the United States of America not to depart from the ballistic missile treaty?
I leave the Government with proposals as to what they should do about nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom should convene a conference of the five permanent members of the Security Council to prepare the way for a new round of strategic arms reduction talks, covering the weapons of all existing nuclear weapons states, including our own. That conference should include a review of all previous nuclear weapons agreements, including the ABM treaty.
We should work to bring about an annual declaration of nuclear weapons stocks held by all de facto nuclear weapons states under a United Nations nuclear weapons register. We should embark on the negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention to match those for chemical and biological weapons, so as to formalise the commitment of all nuclear weapons states to nuclear disarmament.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley):
I should like to talk about many things tonight, but there is not enough time, so I shall get straight to the point.
I want to ask especially about our policy towards arms exports to Indonesia. I have probably asked more questions on that subject than any other Member has, and I am continuing to ask those questions because the embargo imposed by the European Union comes to an end in the very near future, and certainly before we have an opportunity to discuss it again in the House.
I hope that we would heed the words of one of the leaders of the East Timorese, who has now returned to East Timor, who came to this country many times when
a spokesman for the then opposition. Over and over again he begged this country not to export arms to Indonesia, but we continued to do so. I believe that many people have learned a lesson from the events in East Timor, and I hope that that lesson will be acted on when the question of renewing that arms embargo arises in the next few weeks.
I should like to quote the words of Jose Ramos Horta, vice-president in exile of the East Timorese, who has just returned to his country. He says that the destruction and human suffering caused by 24 years of Indonesian military occupation are indescribable. For peace in the region, and in particular for the future of East Timor, it is crucial that the embargo stay in force, at least until all East Timorese refugees have returned safely to East Timor--there are still about 200,000 in West Timor--all militia are disarmed and Indonesia co-operates with a commission of investigation established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Moreover, Jose Ramos Horta has drawn attention to the fact that the Indonesian armed forces play a very controversial role in other parts of Indonesia--in the Moluccas, Irian Jaya, West Papua, Acceh and Kalimantan--and repress the opposition in Indonesia. An arms embargo is necessary until the military become subordinate to democratic control.
There is no equivocation about that point of view, and I hope that that message has got through today. The East Timorese want that European Union arms embargo extended, and I hope that our Government will work towards that end.
I had the privilege of witnessing the referendum in East Timor. Many of the things that we had predicted in the Chamber came to pass. There was violence, which I believe could have been avoided, and there was great suffering. I believe that when the final body count is made, we shall find that many thousands of people lost their lives there. They got their democracy--yes--but at such a price. I am afraid that we are all responsible because we supplied arms for many years. The previous Government supplied arms, and this Government have supplied arms. I hope, therefore, that we now listen to the views of people such as Jose Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmao, the leader of East Timor who is now back in his own country.
I shall talk about one more country--Iraq--in the short time that I have available. However, I would have liked to have mentioned many countries and conflicts and to have asked our Government what role we are playing in trying to bring conflicts all over the world to an end. In particular, I wanted to refer to countries, such as Sudan, where the conflict has gone on for many years.
Nearly 10 years ago, before the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were set up, it was clear that Saddam Hussein and his close associates should be indicted as international war criminals. When Pol Pot and his associates in Cambodia were indicted as war criminals, when Milosevic and the people responsible for the events in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo have now been indicted as war criminals and when we are talking about indicting some of those responsible for the terrible events in East Timor, we must ask ourselves why Saddam Hussein has not been indicted by the United Nations as a war criminal.
Unfortunately, Saddam and his cronies are still viewed by a few Governments as leaders with whom they may want to do business one day. Some may even be doing that business right now. Saddam and his associates are looked on as leaders of a country under siege by the powerful, struggling to survive against the odds. In reality, as the American ambassador for war crimes, Ambassador Scheffer, said in New York a few weeks ago,
We have identified nine major criminal episodes under Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq. Three of them continue to this day and, indeed, one of them is accelerating at an alarming pace. In the 1980s, crimes against humanity and possible genocide were committed in the Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds, including the notorious use of poison gas in Halabja in 1988. In the 1980s, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the use of poison gas, took place in the war against Iran. In the 1990-91, there were crimes of humanity and war crimes against Kuwait. In 1991, war crimes took place against coalition forces during the Gulf war.
There is not time to list all the crimes, but, of course, Saddam Hussein did not commit them on his own. We know that he has built up one of the most ruthless police states, using a small number of associates who share with him the responsibility for those criminal actions. Ali Hassan Al-Majid became known as "Chemical Ali" for his leadership and enthusiasm in using poison gas against Iraqi Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war. He also turned up in Kuwait during the occupation and, more recently, as governor in the south of Iraq and acted against the Shi'ite people. Saddam Hussein's sons, Qusay and Uday, are both involved in all the crimes.
My organisation has come up with a list of 12 people who we believe should be indicted by an international war crimes tribunal. There must not be a memory lapse when it comes to the war crimes of Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. This is a man and a regime who have brutally and systematically committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for years, are committing them now and will continue committing them until the international community finally says, "Enough".
A few weeks ago I asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary what we were doing in the Security Council of the United Nations to establish an international tribunal to try Saddam Hussein. He said:
"these are thugs who terrorize what was once, and could again become, a great nation."
I chair an organisation, Indict, which is focused on bringing Saddam Hussein and some of his close associates before an international tribunal. The latest report from the United Nations rapporteur on human rights in Iraq was published a few weeks ago and it shows that atrocities are being carried out by Saddam's army against the Arabs of the southern marshes with a ferocity that is as widespread--and over a longer period--as that waged by Milosevic against the Kosovo Albanians.
"we do not at present detect a consensus in the Security Council for a war crimes tribunal on Iraq."--[Official Report, 2 November 1999; Vol. 337, c. 95.]
Recently, the United States has said strongly that the Security Council would be fully justified in establishing an ad hoc international criminal tribunal without--this normally happens in such cases--having a commission of experts to consider the matter beforehand. The evidence is there, and I have seen much of it--5.5 million pages of
captured Iraqi documents that were taken out of northern Iraq by Human Rights Watch. They detail in the minutest fashion the day-to-day nature of the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein against the peoples of northern Iraq. An archive of Iraqi documents contains more than 4 million pages and there are video tapes shot by cameramen and an archive of classified documents is, at present, being declassified. There is plenty of evidence, so I ask my right hon. Friend to do his utmost to bring about an international tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and his associates as soon as is humanely possible.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |