Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
TUESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2000
DR SUSAN
WOODWARD, MRS
ELIZABETH ROBERTS
AND DAME
PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES
Mr Mackinlay
260. On this note of mind set, let me utter
something which I do not think has been ever put in this Committee,
and one does not see it in the media so I am not sure what I am
going to utter to you but I want to bounce it off you. It seems
to me we have always assumed at every stage since 1988/1989 we
should prop up what was just a crumbling Yugoslavia, now we are
down to three bits, perhaps two bits. Should there not become
some stage where we actually bite the bullet, if I can use that
phrase, and decide it should be a matter of policy that we should
desire the break up of Yugoslavia? I realise, of course, that
in every one of the Yugoslav states you had a mini-Balkanisation,
you had the minorities, but it seems to me that whilst there might
have been pain and difficulties if you had dismemberment planned
or perhaps backed wholeheartedly by Western Europe the consequences
would have been probably less tragic than what we had, this crumbling,
this haemorrhaging and so on. If I can just complete this thought
process. Your point about offering to the Serbs some semblance
that Kosovo remains part of Yugoslav territory but you have home
rule in Kosovo, seems to me, one, that would not have satisfied
the Serbian minority any more than an independent Kosovo would
have done, we would return to this every five or ten years, they
would appeal to whatever was the Belgrade Government at the particular
time and of course you could argue that national self-determination
prevailed. So it does seem to me that we have always had this
mind set that somehow we had to prop up what was the wholly artificial
state, skilfully held together by a Tito regime and actually probably
at its best but once that collapsed really perhaps we should have
been proactive in encouraging its dismemberment with other things,
the political strategy about European Union and so on and so forth.
It seems to me everyone assumed we had to prop up what was an
artificial state.
(Dr Woodward) I wonder if I could first respond. First
of all, please do not hear me saying that the best solution would
be Kosovo within Yugoslavia, quite the contrary, it is the consequences
of an independent Kosovo, having more negative consequences for
its neighbours, it is how you manage that. That requires more
subtlety in the choices that we have been offered, even in 1244
which tried not to make a choice at all. I wrote a book, a very
long book, about why the story that Yugoslavia was artificial
and inevitably would dissolve was wrong. Therefore, you are feeding
into a particular position of mine. I will not go into it but
I do think on the policy sense it is a very dangerous moment at
which people decide that a country is artificial and therefore
should dissolve. All countries are in some sense artificial because
they are man made. The fact that we begin now to see Indonesia
as artificial is something we should be taking very seriously.
It is the point at which we have made up our minds that something
will happen inevitably which is not inevitable and therefore we
ought to be managing, in so far as we can, our role in it. Therefore,
when the Dutch Presidency began in the European Union in July
1991 and they said "Look, the point has passed to keep this
country together" there were many things that could have
been done. I argued this very strongly in detail in my book and
in subsequent articles. Up until the end of 1990 there could have
been many things to keep that country together and produce an
entirely different country not based on national units but a democracy
and a market economy. There is no question about it, I think the
Dutch were right to say at the time of the Briony Agreement (?)
that gave Slovenia de facto its independence that Yugoslavia
was dead. Why do I go on at length? Because at that point, even
then, it is my strong view that the majority of the population
in Yugoslavia as a whole wanted the country to remain and that
the people who were going to succeed in becoming independent believed
that the best solution for them as well as for Yugoslavia was
at that time something called confederation. That is extremely
important because confederation is what the Montenegrins have
proposed to Belgrade. Confederation is something that makes a
lot of sense for Kosovo at this point, but we still do not even
see that as an alternative and it is partly because it is something
we would have to assist with. If we go around and continue to
insist that borders do not matter any more, why not put that into
practice in terms of the kinds of policies and persons and ideas
we support?
Chairman
261. Is that not a pipe dream for this reason,
that all federations rely on a certain democratic basis and with
Milosevic in power there would not have been a democratic basis
in the senior member of that confederation?
(Dr Woodward) I think if you could get something like
that now you would very quickly see the fall of the Belgrade regime
and you would get democracy. The Serbian opposition has been working
against much more serious obstacles than any of the other oppositions
and we have only just this month seen a change of power in Zagreb.
The Croatian opposition was not working against the difficulties
either of Milosevic or the burden of how to resolve Kosovo in
a federation and it took them this long. We may understand that
it is much more difficult to bring democracy under these circumstances
to Belgrade but that we have in our power a number of things to
do to help it along. I do not think the Benelux or the European
Union as confederations of a sort are non-democratic.
Mr Mackinlay
262. I do not know if any of the other witnesses
want to come in on this. I do think this is something which we
should have looked at and even now with Montenegro, I understand
it is about 48 per cent definitely want to stay in Yugoslavia,
but it does seem to me that to dismantle and then re-build some
sort of confederation is better.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) In a sense you have made
a statement about the historical record. I should say that Western
policy, if we go back far enough, started out on the basis that
we ought to try and support the Yugoslav federation and that policy
was directed not at Yugoslavia but at trying to preserve the Soviet
Union. It seems curious when you look back at it now but true.
It was a policy probably doomed to fail. I think it is not entirely
true to say that Western policy went on on that basis thereafter.
Change took place within the European Union when the so-called
Badinter Commission was invented which was done in order to try
to develop criteria for recognition and implicit in that, therefore,
was we were going to change policy and start recognising the republics.
The basis taken was the nature of the Yugoslav constitution drawn
up, invented and amended under Tito where certain entities would
constitute as republics and others not. One of our problems in
Kosovo is it was not whereas Croatia, Bosnia and the others were.
That provided a rationale in international law for recognising
these sensitivities, but there were other conditions as well.
The complicating factor in all of this is the ethnic element because
one of the things that we wanted to try and get were guarantees
for the ethnic minorities. There is the famous episode of being
gun jumped, Germany recognises Croatia, no guarantees insisted
upon and the problem starts with trouble between the Serbs and
the Croats. It is worth rehearsing that because Western policy
had already changed. Its difficulty was how you got peaceful evolution
and ethnically stable evolution from a federation to independent
republics. I spent a great deal of time in the various contacts
I had with Milosevic actually trying to get him to recognise Bosnia.
That was the one thing we wanted out of it, a recognised Bosnia.
We had completely changed our policy by then. On the whole we
were trying to get something which given the ethnic composition
and the hostilities and the old hatreds that were there—and
you get into terrible trouble if you use the word civil war—nevertheless
was the complicating factor which made the transition so very
difficult.
263. But now we have to go for an independent
Kosovo. The $64,000 question there is that now, surely. We cannot
pretend that somehow Kosovo should be or can be part of Yugoslavia.
Why not say what we mean and mean what we say? We ought to be
going for an independent Kosovo and building up civic society
on that basis with protection guarantees.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think that is probably
where Susan is but it is not entirely where I am. Let me tell
you what I think the downsides are. When the Bosnian Foreign Minister
was here the other day you will have heard him say it is very
important you do not give independence to Kosovo. Why? Because
he is terrified that that will result in the dismemberment of
Bosnia and that fear is not foolish. The second element is what
effect does an independent Kosovo have on the balance of power
and ethnic perceptions in Macedonia, which is a very fragile country.
I am less impressed myself by the arguments about Greater Albania
because you cannot exclude them. I do not think there is a lot
of fellow feeling between Kosovo Albanians and Albanians in Albania.
The problem is that the emergence of an "independent"
Kosovo is not in itself a neutral act. It changes perceptions
that people have inside the existing republics about their rights
and entitlement and there is no doubt in my view that the Serbs
would say to themselves, "If these guys can have a state
based on ethnic boundaries so can we and we are entitled",
and we create a different set of issues and it turns the burner
up under the issue of Montenegro like anything. I think there
are some real downsides. At the moment I think I stand in the
camp of we do not need to tackle this issue now and should not
try to.
(Mrs Roberts) On the question of Yugoslavia being
an artificial state, yes, it was artificial but so are many states.
We have to remember that Yugoslavia came together voluntarily
after the First World War and it worked because within those boundaries
people who as a result of history had been scattered all around
in the different countries, the different nations and who found
themselves dispersed looked to Yugoslavia as their home state
rather than finding themselves swamped in a situation in which
they were the minority. After all, one could argue that Bosnia
was an artificial state given the ethnic composition of Bosnia.
We most definitely do not want Bosnia to fall apart. I think you
put your finger absolutely on the crux of the question when you
said you are aware that there are minorities within the state.
The national question in Yugoslavia boiled down to the fact that
these minorities felt threatened or were made to feel threatened
by Milosevic and by a campaign from Belgrade, by a campaign fomented
by intellectuals and the media. The perception of insecurity was
certainly fermented from Belgrade, from Milosevic's propaganda
campaign, but people like Tudjman also played into this to some
extent by deciding that Croatia was to be a nation state for the
Croat people and suddenly the Serbs found that there was no mention
of them, they were a minority, whereas under Tito they had been
a constituent nation within Yugoslavia. It sounds like a good
idea but it is incredibly complicated. You have really hit on
the nub of the whole problem which is if only we had been able
to do that. The ethnic dispersal of people throughout Yugoslavia
is that the reality we were faced with in that was always going
to make it very difficult if one came to drawing national boundaries.
Perhaps there were possibilities of diversification a long way
earlier on and they would have had to have been accompanied with
very strong guarantees for the protection of minorities within
those states, that was the problem, how are we going to get it.
We certainly did not get it when Croatia declared her independence.
It happened too quickly and there were no guarantees for the Serb
minority which allowed Milosevic to step up the propaganda campaign
and create fear among people who were already feeling insecure.
Chairman: It might be helpful to have your views
on Montenegro and the future and perhaps, Ms Abbott, you can mention
that and then move on.
Ms Abbott
264. I know the Chairman is anxious to talk
about the future, but there are a few issues in relation to the
military campaign. We have taken evidence on it in the past and
we would be keen to have your views. The first point I want to
put to you is in the Government's memorandum on the campaign they
said that "Alliance unity strengthened" as the campaign
continued. In your view is that true?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Probably it is true.
I think one has to distinguish between surface static and underlying
activity and there was a lot of surface static. I can remember
going down to the BBC World studio to talk about this and there
was a lot of static and the commentator, when I said I think the
Alliance is still hacking it, said to me, "I'm glad you're
so optimistic". He clearly did not believe me. What happens
over time is that when people get into a tight corner they decide
they really do have to get down and make this thing work. I think
it was pressure of events, a realisation that failure put the
existence of the Alliance on the line itself and that therefore
seriousness of purpose and actually getting through successfully
did become vital. I think that statement is right. Appearances
notwithstanding. It also meant, of course, that governments had
to deal with a great deal of noise in their own backyard, but
the position taken by the Greens in the German government was
crucial in Germany solidifying and that played a pivotal role
in ensuring that other minorities in other countries did not then
begin to pull at the centre. So I think I would agree with that
assessment, though I think, given the static on the surface, it
was quite hard for Milosevic to see that or understand that and
he certainly would not have wanted to believe it.
(Mrs Roberts) I think I would agree with what Dame
Pauline has said. I think there was a moment once the realisation
had sunk in that this was not going to be a three-day campaign
and before the second realisation had sunk in that NATO's credibility
was really on the line and there was a period of time when there
was some wavering by some nations, but once it became clear that
it was NATO's credibility, it was the future of the Alliance,
then people realised it was sufficiently important.
