Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400
- 419)
THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000
THE RT
HON ROBIN
COOK, MR
EMYR JONES
PARRY AND
MR BRIAN
DONNELLY, CMG
Ms Abbott
400. In March of last year you told the House
"Last October, NATO guaranteed the ceasefire that President
Milosevic signed. He has comprehensively shattered that ceasefire.
What possible credibility would NATO have next time that our security
was challenged if we did not honour that guarantee". Do you
still believe that NATO's credibility was at stake?
(Mr Cook) It is what I said then and I see no reason
to change my views.
401. Is it not the case that actually NATO's
credibility was a more important reason for launching the air
strikes. If it did turn on NATO's credibility does that not actually
undermine the legal justification for the air strikes?
(Mr Cook) That is a syllogism which I would not support
at any of those different stages. The prime reason for action
was indeed the need to avert humanitarian disaster. It was the
case, also, that we did guarantee the ceasefire and, yes, we would
have had problems of credibility if we had not then acted but
that was not the prime reason.
402. NATO's credibility was not the prime reason?
(Mr Cook) No, I am sorry, Diane—
403. I am asking you?
(Mr Cook) No, you are not, you are twisting my words.
I said in October our credibility was at stake. That was plainly
the case because that was the guarantee of the ceasefire. The
fact the international humanitarian motives coincided with what
was plainly our own security interest was a matter which may have
been valuable for us in underlining how important our intervention
was but it does not undermine that humanitarian influence.
Mr Wilshire
404. Foreign Secretary, can I start with your
statement, you said in that that 12,000 KLA weapons had been handed
in or confiscated.
(Mr Cook) Yes.
405. What is your best estimate of the number
still in the KLA hands?
(Mr Cook) Personally I do not have one, it is possible
KFOR may have one and we can try and obtain any estimate they
may have and share it with the Committee.
406. It would be helpful if you could. We were
told it was a large number and everybody else was struggling to
put a figure. It would be helpful if somebody could give us a
figure.
(Mr Cook) I am not promising a figure. Putting a figure
to it will be very difficult. I can only say on this that KFOR
was responsible for overseeing the demilitarisation agreement
of the KLA and they have reported themselves that they regard
the demilitarisation process as having been effective.
407. That would be helpful. The other thing
I noted from your statement: "a joint administration has
been established in which the Kosovo Albanians are participating
and we hope they will soon be joined by the Kosovo Serbs."
You added to that there is none at the moment. Why is there no
Serb?
(Mr Cook) Because none of them has been willing to
join. Bishop Artemije who, as your Committee will know from the
visit, is a distinguished leader of the Serb Orthodox Church within
Kosovo, has indicated in Washington that he is willing to join.
Part of the problem of course is the divided councils within the
Serb community itself. I hope that Bishop Artemije will be able
to provide the leadership of coming in to the joint administration
and provide confidence for others to do so.
408. Could I ask you then some questions about
displaced people. If I heard you correctly you said that at the
time of NATO's attack on Yugoslavia there were 210,000 displaced
people inside?
(Mr Cook) Yes.
409. Did you have any reason to suppose that
those 210,000 people were making their way to leave at that stage?
(Mr Cook) No. I am not saying any particular number
were heading towards the border but I did say also 70,000 were
already outside.
410. Yes, yes I was coming on to that.
(Mr Cook) Also, the Serb offensive proper began on
22 March, our intervention commenced on 24 March. If you look
at the history of the subsequent weeks most of those who got to
the border had been travelling to the border for a number of days,
usually around a week, that is different from those who were put
on the train and shuttled down. Therefore, none of us will ever
know to what extent those 210,000 may well have surfaced at the
border in the subsequent five days.
411. You did say that 70,000 were already outside
Kosovo, how many of those were forcibly driven out by the Serbs
and how many of them actually elected to go?
(Mr Cook) By definition a refugee does not elect to
go.
412. Can you not see a distinction between being
physically forced over the border and choosing to go over?
(Mr Cook) Pretty neat to distinguish whether you are
bundled at gunpoint on to a train and driven over the border or
whether you see a tank smashing through your house and you flee
to the forest before you are machine gunned. I do not think either
of those would be ones where you would say they elected to leave.
413. Can you not see a distinction between fleeing
to the forest and fleeing out of Kosovo?
(Mr Cook) The forest may well be within running distance,
the border may be several days walk but many of those who went
into the forest over the subsequent three weeks did walk to the
border, some of them, I have to say, in the most appalling and
excruciating conditions. I met one woman who had actually been
pregnant and near giving birth when her home was demolished. Two
days after on the road she gave birth. She then carried her baby
for a further three days to reach the border. Now you could say,
and no doubt Mr Wilshire might wish to argue, she was not forced
to leave but somebody who was prepared to go through that excruciating
hardship to get over the border was not somebody who was doing
it voluntarily, they were fleeing in terror.
414. You said earlier on in reply, I think,
to Mr Rowlands that you had no evidence that this was not going
to happen after the bombing took place, by which you meant that
there was going to be a seriously big escalation in the numbers
moving. What evidence did you have that it was going to happen?
(Mr Cook) We had a very large volume of evidence before
the conflict as to the likely actions of the Serbs and the responses
and the Committee will be aware that I put in a classified note
to them on the intelligence evidence available to us. I really
cannot be drawn in open session further than I have gone on that
classified note. As I think I made clear then, there were only
a few pieces of intelligence which referred to the possibility
of the displacement of people and none of them anticipated the
scale of what happened.
415. So there was in that case no evidence that
this was going to happen on this scale before the bombing started?
(Mr Cook) On this scale none.
416. You said you did not anticipate, what research
did you do to try and anticipate what the effect of the bombing
would be?
(Mr Cook) We had myriads of intelligence coming out
from the various sources available to us. I agree it is not a
place where you can turn up and say "I have come here to
do research" but we did fit together those pieces of intelligence
available to us from different sources.
417. Also, you said earlier on in this session
that you knew it was going to be brutal.
(Mr Cook) Yes.
418. What did you mean by "going to be
brutal"? What did you expect to happen?
(Mr Cook) What I said when I said it was going to
be brutal, I was responding to the earlier question of the Serb
offensive. I was not talking about what would happen in reaction
to the NATO bombing. I was saying that the Serb offensive which
we could see coming and see starting was going to be brutal and
we knew it would be brutal both because of how they conducted
themselves in the previous year in Kosovo, in which 400,000 people
had been made homeless in the preceding year and because of the
way in which they conducted the war in Bosnia and Croatia. I do
want to be clear about that. I was not saying that we knew it
was going to be brutal after the bombing began, that was not what
I said.
419. In that case, if that was what you meant,
what did you expect to happen when the bombing started?
(Mr Cook) We expected that the Serb offensive would
continue and indeed it did until such point when the bombing brought
it to a halt.
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