Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
THURSDAY 18 NOVEMBER 1999
MR EMYR
JONES PARRY,
SIR JOHN
GOULDEN, AND
MR BRIAN
DONNELLY
60. We tried it 43 years ago.
(Mr Jones Parry) I sense, Chairman, I am at a disadvantage
in my knowledge of history compared to Sir David's. In terms of
what Article 2.7 of the Charter says it is very clear about non-interference
in the domestic affairs of countries but one has to balance that
out and do a construct. It is less getting round the veto than
trying to avoid a situation where the member state applies a veto.
That means crucially that one of the big challenges post this
conflict is how we develop a relationship with Russia which actually
means that we and Russia, and there are signs of this now one
has to combat terrorism, have identical interests and want to
pursue it in some way. One of not just the challenges but the
common interest with Russia is to work together to combat this
sort of situation. Throughout this conflict it is interesting
that the Russians were ambivalent. They were ambivalent because
a lot of the time they were working with us and solidarity worked
one way but, on the other hand, the Russians who were dealing
with Milosevic were as critical and concerned about his policies
as we were. The barrier came to military action and the problem
was persuading them to support us in the UN which we did not manage
to do at that time.
Mr Mackinlay
61. I would like to come back to Mr Rowlands'
question to you. I listened carefully to the end of what you said.
I do not mean this disrespectfully but it was still somewhat ambiguous.
It is a fact, is it not, that the Attorney General in his advice
to Government expressed reserve about the legality of this?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think, Chairman, you find me at
a disadvantage in trying to anticipate the views of the Foreign
Secretary but still more so if I try to comment on the views that
other members of the Government take, it is outside our purview.
I will state quite clearly that the decisions taken by Government
represented the views of all those concerned and represented the
Government's very clear commitment that the action being taken
was legal and it was overwhelmingly justified.
62. We understand the doctrine of collective
responsibility so that must manifestly be so, what you have just
uttered, if you look at the record. The Attorney General in this
capacity is acting as the legal adviser to the Crown. I think
it is all done under royal prerogative anyway. He has a duty,
does he not, to advise on the legality? I return to the fact that
he expressed considerable reserve, did he not?
(Mr Jones Parry) Chairman, may I answer that question
by asking a question? The question is until the last reshuffle
Mr Morris was the one Member of the Government who had been in
every Labour Government since 1964. I regard him as being an extremely
honourable man. Do you really think that he would still have been
the Attorney General if he had real doubts about what was being
done?
Ms Abbott: You cannot answer a question with
a question, with respect.
Mr Mackinlay: Also I did not say "real
doubts".
Chairman: When we meet the Foreign Secretary
we can pursue that point further as appropriate.
Mr Mackinlay
63. It was put to some of us informally, not
in a formal hearing, that it would have been good politics, quite
apart from adding perhaps a fig leaf to the legality position,
if we had sought a resolution of the General Assembly of the United
Nations under the Uniting for Peace Resolution. On the face of
it it seemed quite a powerful argument, why did we not do that?
(Mr Jones Parry) We looked at the options, Mr Mackinlay,
and we concluded that having tried twice to get the necessary
measures through the Security Council, we adopted two resolutions
there but we did not get the language we wanted. We thought in
terms of the proper hierarchy relationship between the Security
Council and the General Assembly. We failed in the body we thought
was the more proper route to go down and we should stop at that.
Mr Mackinlay: That is a question of why. I can
understand you could not get a resolution of the Security Council,
that is a matter of fact. In the absence of that it seems to me
you could have got a mandate from the Community of Nations, as
it were, by having a very powerful majority in the General Assembly
of the United Nations. Quite apart from the humanitarian arguments,
fighting evil as your words were, it would have well been in the
capacity of Uncle Sam, the United Kingdom and France to press
a few buttons around the world and got hands going up in support
surely. It seems to me obvious at that stage, you could have got
a majority in the General Assembly, could you not?
Chairman: Was it considered?
Mr Mackinlay
64. Why was it not done?
(Mr Jones Parry) I set out at the beginning, Chairman,
the three firm legal positions which justified the use of force.
I will not dispute the fact that had the General Assembly adopted
a resolution it would have been there as something to use as ammunition
and support. It would not have tackled Dr Starkey's fundamental
point, whether or not we had a legal justification, that could
only have come from the Security Council.
65. I think you were referring to the Article
of the United Nations which limits, as it were, the capacity to
trespass into the national sovereignty.
(Mr Jones Parry) 2.7.