(Dr Woodward) I think it depends on which countries
you look at and at what moment you look at. There is no question
that the bombing campaign itself began when it did in my view
almost entirely because of the NATO credibility issue and therefore
there was already in the previous nine to ten months enormous
momentum for keeping some kind of unity. The fact that we bombed
when we did meant that this disjuncture , on the one hand between
where we were at diplomatically in trying to find a political
conclusion to the problem and our choice for military action on
the other caused enormous problems over time during the campaign.
The problem that the Greeks and the Italians and even the Germans
were having let alone the neighbouring states, the new members
like Hungary with the bombing campaign and with their own domestic
constituencies, both elected representatives and voters, was very
serious and was hampered by the fact that they could not work
to find some kind of political arrangement during the bombing
campaign. So, for example, when Foreign Minister Papandreou kept
trying to get a bombing pause and give guarantees that it would
not be an end but could be resumed he got very little hearing.
In many ways I think the NATO allies were lucky that the Russians
were willing to play the role that they did. The kinds of things
that even Strobe Talbot said against them made me quite disturbed
because they played a crucial role in bringing it to a termination
at a point when I think the disunity and the difficulties at home
in a number of countries were going to create a very serious problem.
265. I want to come back to Russia's role. Let
me just ask you all something else that we have taken quite a
bit of evidence on. Do you find it credible that the bombing of
the Chinese Embassy was deliberate?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) It was an error.
Mr Mackinlay: Why are you so sure?
Ms Abbott
266. We were told in Parliament there was a
problem about poor maps or whatever, but we have had evidence
in this Committee that they had the maps, they knew where it was
and not only did they know where it was but, interestingly, they
did not bomb the entire Chinese Embassy, they only bombed the
bit that had the tele-communications stuff which they were concerned
about. We have had quite compelling evidence. Why are you so certain
it was an accident?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think I ought to withdraw
the certainty with which I said that because I cannot know. All
I can do is try and add up the evidence that has certainly come
out in public. I suppose I say that because there is certainly
a great deal of evidence around about the fact that their maps
were out-of-date and they got in a muddle. Also, I suppose I am
basing myself on the notion that they would not do anything so
silly and it would not serve a good purpose to bomb a diplomatic
establishment. I am not basing that on knowledge, this is an assessment
on my part.
Mr Mackinlay
267. They got away with it.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Two things. One is that
they could not have known that they would get away with it. I
do not think we have got away with it. I think there have been
considerable diplomatic consequence, side effects from that which
have to do with a hardening of Chinese attitudes about the underlying
notions of humanitarian intervention, aggravation and difficulties
over things like Tibet. Do policy-makers take all that into account
when they decide to do something? It is very hard to take long-term
consequences into account. My own belief, however, is that it
was actually a very silly mistake and tells you something about
elaborate systems still not being perfect. Ms Abbott, you are
absolutely right to pull me up in that I cannot know. That is
my assessment.
Ms Abbott: It is understandable that a Diplomat
cannot imagine—
Chairman: Former!
Ms Abbott
268. I am perfectly satisfied from the evidence
that we have had and what other witnesses have told us that they
had the maps. That never sounds credible at the time. It sounds
even less credible on the grounds of what we have seen. Does anyone
else want to comment?
(Mrs Roberts) I cannot know. It is an intriguing question
and everybody has considered it. There is something about the
Balkan region that makes people fall into conspiracy theories
very very quickly and indeed people who become closely involved
in it tend to be contaminated to some extent. I happened to live
next door to the old Chinese Embassy so I knew very well it had
moved, but it moved while I was in Belgrade. I am afraid I do
believe the theory it could just have been a mistake. I have no
evidence for this beyond what one reads and beyond the thought
that it would have been an extraordinarily unproductive thing
to do. There was a huge risk in doing something like that. Everybody
remembers the demonstrations that took place in China after it
happened and the anger outside the Embassy. We could not predict
that that might not have boiled over into something very nasty
indeed unless there were some mavericks who got away with it on
their own.
