Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460
- 479)
THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000
THE RT
HON ROBIN
COOK, MR
EMYR JONES
PARRY AND
MR BRIAN
DONNELLY, CMG
460. There is not a shred of evidence that those
Serbs made any attempt to moderate the behaviour and treatment
of the local population. In fact in Glamoc we had an example where
one of the possible leading war criminals was actually a local.
(Mr Cook) At the end I am not here making the case
on behalf of the Serbs during the conflict, indeed I was on the
other side, but I think we have got to have an amnesty against
those who failed by sins of omission. We certainly must pursue
those who were war criminals and those who carried out the atrocities,
but unless we are prepared to allow a fresh start for those who
did nothing we are never ever going to have any form of reconciliation
in Kosovo.
461. One thought on the notion that when Milosevic
goes suddenly Kosovar Albanians will feel they can stay within
a loose federation, again, I did not any find anyone who believed
that their relationships with Serbia were totally determined by
the physical presence of Milosevic; it was now much more fundamental
than that.
(Mr Cook) I very much welcome the realism that you
are showing. I wish I read that kind of realism more often in
our national press. On the question about Milosevic, I think the
starting point is there is no hope of that while he is there.
How much hope of it when he goes depends what replaces him. To
be honest, things are now happening in Croatia which a year ago
were unthinkable and there are some 16,000 Serb refugees invited
to return to Croatia which astonished them.
Chairman
462. To Kosovo?
(Mr Cook) To Croatia and it would have astonished
them six months ago if we had said you are shortly going to get
an invitation from Zagreb to return to Eastern Slavonija, and
it will take some time for such a development to change opinions,
but if we did get a genuinely democratic outward looking government
of Serbia, not just a shadow of Milosevic, then it is possible
to think of more creative solutions.
Chairman: Let us turn now to policing, law and
order and the new judiciary Mr Mackinlay?
Mr Mackinlay
463. One of the things I want to put to you,
Foreign Secretary, is first of all the superb contribution the
United Kingdom is making in all of these areas. I think whatever
differences might exist, with some justifiable pride the lead
role of the United Kingdom in so many areas should be recognised,
and policing is one such area. But there is in massive deficiency.
There are just over 2,000 of a mixed bag of police officers—and
I do not mean that disparagingly about them—whereas in any
comparable situation the professional estimate of need is twice
that amount. I think that is agreed ground. You said that our
contribution of RUC officers are trained in carrying weapons and
I know the Ministry of Defence Police are sending out some who
are similarly trained. The point I wanted to convey to you, and
perhaps you might reflect upon this, is that both one of our most
senior military officers there and (and I think I can say this)
the actual chief of police himself, when I probed them on the
subject of what about other police officers drawn from English
and Welsh and Scots' constabularies, said they would be delighted
to have them. Then we probed the question of being trained to
use sidearms and they said, I am paraphrasing, "This is not
a problem because first of all there are police officers in all
these constabularies who are retiring every month who do have
such qualifications and those who have not, we could train up."
If I could just go on for 30 seconds more. The other thing they
pointed out was they recognised that the chief constables in England,
Wales and Scotland cannot be denuded of scarce resources but every
month there are hundreds of people retiring who they would give
their right hand to have in the United Nations police force from
English, Welsh and Scots' constabularies many of whom would have
had experience of sidearms, or those who could be trained up very
shortly. The discipline and the rules of engagement and the tradition
of community policing is what they are crying out for. It did
occur to some of us that perhaps that had not been fully understood
here. I am not talking about yourself. This would be 300 per cent
better than the void you have got and also some of the policing
which has been contributed to there has been found to be somewhat
deficient. I wonder if the United Kingdom Government could reflect
on this narrow issue of people with sidearms experience.
(Mr Cook) The point you make about retired police
officers is a very interesting one. I will reflect on that and
see if there is any way in which we could tap that resource. I
would have to say, though, that I personally would be pretty robust
that any policeman we send to serve with a police force which
operates on an armed basis must be somebody who has been trained
in the use of arms. I really would very much hesitate to lobby
my colleagues in the Home Office to send out people who would
be expected to use weapons there who had not been trained on the
streets here. That is why our contingent is drawn from the RUC
and from the MoD. We have doubled the numbers. We are putting
in 120. The United States and Germany have put in the largest
numbers but outside of them, despite the fact we are the only
ones who normally have unarmed police, we are compared quite favourably.
We have also looked at how we can be supportive in roles where
weapons are not required. That is why we have increased the contribution
of police we make to the training school for the local police
force and we now have 40 working there in the police school. That
is also why we have looked at how we can make a contribution in
the back room work against organised crime and will provide the
core of their criminal intelligence unit. If you add together
all these different commitments we will have 180 police working
in Kosovo within the next month or two. That is quite a substantial
contribution out of the total.
Dr Godman: Just very quickly following up on
what Andrew said. I take your point. I think that police officers
need to be well-trained in the use of pistols, but it seems to
me what could help to make things easier for those police officers
who have that kind of skill is if the period of engagement was
reduced from 12 months to six months. I think that that would
make it, dare I say, more attractive for younger officers to sign
up. The RUC officers, who I think are doing a superbly efficient
job, and I have written to Ronnie Flannegan, the Chief Constable,
to that effect, are there for 12 months and I think if officers
could be offered a six months' long engagement that would bring
about an increase in recruits because, as Andrew said, they are
desperately needed. By the way, in terms of the training I met
a Fijian officer, a delightful fellow, very humorous, who said
that he had never handled a pistol before he had signed up for
this secondment. He was given two days training and felt he was
proficient. He seemed to have on his hip an ancient Smith and
Wesson .38 pistol. I would want more training than that for our
officers but I think if they were for six months as a period of
engagement—
Mr Mackinlay
464. The oldest police officer is 70. They are
desperate for them so they will be pleased to have the best British
copper.
(Mr Cook) I would be sceptical, like yourself, whether
two days is sufficient.
Dr Godman
465. It is not.
(Mr Cook) It is not just a question of training, it
is also a question of experience, the confidence of having spent
some time walking the streets with your weapon and knowing when
and how to use your weapon. On this point I would take an awful
lot of shifting about sending police into this environment who
had not had experience of weapons use. Having said that, we can
look again at the question of the period of engagement. Finally,
recruits have not been a problem, we have been able to fill our
complement but our complement necessarily is limited by the pool
from which we can draw. The one problem of reducing the period
of service is that we are giving eight weeks training, not on
weapons use but on the nature of the situation in Kosovo and on
the type of policing work you are expected to do, and that reflects
our own strong commitment as a nation that we have better police
that are better trained at what they are trying to do. Providing
an eight week training period for a posting of only six months
might be a little bit out of balance. I would not have a close
mind on it. Certainly we have to understand that when we ask people
to go to Kosovo for 12 months, we are asking a lot of their families
as well as of them.
Mr Wilshire
466. Very briefly on this question of policing,
it is clearly absolutely right that we should do more to help
with intelligence because the message that you will have got,
and we got, is there is a vacuum there of knowing what is going
on. Those people involved who I listened to said "we are
foreigners, we do find it difficult to get into the community".
Whilst it is absolutely right also to do more for training, is
there any prospect at all of doing yet more so that the intelligence
can be gathered by local people who have been trained? It is not
a criticism, it is a plea for even more.
(Mr Cook) I only made the announcement yesterday so
perhaps I could be allowed to bed down this initiative before
I am asked for even more. I do not disagree with you on the general
principle. We do have a serious organised crime problem, not just
within Kosovo but with links outside Kosovo. Where we may be better
able to meet your request for local intelligence and access is
through the police training academy that is operated under OSCE.
That has actually produced its first two streams of graduates
totalling 350 in all. They are drawn from all the communities
in Kosovo, including the Serbs, including the Roma. We are now
in a position to rapidly produce further numbers at the rate of
170 per stream. As that feeds through I think that will make a
significant contribution to our ability to tap local knowledge,
local news and get on top of the criminal problem.
Mr Illsley
467. One of the points I want to make is just
to reinforce the issue about the judicial void that you covered
in your opening statement. There was a frustration on the part
of police officers we met because they were rounding up people
who they felt were responsible for crimes who were simply released
the same day. One example we were given was of RUC and Seattle
police officers. They actually arrested a suspect who was released
from Pristina and got back to Glamoc before the police officer
did. There is that frustration, that there seems to be no judicial
function. The other thing is the 350 you have just mentioned of
the KPC, which is what I presume you were referring
to—
(Mr Cook) Not the KPC. This is of the local police
force which has been trained and raised by OSCE. The KPC is a
separate and serious question.