66. You said you have to balance that out and
do a construct. Again, I think that is what we are fishing around
for, to find what is that construction. You actually indicate
in your words that part of the United Nations Charter is explicit.
It seems to me, therefore, the burden is on those who say that
can be set aside to demonstrate how it can be set aside and your
words were that you have "to do a construct".
(Mr Jones Parry) The construct, Mr Mackinlay, I described
earlier were two Security Council resolutions, the events on the
ground, and you could also pray in aid Article 1.3 of the Charter
which deals with human rights, and a very important other dimension
which in part is in contradiction to 2.7. There is no clear unequivocal
answer to this. It is a matter of judgment.
Sir Peter Emery: Might I just say, Mr Jones
Parry, from the Opposition point of view, your statement about
Mr John Morris we think is absolutely correct.
Ms Abbott: I want to ask you about Rambouillet.
Chairman
67. Can I just sum up on the legal side. What
you are saying is this, that you had no doubt that the action
was justified under international law?
(Mr Jones Parry) Absolutely. Our conduct of the operation
throughout met the most rigorous UK domestic legal standards.
68. Notwithstanding that, you still believe
that there are deficiencies in international law which need to
be remedied as a result of discussion. Are you saying seriously
that either Russia or China is likely to modify its position on
territorial sovereignty or to modify its veto in those discussions?
(Mr Jones Parry) I am not seriously saying that. I
am addressing the point, Chairman, that it was a veto, to try
to avoid the use of the veto in the circumstances, as you suggest,
by definition of a resolution in the Security Council.
Ms Abbott
69. What positive inducements were offered to
Milosevic to sign the agreement at Rambouillet, as opposed to
just issuing threats?
(Mr Jones Parry) The short answer is that it would
have provided a means to keep Kosovo within the FRY. That is the
biggest inducement I can imagine.
70. Is it not the case that if he had been offered
more, maybe UN recognition and access to the international financial
institutions, thousands of deaths could have been avoided?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think there was quite a lot on
offer. Again, the United Kingdom put down in the European Union
in the course of 1996/97 a regional approach. That regional approach
was adopted. It set out what the European Union was prepared to
do for all the countries in the Balkans. Also we made it quite
clear throughout Rambouillet what was on offer by way of eventually
lifting the outer wall of sanctions, provided that Kosovo was
solved, provided we could see a democratic future for FRY. That
is all there. There is an assumption underlying your question
that somehow despite everything that was being done by this man
at this time if we had given him something he would have stopped
it. I agree that the inducements are part of the argument but
there is a fundamental view we are attacking here which you cannot
attack by buying him off, I am afraid.
(Mr Donnelly) Can I make just one point to supplement
that. Between Rambouillet and the resumption of talks at Kleber,
the German Foreign Minister and Mr Van den Broek went to Belgrade
and they again set out the prospectus for Serbia. As Emyr said
it included many elements which were in the Serb interest: the
prospect again of rapid progress towards integration in Europe,
towards economic advantages to accomplish it, and Milosevic showed
not the slighted interest. Nor when Mr Holbrooke visited again
twice in that period between the two meetings did the Serbs raise
with him any requests or suggestions or positive measures which
might help to carry the day. In short, they showed literally no
interest in inducements of any kind at the time.
71. What you are saying for the avoidance of
doubt is that everything positive that could have been done to
encourage Milosevic to sign was done.
(Mr Donnelly) Yes.
72. Just for the avoidance of doubt. In retrospect,
do you wish that more attention had been paid to the details of
the Status of Forces Agreement, that was the Agreement which gave
NATO forces access to FRY?
(Sir John Goulden) It never became the centre of major
argument. It has become a little bit of an argument since. At
Kleber, in the last stages of Rambouillet and at Kleber, and in
the discussions with Belgrade in between, that was not the crucial
problem. The crucial problem was that when they turned up again
at Kleber they were not accepting the political agreement. It
was the political agreement that they were rejecting before they
even got to discussing the Status of Forces Agreement. The military
annex was clearly something they were going to have big trouble
over. If they turned up and said "Right, we have agreed the
political stuff, let us now negotiate on the military annex"
that is what would have happened, that is what Kleber would have
been all about. One aspect of that negotiation would have been
the Status of Forces Agreement which we had tabled late. We had
done it more or less based on the Status of Forces Agreements
we had used elsewhere in the Balkans in the context of Bosnia.
Clearly there were things in it that they would have wanted to
negotiate and the international community would have been willing
to negotiate, just as the international community was willing
to negotiate elements of the political agreement that they did
not like. We never got to that. It was part of the agenda that
was never reached because the negotiations broke down on something
more fundamental before that. I think we could have easily worked
out a Status of Forces Agreement that would have been acceptable
to them as well.