269. I want to repeat that what has been said
both in the media and in front of this Committee is that the allies
were concerned about tele-communications work going on from the
Chinese Embassy and we were shown a very complete diagram of the
Embassy which showed that it is quite a big building and yet they
did not bomb the front, they bombed the back where the tele-communications
was going on from. That is one of the things which has made me
think this is no accident.
(Dr Woodward) I have been persuaded by the same evidence
that you have and one of the reasons was that when the strike
actually took place I was still in Washington and I called up
my friends in the CIA who would know and the rapidity with which
they denied any possible intelligence about this, that this was
a mistake made me prepared for the evidence we saw later. If we
look back over the last ten years at the attitude about the use
of force in this theatre, we have militaries reluctant and publics
angry that militaries have been reluctant and the view on the
part of the publics is that the militaries do not want to go to
war. My own view from the military leaders that I have been talking
to is that they were very reluctant because they did not get political
direction about what they were to do and there was not a clear
political goal stated at each point that discussion of military
power was at issue and that we had that in this case, that is
to say what was the policy goal of this bombing campaign. My own
view is that it was so weak that it changed over the period of
time that we were bombing. We kept changing goals and you can
follow the rhetoric of leaders to see that. When you have that
situation on the part of military leaders you will think in terms
of winning a war, particularly when there is not sufficient political
direction about what they are supposed to be accomplishing. To
me it is quite credible, particularly knowing some of the personalities
involved at the top, that they saw that tele-communications and
the intelligence transfer as part of the enemy that needed to
be destroyed. We saw this in some of the other choices of targeting
as well. I think we need to think very seriously about the relationship
between political leadership and military campaigns and recognise
that from the point of view of SHAPE this was a war even if we
did not declare it that.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Ms Abbott, you go to
one of the very sensitive areas about the whole targeting process.
270. That is our job.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Absolutely. I think one
either believes in the integrity of the decision-making process
or you have real suspicions about it. I am pretty clear in my
own mind that a proposition of this kind would not have passed
muster through the civilian decision-making process or obtained
the assent of the Attorney General or any of the things that I
think are a normal part of the decision-making process. I remain
of a view that this was not sanctioned and I do not believe myself
that the military were somehow engaged in stepping outside what
they could get sanction for. That does not, on the other hand,
entirely deal with the issue of whether all the targets chosen
and sanctioned and agreed and attacked were the right ones. The
one that has been most controversial is the television studios.
I do not want to say that I think everything that was done in
the campaign on that front was perfect and that all the decisions
were necessarily right or sensible, but I do believe that the
processes were observed and I do not believe that this is an example
of the military having taken the law into their own hands.
271. I want to move on to a final question which
takes us to the future. I have to say, Dame Pauline, your argument
in essence is an argument I have heard many times and in many
different theatres, i.e. they were good chaps and good chaps do
not do things like that. I have to tell you that my experience
on this Committee and in this Parliament is it is amazing what
good chaps will do. Does Western policy towards the Western Balkans
have a coherent strategy underlying it? Dr Woodward?
(Dr Woodward) No. It is very easy to identify and
this did not originate with the Western powers, it originated
with independence campaigners in the former Yugoslavia largely
in the north-western republics and they were fighting in their
view for national liberation despite their distortion of what
was correctly Yugoslavia's, as Elizabeth Roberts has rightly said.
So it began with them. By focusing the entire cause of this conflict
on one individual man you are not going to solve the problem and
that is what we have done. I do not think there is a coherent
strategy. I think there is a coherent antagonism and that antagonism
has intensified over the last ten years and maybe that antagonism
is fully justified, I do not know, but that is not the same thing
as a strategy. The very fact that my answer is that we do not
have a coherent strategy is illustrated by the fact that we still
do not know what we will do if Macedonia begins to fall apart.
