Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee.

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee.

Date:: 1992

Credit: Europe after Maastricht : interim report : report, together with the Proceedings of Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendices : first report [of the] Foreign Affairs Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$12 October 1992] [ Continued [Mr Sumberg Contd] Croatia and whom I have seen in action, and other Members may have too, and they are creating the kind of conditions in Croatia, village by village, which enable people to go back to their homes and to enable the UN force in other parts of Croatia to contain what might otherwise be a. disastrous breakdown of the ceasefire and we mention them in the memorandum because they are part of the effort, but they are only part of it. The framework we now have for trying to achieve or to help peo- ple of Yugoslavia to settlements is an EC/UN framework and it is now very elaborate and ener- getic, with David Owen, Lord Owen, on behalf of the EC, and Cyrus Vance, on behalf of the UN, working day in and day out in the republics and in Geneva to bring people together and stop the fighting. We have moved to that and after a period during which we simply tried to achieve ceasefires, and we did on paper but they were not imple- mented in practice. We came to the conclusion at the London conference in August\that what was needed was a continuous effort and a framework. You are perfectly right that that has not yet pro- duced in Bosnia the stopping of fighting or the conditions of a political settlement. It has pro- duced, together with sanctions, a powerful debate in Belgrade and some signs of movement as between Serbia and Croatia and may lead to demilitarisation. There are other examples of progress which is beginning alongside, and perhaps more stark in the coming weeks is the humanitar- ian one in which the EC also is the greatest provider and help, out of which comes the decision of some EC members (Britain, France and Spain alongside Canada) to send troops to escort human- itarian convoys. There is political and humanitar- ian effort, both of which Member States and the Community as a whole are deeply involved with. 54. You see the deployment of those UK troops purely to escort those convoys and nothing further than that? (Mr Hurd) That is their mandate. 55. You do not see the danger of them being drawn into the fighting? How do you see that being prevented? They may start with that objec- tive, I accept, but the danger is that they will be drawn further into it? (Mr Hurd) Of course, there are dangers. When the other Committee cross-examined the Minister of State about this two weeks ago when the House debated it on the Friday of the recall I think these dangers were admitted. They exist and we have to provide against them as best we can by a proper command structure, by a proper back-up and proper rules of engagement enabling proper self- defence. These are all essential matters for the Ministry of Defence but of course they are of great interest to me as well. It would be possible, I sup- pose, to have said some weeks ago that these diffi- culties and risks are so great that we are not going to do anything about it, and we are not going to take part in this enterprise at all. This is a choice which will confront Britain over and over again if my analysis is correct. Over and over again we will be faced with this choice: are we a middle-sized power seeking to retain a seat as a permanent member of the Security Council, seeking to exer- cise responsible action in the world in a way which I think most of our constituents would want? If we are in this new world then this would involve tak- ing this kind of decision, and not pretending it is risk-free. If we are not then it will be for others. When our troops are deployed the French will still have many more troops in the former Yugoslavia than we have. They have taken casualties already. It will be for them and others to take up the role. | There is a particular problem about Germany which does not do this, which, for reasons of its that it is debarred from making a positive choice, and a somewhat similar problem with Japan; and both those countries, which would purely in 1992 terms be highly qualified to take part, are wrestling with their constitutions and their own policies. I would guess that before a very long time both of them will be able to make a positive choice in cir- cumstances where that seems to be sensible, i.e. to dispose of the past as far as that is concerned. That does not necessarily make our problem any easier. We will have this recurring choice, and it will be very difficult for all governments but that is the nature of the choice. Mr Wareing 56. Is it not the fact that we are now debating this question of military intervention, albeit for humanitarian aid needs, and in this illustration of the fact that preventative diplomacy has broken down, and that this arises out of the premature recognition of the Yugoslavian republics of Croatia and Slovenia, but particularly Croatia, and really in order to save the expense of the United Nations in the future and to save the cost in human lives that we should really be looking for a package, a political solution rather than a military solution, that will recognise the needs of the Serbian minority? It does seem to me that the extremists who have led this conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina are really in the hands of these extremists? They are really the outcome of our fail- ure to give support to more moderate elements. It was notable to me that David Owen, who I had fears of as being appointed to his particular post, nevertheless came out with the expressed opinion that we should be doing all we can now to support the federal government in Belgrade whose Prime Minister, Mr Panic, appears to be in a more recon- ciliatory mood than some of the people we have had to deal with in that part of the world. I won- der whether the Foreign Secretary would like to say something about that. May I just also say, before he answers, that I have to declare an inter- est because I recently visited Yugoslavia and Serbia and was assisted in doing so during the recess by the Federal Assembly in Belgrade. I$