APPENDIX 23
Memorandum submitted by R G A Williams
and J M H du Boulay
SELECT COMMITTEE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: MEETING
ON KOSOVO
We write to put forward some questions which we believe
need urgent consideration by the Select Committee when it meets
later this month. In Scotland most readers of broadsheet newspapers
were deeply disturbed by the action of NATO. While they welcomed
the return of Albanian refugees, they suspected that the way negotiations
were conducted at Rambouillet and the threat of bombing put into
practice added substantially to the displacement of refugees in
the first place. During NATO's action there were reasons why criticism
in Parliament should have been muted; now it is imperative that
the Select Committee presses Ministers with the disquieting questions
which continue to mount up in discussion outside Parliament, and
we beg you to ensure that this is done. These questions are as
follows:
BEFORE NATO'S
ACTION
1. When the threat to bomb was being considered,
was the government viewing the Jugoslav forces as unilateral aggressors?
Were evictions of Serbs by the Albanians during the period of
Albanian autonomy in the 1980s sufficiently understood? These
evictions of the Serbs during those years are rarely reported,
and then only as "alleged", but there is English eye
witness evidence that they took place in very great numbers.
2. What was the basis in international law
for intervening in the internal affairs of another country? Is
the claim of genocide still being maintained as a description
of events before 24 March? If so, how many deaths of Albanian
civilians had occurred outside areas of KLA activity?
3. Why at Rambouillet was the extremist
Thaqi chosen as the spokesman of the Albanians, rather than the
moderate, and elected, Rugova; and why were the leaders of the
Serbian Church, who had consistently advocated non violence, refused
entry to Rambouillet and their proposals for a cantonal solution
in Kosovo not even heard? Is it true that there was an appendix
to the agreement requiring free passage and immunity for NATO
troops throughout Serbia? Would the select committee expect any
non-NATO country to accept such terms, and if not, what sort of
negotiation was this?
4. Why did the government not anticipate
the possibility that removing OSCE monitors and bombing would
liberate and aggravate a highly aggressive response from the Jugoslav
army?
DURING NATO'S
ACTION
1. Does the bombing of power stations with
the consequent release of highly toxic materials not violate the
terms of the Geneva convention on legitimate targets, which for
instance, prohibits the bombing of nuclear power stations?
2. Is the use of cluster bombs and DU weapons
legitimate, particularly considering that they were used against
civilian as well as military targets?
3. Is it legitimate to destroy the entire
infrastructure of a country which cannot protect itself against
you, in the effort to incapacitate its military power? Is it the
case that civilian immiseration was gradually accepted as a substitute
for risking our own forces to defend the Albanians?
AFTER NATO'S
ACTION
1. Why did NATO refuse to partition Kosovo,
but has yet allowed attacks on Serbs and Roma, and the "ethnic
cleansing" of over 200,000 of these people—almost all
the Serbian and Roma Kosovars? Was the government's insistence
on a multicultural state a gross misjudgement of the realities
of the situation?
2. One of the terms of the peace agreement
with Serbia was that in return for Jugoslav forces leaving the
area, civilians would be protected and the KLA disarmed. Neither
of these things has happened, and the KLA are now being installed
as the legitimate police force. Is this not a clear betrayal of
NATO's solemn undertaking?
3. Why is NATO unable to stop the systematic
destruction of over 70 (to date) Christian monasteries and churches
in what is clearly a co-ordinated campaign carried out by people
with knowledge of mining and explosives? (www.decani.com/destroy
church.html).
THE OVERALL
RECKONING
We attacked Serbia because 2,000 people on both
sides had died in the civil war up to March 1999, and maybe, at
a top estimate, 350,000 Albanians had been displaced—some
permanently, some temporarily until they could return again to
their villages. The government apparently did not anticipate serious
resistance to our attack, but it occurred, and in consequence,
we killed directly about 1,500 Serbian civilians, maimed, traumatised
and wounded countless others, and left the countries of Serbia
and Kosovo destroyed and polluted—with as yet incalculable
consequences. Albanian civilians discovered to have been killed
by the Serbs so far number 670—under half of those killed
in Serbia proper by NATO, and an even smaller proportion of those
killed in both Serbia proper and Kosovo by NATO (Sunday Times
October, 31, Nicholas Rufford: Cook accused of misleading public
on Kosovo massacres). Since NATO entered Kosovo in June, over
200,000 Serbs and Roma have been evicted, the Christian culture
of hundreds of years is being permanently eradicated, and this
process is continuing. Against this clearly adverse record we
have to set 848,000 Albanian refugees who are now returning or
have returned, though some of these refugees will have fled, as
reported at the time, to escape NATO bombing. Clearly the critical
judgement is how many of these refugees there would have been
if OSCE and humanitarian aid had been strengthened, bombing avoided,
and other negotiations pursued.
Do these figures suggest that in terminating
the OSCE involvement and humanitarian aid, and resorting to air
attack, the government successfully selected a policy which would
minimise human suffering? If not, how can such mistakes be prevented
in the future?
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