We are delaying any decision about Kosovo's political status because
we cannot agree. I think, whatever the outcome, clarity and timing
are absolutely essential and those are the two things we are refusing
to think about and we also do not know how to support Montenegro's
negotiations with Belgrade. Those are the problems we have been
dealing with for ten years let alone how to talk about changes
or negotiations over borders that need not be done violently or
if we refuse to accept changes of borders, we have already passed
that hurdle with Kosovo, how to help give guarantees for the protection
of minorities within them, not just ethnic minorities but—
Chairman
272. You would not deem the Stability Pact to
be a strategy?
(Dr Woodward) No, I do not.
Ms Abbott
273. I think I have an idea of what Dame Pauline
will say, which is that we are good chaps and of course we have
a strategy.
(Mrs Roberts) I would agree that there has not been
a coherent strategy in the past. I think what has characterised
the past response has been dealing with the current crisis, dealing
with where the crisis blew up. We then focused our attention on
that. The implications, there was no time, there was the urgency,
the determinants of that campaign, the fact that the crisis had
become so major, did not give us a chance to assess the spin off
in other directions. I think that has characterised the way that
we have tended to fight the fire without looking at the broad
causes of the problem. In the wake of the Kosovo conflict what
then happened was that the focus went absolutely on to how to
get rid of Milosevic. There was a huge amount of talk about the
fact that Milosevic was going to go within a very short period
of time. We have now passed six months. That has not happened.
We will have to give thought as to how to re-orientate our campaign,
what are we going to do now. Talking about Montenegro, I do agree
with Susan Woodward that we have not thought it out, we do not
really have an answer to the Montenegrins' cry for help, which
is we are caught in this situation where we cannot receive aid
from international financial institutions and we cannot fully
solve our economic problems because we are not independent but
you do not want us to be independent. We do not have an answer
to that any more than we have a very clear answer to what we are
going to do about Kosovo in the short term.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think I would be very
hard pushed to say that I think policy towards the Balkans has
been successful. It patently has not been and I am pretty well
placed to say that because I have been part of some of the mistakes.
Nobody should under-estimate the difficulties of getting a successful
policy, but that is not a good enough reason for failing.
274. Is it coherent?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) No, there are gaps. I
think there is an overall shape to policy at the moment which
seems to me to be reasonable. There is the international presence
in Kosovo and a question mark about its future. There is a Stability
Pact designed to give shape to the development of regional relations.
I think the bit that is missing in the jigsaw at the moment is
the policy towards Serbia and that has always been the issue,
policy towards Serbia and the difficulty that the West has had
absolutely continuously is how you deal with Milosevic on the
one hand and Serbia on the other if you are committed to make
that distinction and this is one of the really key problems where
the policy makers have failed and we still remain without a policy
towards Serbia.
Mr Wilshire
275. That is the very question about the future
I wanted to come to. I do try to avoid being politically correct
wherever possible, but Ms Abbott cannot get away with blaming
the "good chaps". She and I have met some good "chapesses"
too who we are not happy with. Was the military action taken by
NATO legal in international law in your opinion?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Yes.
(Mrs Roberts) I really do not think I am qualified
to answer that question.
(Dr Woodward) I am in the same situation, I am not
a lawyer, but my view is that it was not.
276. I wanted to ask about the future of Serbia.
I get the impression it is very convenient to pretend it is not
there, that is how I read it. Is Milosevic an aberration or is
he a genuine creation of Serbia and Serbians?
(Mrs Roberts) He is not wholly an aberration. We have
now made Milosevic into this extraordinary monster and the comparisons
with people like Saddam Hussein I do not think are particularly
helpful. He has done some appalling things and I think the people
who see Milosevic as a very ruthless opportunist who will do anything
to keep himself in power are the people who have the most correct
view on Milosevic. It is becoming more extreme and it is going
to get worse because he is feeling more desperate and he is going
to do more savagely repressive things. To put him into the category
of a monster with the idea that he would shoot your sons-in-law
when they return to the country I do not think is particularly
helpful. In calling him a ruthless opportunist, I think there
has been a tendency for strong men to rule in this context that
has been admired and there has been a tendency to go for ruthlessness.
