Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
MONDAY 22 MAY 2000
MR P HAIN
MP AND MR
J BEVAN
20. We are looking at the decision of the British
Foreign Office to back the deal which was put together in July
of last year. The question I have to put to you with the benefit
of hindsight—and I accept that it is with the benefit of
hindsight—is that surely that was a cataclysmic mistake
by the British Foreign Office and possibly by the wider international
community. Surely the international community and the British
Foreign Office should have taken a view then that this man and
his henchmen were just far too murderous to be let into the government
of Sierra Leone and that by letting him in we were going to produce
the breakdown of law and order and the serious loss of life which
have taken place. If we wanted to prevent it—and clearly
we do—then the only course would have been military intervention
or preparing for military intervention at that time.
(Mr Hain) Is that what this Committee was advocating
or you were advocating?
21. You are the Government, you are the Minister.
(Mr Hain) Indeed, we are the Government and I shall
answer the point. It is a fair question to ask. Why is it a fair
question to ask? Because compare where we were in July with where
we were until the last few weeks. We have had eight to nine months
of stability where the marauding gangs of murderers were not going
around chopping children's hands off, raping on a massive scale,
killing and maiming. The peace agreement had actually helped.
22. It had happened a long time in the past,
had it not? You would acknowledge that.
(Mr Hain) No, between July last year and a few weeks
ago when Sankoh broke the peace agreement, as it was always possible
that he might do, just look at the situation in Sierra Leone then
and even look at it more recently. The diamond mining area is
under the control of the RUF and still is. This is one of the
biggest problems on which I should very much welcome the Committee's
advice as to what is done about that. Sankoh had access to all
the diamonds he needed, to fuel his war, to keep his forces whilst
they were apparently cooperating with the agreement and some of
them, though not as many proportionately as other rebel forces,
were disarming and demobilising, to keep them paid, to keep the
guns coming in, to keep the ammunition coming in and all the equipment
he needed. That was there. Short of a massive British military
intervention, which was not asked for by the Africans, either
the regional African states who brokered this agreement with President
Kabbah, or the Organisation for African Unity or the Commonwealth,
you are talking about unilateral British action there, which might
look very clever with hindsight but was simply not a realistic,
serious policy objective for the British Government then to pursue,
especially when there was no United Nations mandate to do so.
Dr Godman
23. Just to recap, you said the main objectives
were the evacuation of vulnerable civilians, the securing of the
airport and the provision of assistance to the UN peacekeeping
operation. Then you talked also about the need to train and professionalise
the army. In these endeavours you said that you had—I am
nearly putting words into your mouth—the overwhelming support
of African nations and you had the unanimous support of the members
of the Security Council. How big a contingent does it need to
train and professionalise the army in Sierra Leone and how long
is it going to be there? This is a formidable task, is it not—
(Mr Hain) It is.
24.—to train this nondescript outfit in
order to transform into a professional military force?
(Mr Hain) We do have quite an experience and successful
experience of BMATT operations elsewhere in Africa doing precisely
this task. It is a lot more difficult in Sierra Leone because
in the other African countries where we have been working you
have armies which need professionalising and upgrading. Here you
have to create an army from combatants, some of them in rebel
forces. What is being discussed is a BMATT some 90 strong, perhaps
half of them British. This still has to be agreed with others
in the international community and the detail resolved inside
government.
25. In addition to this training role have you
been asked to provide frontline troops to assist directly in the
UN operations?
(Mr Hain) No.
26. There are those who are involved in the
administration of what has been called the UN Protectorate in
Kosovo. I believe they will be there for years and years to come.
Do you think that there will be a British presence and a UN presence
in Sierra Leone for years and years to come?
(Mr Hain) There are two different questions. Whether
there is a UN presence and what form it takes and how large it
is and so on is difficult to foresee and a lot of it depends on
how effectively and robustly the present situation is resolved
on a number of fronts, whether the UN is able to deploy effectively
across the entire country. Remember that the situation in recent
months—and I saw it for myself in mid-January—is made
immeasurably more difficult by the fact that the UN has not had
the efficiency to deploy in the way that was needed, as quickly
as was needed. This was the first major UN operation of this kind
in Africa, I think I am right in saying, since the Somalia debacle.
The United Nations is learning all the time how to deploy effectively,
so that is the first task. Then to accomplish the disarmament,
demobilisation and reintegration process alongside that, build
up to elections next year, which are planned, and start to move
the situation forward.
27. Given the understandable fear of the UN
to react decisively, especially in terms of putting a military
force on the ground in a short period of time, and the Americans
have a lot to answer for with their obdurate refusal to pay their
dues to the UN, are we not becoming an international policeman,
a kind of junior global policeman?
(Mr Hain) No, we are not; we are only able to help
and assist on a limited basis. We simply do not have the resources
or the military personnel to do anything else. Sierra Leone was
a British colony. We have strong interests there and we want to
help them whatever way we can. We have been at the head of the
pack in the United Nations in pressing for an effective UN operation
and it has been difficult; I do not deny that. Getting the UN
moving is a tough job.
28. Which took many, many months in this case.
(Mr Hain) Indeed. The US administration, which, by
the way, worked very, very supportively with us throughout, had
to get permission from Congress all the time to get the authorisation
for the extra funds. It is not something you can do over night.
I do not want to delay you, but if I may say so, I think that
the Sierra Leone experience—and we are of course facing
an equivalent necessity to impose the peace in the Congo with
UN forces due to deploy there—points up the limitations
of UN peacekeeping, the need to modernise and upgrade them and
the need to look at a rapid reaction capability for the United
Nations.