468. I might have got it wrong, I could be referring
to the local police force being trained up and trained to go into
the local community. One of the men I met, the first thing he
asked for was a gun: "give us arms otherwise we cannot police
it". Is there any likelihood of that?
(Mr Cook) I am unsighted on that but I am slightly
surprised that we are expecting the local police to operate unarmed.
We will do a note to you, Chairman.
Ms Abbott
469. Without exception the Albanian politicians
we met, from whatever party spectrum, were intent on independence
for Kosovo and when we read out to them written evidence that
we have from the Foreign Office which makes it clear that Her
Majesty's Government is not thinking about moving to independence
in the near future, they were taken aback. When we spoke to Bishop
Artemenje's people about the question of independence they were
equally emphatic that even the discussion of independence would
mean the Serbian population would flee and not return. On the
ground in the minds of the Albanian politicians there seems to
be a degree of ambiguity as to what the West's position really
is. For the avoidance of doubt, would you like to restate it?
(Mr Cook) I did only ten minutes ago in response to
Mr Mackinlay's question but I am happy to go over the ground again.
Resolution 1244 is quite explicit that Kosovo, for the time being,
is part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that its future
final term status will be on the political process. It is very
hard to see how we can have that political process which will
necessarily involve dialogue with Belgrade whilst Belgrade is
led by an indicted war criminal. In the longer term I would hope
that we would find a creative and imaginative solution to this
problem, a kind that is not uncommon around the world at the present
time, but I see no prospect of securing that while Milosevic is
in Belgrade.
Mr Chidgey: Can I return to policing with a
very small question, reiterating and re-emphasising the point
Mr Illsley made about the huge vacuum in the judicial process.
I recognise from your statement that we are committed to sending
lawyers there but I would like to re-emphasise just how serious
this problem is. The frustrations building amongst the expatriate
police that are seen helping out in Kosovo is enormous because
they are arresting people for anything from speeding to murder
and there is no judge, there is no court for them to be tried
in.
Chairman: No prisons.
Mr Chidgey
470. No prisons. To their credit the police
force are finding ways of actually exercising community judgments
on people they arrest. For example, if you are caught speeding
in certain parts of Kosovo they will impound your car. That is
a very practical and sensible response but it only goes to illustrate
how important it is that we do something about this because the
concept of law and judicial process has become a laughing stock.
(Mr Cook) You are absolutely right to point to all
the different points along the chain which we need to get right.
As I said earlier, we took over a province which frankly was a
desert in terms of any form of public service. There had been
no functioning Albanian court system since 1989, there were no
effective prisons, there was no effective police force either
because all the police had been Serbs. Therefore, we had to put
all of that together from scratch. We have put £1 million
of our money in precisely to try to provide emergency places of
detention and the last time I looked I think there were 600 people
who were detained. The trouble is when you have got a limited
number of detentions it is the very serious ones who are detained
and, therefore, people who in any other society would be detained
are not being detained at the present time. We also need a court
system that works and that will hand down sentences as well as
a prison in which those sentences can be served.
Chairman
471. And sentenced in a non-partisan way, which
is one of the problems at Rambouillet.
(Mr Cook) Yes. The starting problem there, of course,
is whether both sides will recognise the same legal base. The
problem at Rambouillet was the Serbs refused to accept the pre-1989
legal base and to recognise Albanian law, Albanian courts and
Albanian judges and wanted the right to appeal to Serbia to be
dealt with in Serbia by Serbian courts, Serbian law and Serbian
judges. In the medium term that is plainly something that we could
not tolerate because it breaks down the whole concept of—
Mr Chidgey
472. There is a question of partiality, where
if it is a particular group trying a case the guy gets off, if
it is the other group the guy is sentenced. Even though there
are no prisons he is still sentenced.
(Mr Cook) I understand that. I share your concern
on this point. I have got to say that at the end of the day I
come back to the fourth part of my opening statement which is
that the Kosovar Albanians themselves have to accept some responsibility
for what kind of society they want to create. If they themselves
will frustrate every attempt to achieve a judicial process to
punish the criminals they are not going to have a successful society
whatever we do.
Chairman
473. There is that danger of a dependency culture
building up, of a scruffiness where people are unwilling to remove
all the rubbish and yet are unprepared to help in the community.