Let us not forget that Tito was extremely ruthless in his reactions
and the purges that went on in 1948 and that Djilas was extremely
ruthless as a young man. I am not saying any of this, please do
not think for one minute, to excuse Milosevic. I do not in any
way subscribe to that view. I think he has to be made to pay for
the chaos that he brought upon the country. I think he is not
so out of the ordinary but he is becoming more out of the ordinary.
We have to go down that track because we cannot go back and because
he has to be made to answer for it. There is an element of opportunism
in the way that people have reacted in the area. I am a bit concerned
about saying that because I know it sounds like a slur and a generalisation,
but I think that conditions there have meant that many people
in the past have behaved in ways that are very different from
the ways that we would expect now.
277. Could I just ask the others to comment
as well.
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think there are other
Serbs like him. I am not very happy about some members of the
opposition. There is a whole series of figures and some of them
are not very savory and I think it is partly a product of history,
i.e. this is an outsider nation that has always been against the
grain and I think they think the system is against them and they
will have their own system of doing things and he embodies that
and he is a particularly nasty specimen.
Mr Illsley
278. Would you say that the opposition leaders,
all the strong men, have got the same nationalistic viewpoint
as Milosevic?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) I think nationalism is
something that does permeate the political scene. Whether they
will all go to the lengths that this man will go to in order to
preserve his position—and remember, he is in power and that
is what distinguishes him in a sense—I think is an open
question. I think that Serb politics breathes and turns on the
issue of nationalism.
(Dr Woodward) I guess I would have to go on at length
to say why I disagree with that last statement. Milosevic has
been very skilful since 1988/89 in finding a successful political
rhetoric. No politician succeeds without a particular line. He
found a political rhetoric that combines elements of all Serbian
traditions and uses traditional values and a sense of righteousness
and of justice, that is in some ways a very old view in Serbia
and very much characteristic, for example, of peasant society
by which he could forge a coalition of people from across the
political spectrum. So in that sense he picked up elements in
one part, but only one part, of Serbian national ideology that
was available and therefore Serbian. There are other strands that
you could see not in some of the current opposition leaders but
in some of the opposition leaders who lost in the mid-1980s, the
ones we would call the liberal strands which would have been very
different and as Serbian. The second thing I would like to say
about Milosevic is that you cannot explain his behaviour or his
continuity in power without our actions. There is a very profound
interaction between how he has behaved and the space we have given
him. Many times he could have lost. Three years ago in the elections
he was down to 30 per cent of the vote and that was in a vote
in which he manipulated the results, so it was probably even less
than 30 per cent. People forget that he is indirectly elected
as the President of Yugoslavia by a government that is of itself
a coalition, it is maintained by the police and the military under
the sanctions regime that enables him to control the financial
resources and the distribution of goods to the population on which
they depend. There are ways in which at every point over the last
ten years we have taken actions that inadvertently but nonetheless
directly have kept him in power and in that sense he is not at
all certain. There are certain circumstances that I think we are
generating in a number of parts of the world. At the moment Russia
is another prime case where we do not fully include and we do
not fully exclude. We say you are a part of us but you are not
behaving the way we want, requiring economic reforms overnight
that deprive leaders of the constituency they have, creating enormous
hardships on the population but not giving supports that would
help them through, saying things threateningly on the security
front that I think support a certain type of political personality.
I am very concerned that Valdimir Putin is of the same personality.
What do I mean by that? Someone who has this extraordinary tactical
skill that above all includes the ability to fragment the opposition
so that no matter what they do it is very difficult for an opposition
leader to rise up as an available choice in a democratic system.
Mr Wilshire
279. What I think I keep hearing is a recurring
theme that most of what we have done has only made matters worse.
In those circumstances are we right to be trying to get rid of
Milosevic or is that going to make things worse?