Chairman
29. Given the problems in Sierra Leone, how
realistic is it to find 5,000 troops for peacemaking in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo?
(Mr Hain) There is a Security Council resolution of
course to deploy the Monarch Phase 2 in the Congo and the issue
really is making sure that the Lusaka Peace Agreement is enforced
so that the peacekeepers can go in there and not find themselves
in the middle of a war.
Mr Rowlands
30. May I first of all specifically clarify
the remit, the narrow issues you started on with the remit? There
were two parts to the remit as you described them to us: (1) the
evacuation of British citizens who wish to leave and (2) the securing
of the airport in order that the UN might reinforce and that required
covering the perimeter plus. On television this weekend I saw
a film report purporting to show British special forces seemingly
a long, long way from the airport searching for the abducted or
lost British aid worker. Is it also therefore the remit of the
British forces where possible to go to rescue individual British
citizens who might have been abducted or held by any of the rebel
forces?
(Mr Hain) It does depend on the circumstances.
31. Is it in this particular case? Was this
film I saw reasonably accurate in purporting to say these British
forces were going from village to village hunting for a lost British
aid worker? That is rather different from just evacuating British
citizens.
(Mr Hain) Indeed. I did not see the film but your
question is a fair one and I shall answer that. We are trying
to do our best to protect British citizens, evacuating some. There
is very great concern about the British aid worker concerned and,
working with the United Nations, British forces are doing what
they can.
32. We are saying it is within the remit. It
is a rather more extensive remit, inasmuch as it would seem operationally
more extensive, in that if the British forces, way away from the
airport, either in the case of this British citizen or indeed
there is a military adviser missing as well, find out where he
is they will go to rescue him by military action.
(Mr Hain) May I answer the question in this way? You
would not expect us, with a very effective British deployment
there, to turn our backs on a British citizen, either an aid worker
or any other British citizen caught in the crossfire. I would
prefer just to leave my answer at that.
33. All I am simply saying is that the remit
I am talking about extends to what Palmerston called in the nineteenth
century, cives Romanus sum. If there is a British citizen
in a particular situation of the kind I describe, then you see
it as the proper function of our forces there to go to achieve
a rescue operation. I am not complaining about it, I am just trying
to make sure it is part and parcel of the remit.
(Mr Hain) To that extent yes, but that is because
the forces are there. British aid workers are trapped and held
hostage all over the place in Africa. It happens that the British
forces are there. I do not know whether the film to which you
refer was within the four-mile or so perimeter of the airport,
which we deploy in, because you do not wait for the rebels to
come up and jump you on the outskirts of the runway obviously.
34. It did appear to be away from the airport
but it was more the account of what the mission was about which
interested me. You have now clarified that it does include the
possible rescue of individual British citizens other than the
plain evacuation of those who volunteer to leave.
(Mr Hain) May I add one other point, and I am not
objecting to the question at all, it is a very fair question?
In the questions we are discussing and the answers I am giving,
British lives are at stake. You would not expect me to go into
a great amount of detail which could easily be broadcast over
BBC overseas broadcasting to which the rebels listen.
Chairman
35. We should be very ready to criticise you
if you failed to protect a British citizen when you had the capacity
to do so.
(Mr Hain) Indeed.
Mr Rowlands
36. I am already quoting what is already a British
television report. I am just trying to find out the facts.
(Mr Hain) Indeed.
37. May I ask you more specifically about the
relationship we have with the SLA and now with President Kabbah?
There is this question of whether we intend to give further ammunition
and weapons to the SLA, which we presumably now consider to be
a reasonably constituted military force under the democratic control
of President Kabbah. If you say this matter is under consideration,
what are the problems of making such a decision? Would it conflict
with any current UN embargo?
(Mr Hain) There is clearly a UN embargo on arms to
the country, particularly those which are fuelling rebel forces.
If the ammunition was supplied to the properly constituted government
at their request then, as I understand that, that would not be
a breach of the embargo. We have had a request and we have to
consider all these matters very carefully.
38. What are the pros and cons of doing such
a thing? What are the cons?
(Mr Hain) The nature of the Sierra Leone army, because
it is not a standing professional army with a proper organisation
and because it has rebel forces fighting alongside it, is a very
complex matter and therefore has to be considered very, very carefully.
39. I recall one of the most vivid aspects of
our last inquiry was the function and role of the Kamajors. It
was quite central to the issues which arose on the whole question
of Mr Penfold's role last time we had an inquiry. Again I saw
on television—television is our major source—graphically
that these SLA forces seemed to be a curious mixture of some people
in uniform representing the SLA proper and then the collection
of much younger people who looked and were portrayed on television
as Kamajors. Kamajors had a reputation in the early civil war,
indeed some of the inhibitions Ministers had about doing anything
in the context of the last investigation we had, was that arming
the Kamajors would be a problem because they are not disciplined,
they will not observe Geneva Convention rules and all the rest
of it. How are we ensuring that, whatever support we are going
to give to the SLA, elements of them will not behave as a mirror
image of those pretty brutal and vicious opponents in the form
of the rebels?
(Mr Hain) Amongst other matters, that is precisely
one of the issues we are weighing very carefully in a decision
like this. It is one of the factors in the situation that the
United Nations peacekeeping operation is not one mandated as a
lethal fighting force. It is a chapter 6 mandate with a bit extra;
chapter 6½ mandate. It has an ability to defend itself and
to deploy forward, if it is attacked to engage. There is literally
no alternative in those circumstances but for President Kabbah's
government to seek to mobilise the best force it can to act as
a frontline to push the rebels back. They are gathering together
a variety of people under that banner.
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