Would a Community Service Order on the same basis as in the UK
be an appropriate instrument of punishment in certain cases?
(Mr Cook) I think we have got to have a little bit
of timidity in starting to draft the Kosovar Albanian penal code.
Ultimately this is something which they have to get right for
themselves. The only immediate problem I can see in what you propose
is community service orders are quite intensive in terms of oversight
and we do not have those resources.
Mr Mackinlay: It has to be crude and simple.
Mr Rowlands
474. Can I make one suggestion on one piece
of activity on crime that ought to be carried out by an external
force and that is the arresting of local war criminals. I think
it would help a great deal. When people in the villages we went
to know who the person is, know where they are, see no action
being taken because understandably there is The Hague at one level
but at the local level there is no equivalent going on, would
not that be a useful extension of UNMIK to have a local war criminal
unit to try to pick up and prosecute some of the local war criminals?
(Mr Cook) I would absolutely agree that that is a
priority for any fair judicial process. Whether it is entirely
properly the task of UNMIK is something on which I would want
to reflect. The lead in this is the International Tribunal but
of course it is the case that the International Tribunal has a
very clear policy of focusing on those responsible for the oversight,
masterminding and initiation of war crimes. They do encourage
the countries of the region to call to account those who have
committed acts in the course of war crimes without themselves
being leaders in the role and therefore as and when we have a
functioning judicial system in Kosovo that is a perfectly fair
responsibility for Kosovo itself to accept. I would agree with
you that if we are trying to achieve a reconciliation between
the ethnic communities justice for acts of the past is essential
in clearing the way for people to co-operate in the future.
Sir David Madel
475. Can I follow up what Diane Abbot said.
Are we really saying that if there is no change in Belgrade our
policy is we are recognising one country with two systems, which
is what we do over China? If Kosovo moves to democracy we still
recognise it as part of Serbia but it is a different system, so
we are bringing into Europe the policy of recognising one country
with two systems?
(Mr Cook) As I said earlier, there are a number of
creative and imaginative solutions to this issue of sovereignty
that exist around the world and that is one of them. I do not
want to be too explicit on this because I certainly do not want
anybody producing tomorrow "Cook holds out Hong Kong model
for Kosovo" because I am not proposing any one model. I think
one of our frustrations in dealing with the Balkans is that there
is a very 19th Century concept of sovereignty in their minds which
reflects the extent to which they have been cut off from all the
modern trends of Europe for the period they were in Communist
deep freeze. If we can try and get a more outward looking modernist
approach within the region then it may be possible to look more
sympathetically and positively at those constructive ideas but,
frankly, if I were a Kosovar Albanian I would not begin to start
contemplating them myself so long as Milosevic is in power in
Belgrade.
476. Foreign Secretary, on a BBC Panorama
special last April you said in relation to Mr Milosevic: "I
will deal with anybody who enables us to return refugees to Kosovo
under international protection. If that involves dealing with
those who have effective power to Belgrade then we owe it to the
refugees to do that. When we have the refugees back, the next
task is to restore normalcy, stability and security." If
that means making arrangements with Mr Milosevic but still leaving
the indictment there, is that something we would do?
(Mr Cook) I find it difficult to answer that in its
hypothetical context because I think there is only a limited number
of ways in which anything done by Milosevic would be welcome or
trusted within Kosovo. There are some things which Milosevic knows
perfectly well we want from him. We touched on one of those earlier
which is the release of the missing persons. I would have no hesitation
about the international community making any number of approaches
which might produce a result on that kind of issue. But the bottom
line here is that Milosevic is an indicted war criminal. It is
our view that he should not be holding office. One of the things
that condemns Serbia not to be included in the process of modernisation
that is going on throughout the region is precisely that it is
led by a man wanted for war crimes and therefore there is a very
sharp limit on the extent to which we are prepared to deal with
him in the way that recognises that he is the President whilst
at the same time being an indicted war criminal.
477. But we might be prepared to deal with him
on very limited fronts?
(Mr Cook) None of us have any problems about dealing
with him in interfaces with Kosovo of the kind I have said. If,
for instance, he were to break any agreements with us we are not
going to fail to ring him up and send people to protest to him
because we do not want to deal with him.