Chairman
73. Why was the military annex tabled so late?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think there were two reasons. I
only answer this because I was there. There was a very large agenda
to go through and the military was always going to be the most
difficult. We tried to take it sequentially. We put down all the
political aspects, we went through those. It was also the fact
that we had three negotiators, one from the European Union, one
from the United States and one from Russia, and the Russian was
not happy with the military annex. As I said earlier, that was
one of the points where we diverged from the Russians. We wanted
to retain the unity for as long as possible.
Dr Starkey
74. There had been some discussion on the military
annex with the three negotiators and that had not been resolved?
(Mr Jones Parry) Not between them but between the
Contact Group members, especially ourselves, the French, United
States and the Russians were in permanent attendance and I or
my deputy were there all the time. With our colleagues we were
trying to hammer it out. At the same time we wanted to work out
what the content of that annex should be.
Chairman
75. The annex was not acceptable to the Russians
in the Contact Group. The annex contained the ability of the NATO
forces, the Alliance forces, to operate freely within the territory
of Serbia and for a strongly nationalist country that could be
deemed to be provocative. Was it not going to be a final nail
in the coffin of any prospect of peace?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think, Mr Anderson, Sir John was
arguing we can make too much now of just this point about the
SOFA Agreement. That is not an unusual thing in terms of these
agreements. It was to permit the entry into Kosovo. There was
never—nor was it discussed—an intention that these
forces should have run riot within Serbia or other parts of the
FRY. It was specifically to get them into Kosovo. The reason why
they should have been there was that in the balance of history
of the last six months before then—and it had been the British
Government's position even before Holbrooke went and negotiated
his agreement—our preference was to put ground troops there
before there was any conflict, to go there at the invitation of
Milosevic in order to actually secure peace.
76. Was it unwise? Presumably the preferred
route for the military from Germany was to go into the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary, into Vojvodina, that was a convenient route
but clearly from the start it was going to be provocative to the
nationalist sensitivity of Serbia. Was it wise to table that at
that stage of the discussions?
(Sir John Goulden) I think we are talking about the
first text tabled in a negotiation. To put that text together
we drew on the texts of Status of Forces Agreements which had
already been agreed with Yugoslavia in the context of Bosnia for
the FRY as well as for Croatia. It was a good starting point,
it was a reasonable starting point. If they had got down to negotiation
with us and said: "Look, the phrasing you have used for your
forces being in Yugoslavia is not acceptable, we can agree to
you going through a corridor on a one-off basis", something
like that would probably have been negotiable. They did not get
on to discussing this text in its first draft version because
they did not even get beyond the political texts at Kleber.
(Mr Jones Parry) The fundamental problem, Chairman,
was that they did not want foreign troops on Kosovo soil. SOFA
was a smoke screen. The problem was that they did not want those
troops there.
Chairman: Gentlemen, we have come to the point
where we have covered a fair part of the position leading up to
the conflict. I would like to turn to the future and look at some
of the current points and the Stability Pact and so on. Sir David?
Sir David Madel
77. Presumably we are stuck with Milosevic for
the time being and the question now is how do we start any sort
of conversations with him. Would it be your view that it would
be a good thing if the Secretary General of the United Nations
went just to spy out the land—I do not mean that in literal
terms—to start the process not of negotiation because that
implies he is in the mood to give which I do not think he is but
just to start conversations and the best person to go would be
the Secretary-General of the United Nations?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think, Sir David, the priority
we are taking is contact with the democratic opposition. We have
set at the moment our sights in that direction to try and encourage
the opposition to come together, to espouse the sort of destination
for Serbia and the FRY that we would like to see, to reject some
of the nationalism but to come together and we have firmly said,
and Ministers have laid down, that we should not at this stage
negotiate with Milosevic. That is not on offer at this stage.
78. And I am not suggesting we do.
(Mr Jones Parry) The big question is we are talking
about an indictee. ICTY has launched an indictment against him
and in the present conditions, negotiations per se are
not appropriate without the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
79. I did not say negotiations, I said what
sort of contact it should be and I just asked whether you think
we should start with the Secretary-General. Your view is no negotiation
but also no discussion with Milosevic?
(Mr Jones Parry) I think in the end the Secretary-General
of the United Nations is responsible for ICTY as something established
by the United Nations and for the Secretary-General to go off
and have any sort of discussion with somebody indicted for war
crimes I do not think is a good precedent.
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