(Dame Pauline Neville-Jones) Where would we be if
the recent military intervention had not taken place, I suppose
that is the question you have to ask if you are going to ask are
things worse. I would certainly concur with those who say that
the price paid for that military intervention was high, the exodus
of people, having to go and bring them back, the loss of life
on the way out. Would we have been in a better position? Would
we have had a solution by now by diplomatic means? I have to say
that I am sceptical about that. My presumption would be that we
would still have the KLA fighting and the Yugoslav Army active
in Kosovo with the population increasingly suffering from the
activities of the two sides. I think that is the realistic likely
alternative to what happened. I am not sure I can say that that
actually would be better. It may not be worse, but I think probably
it is worse because at least at the moment you do not have the
population subjected to that kind of military activity, to the
threat of violence and the actuality of violence. We are left
with huge problems which result from the manner of doing it as
well as from the fact of doing it. There is no doubt that the
way in which it all happened has greatly increased the problems
we have to deal with, but even if we had had a so-called diplomatic
solution, that solution would have been one which required our
presence there to hold it in being and we would have been there
on the ground and without the intervening war but with a long-term
commitment to the place. So I think the difference in the task
that we face is real but at the end of the day is a matter of
degree.
(Mrs Roberts) Whether it would be worse hangs on the
question of whether we could have got a diplomatic solution in
Kosovo and I think that is something that is very very hard to
judge. If we had got a diplomatic solution of some sort in Kosovo
I assume it would have been better because we would have been
able to maintain something of a multi-ethnic Kosovo. That was
why we intervened and it is something that we have not succeeded
very well in so far. On the question of whether we are wise to
proceed with getting rid of Milosevic, yes, I think we have no
alternative at this stage, we have to do so. How we do it is a
very different matter and I do not think that the approaches we
have used have been helpful in many cases. When I think of ones
that come to mind like leafleting from the air with misspelt Serbian
words, some of them were very injudicious indeed. I think we need
to think a lot more about how we get rid of Milosevic.
(Dr Woodward) I do hold very strongly that we have
at every point since about 1985 made matters worse. I also think
that the way we have done it is because we are trying to deal
with a new set of problems in old ways. The reason I am concerned
about it rather than as many people accuse me of not holding the
people on the ground fully responsible for their actions is that
those are not my actions, my actions are a part of what we are
in the West and I think we are repeating the mistakes elsewhere
and we need to learn from them. That is why I over-emphasise sometimes
that we have made things worse, but there is no question in my
mind, I think the most important lesson from this set of problems
of the former Yugoslavia is the way in which, whether we intended
it or not, we deprived alternative voices of the capacity to act
so that those who have been driving the scene on the ground are
the worst and the ones that we should have found a way to disenfranchise
instead of the reverse. In terms of whether we get rid of Milosevic
and if that will solve it, I fully agree with Elizabeth Roberts
that we not only have no choice but we will in the long run be
better off when he has gone from the scene, but it depends entirely
on how we do it. For example, there was in Washington in the Spring
enormous pressure in discussions among people who were very influential
but not in Government on the idea that the best way to put pressure
on Milosevic is to "support and encourage the independence
of Montenegro". There may be some very good reasons for the
independence of Montenegro, but one of the reasons that is not
good is to put pressure on Milosevic. You create another set of
problems. I have said from the beginning—I feel more strongly
than I did about it in 1992-93—that the most rapid way of
getting rid of Milosevic would be to lift the outer wall of sanctions
because he cannot survive an IMF structured conditionality programme.
If we really want the end of him and the restoration of the economic
situation in the region that could indeed invite foreign investment
and stability and the capacity for conditions whereby they could
meet in the long run the conditions for both EU and NATO membership,
we will have to start to turn this around, but we are not able
to do it any more than Milosevic was willing to give up Kosovo
or Bosnia. Just as he does not like to give up weapons we do not
like to give up weapons. I think it depends entirely on how we
do it. We could do it in ways that could make things much worse
in the short run.
Mr Wilshire: My immediate departure is no reflection
on the quality of the answers, it is just that I have another
meeting.
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