Dr Godman
478. Literally within 24 hours of flying home
from Kosovo I went across to Northern Ireland and along with other
members of this Committee I have experienced sectarian hatred
over there, but I have to echo what Ted Roland said, I have never
experienced the kind of bitterness, the embittered hatred that
I came up against in Pristina. Talking to five women journalists,
all of whom spoke superb English, there was no question in their
minds of seeing within the next few years the development of a
multi ethnic harmonious society. They talked in terms of an assembly
if one were to be set up under the rules of autonomy which would
be divided along ethnic lines. Could I ask a question relating
to this ethnic hatred. Mitrovica is the flash point at the moment,
is it not? Is the problem there exacerbated by the lack of experience
that that particular French infantry regiment had in comparison
with our soldiers who have had that long experience of serving
in Northern Ireland? How do we calm things down in this region?
(Mr Cook) First of all, I share absolutely your perception
of the bitterness there and we should never forget that that is
a product and also a testimony to the appalling atrocities that
took place there over the previous 18 months particularly during
the last Serb offensive of the spring of 1999, and the strength
of feeling demonstrates just how appalling it was during that
period for them. We cannot be glib about how easy it is going
to be to put that together again. On Mitrovica, first of all,
I do not think it would help the operation of KFOR or the international
effort in Kosovo if we got into the argument of national buck
passing or putting the blame on others. I would say in defence
of the French forces that during the Bosnian conflict they were
extremely robust and took many more casualties than any other
national contingent in Bosnia and yet they saw the thing through.
I hope we will be able to make progress in Mitrovica and indeed
only yesterday the French forces were in action trying to reclaim
control of the bridge that should unite but divides the two parts
of the town. The policy of UNMIK is to make sure that there is
a common circulation area in the centre of Mitrovica so the bridge
cannot be used as a barrier between the two communities. There
is a new UNMIK civil supervisor for Mitrovica, a former American
General, General Nash, and I believe that we are now taking a
more robust more assertive role in Mitrovica, which is going to
be extremely difficult to see through to conclusion for all the
reasons we have discussed, but it is essential.
Chairman: Foreign Secretary, I would like to
move on to Montenegro shortly but I know Mr Chidgey has a question
on the economy.
Mr Chidgey
479. Foreign Secretary, in your statement you
mentioned rightly that for ten years the Kosovar Albanians had
basically been excluded from the running of the country, the normal
way of life and the economic way of life of the country. You mentioned
also that thanks to our western efforts children are now being
educated rather than by expatriate education and education from
outside the country. You talk glowingly about the housing but
I think it is important to say though that as far as housing is
concerned there are still many tens if not hundreds of thousands
of rural populations which have moved into the cities where the
housing still is and theirs have not been rebuilt yet. I am confident
they can do it, they are very expert at doing this. The real issue
I want to raise with you is that over that ten years the Kosovar
Albanians were literally taken out of the real economy, in fact
there was no taxation structure in the country, nobody paid taxation
because they were excluded from the jobs which were taxable. There
is a huge deficit in building up a robust economy which the people
of Kosovo contribute to and benefit from. I am very anxious that
we do not just gloss over this. We are talking about a people
who have been outside an organised economy, an organised society,
for years. I would like to know what is our long-term commitment
to provide the sort of institutional strengthening that is going
to be needed to create the base that they require to build a new
Kosovo? What precedent do we have for this? Do we really understand
the depth of the problem?
(Mr Cook) I think the answer to that is yes. Indeed,
one of the reasons I throw up my hands when I read many of the
articles in the press is that they are plainly written by people
who have no grasp or concept of how big the problem was when we
took over and the idea that you can create a European social democracy
in Kosovo within ten months is plain and absolute fantasy. You
raised a lot of very real problems and you expressed them very
accurately. One of the many consequences of the 1989 suspension
of autonomy by Belgrade was that for the subsequent ten years
the Kosovar Albanian population existed in a sort of underground
existence. Belgrade cleaned them out of all the public services.
The Serbs took over from them in the hospitals, the Serbs took
over from them in the power stations, the Serbs took over from
them in many of the key economic centres. Indeed, that has been
part of our problem since June because the moment the VJ withdrew
all of these people went too. We literally found the power station
unstaffed when we arrived at Pristina. You have Albanians without
that kind of expertise or status or experience over the past ten
years. Secondly, because they were prevented from being taught
in Albanian at the Serb schools they set up their own parallel
system of education.
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