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
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

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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    [Sir John Stanley Contd] over a period of a year or more, when the appalling suffering was evident on _ television screens, newspapers and was totally known world- wide, the international community was not able to produce any real response. I do not single out the United Nations in this, I think it applies equally to governments around the world, and I would have to say our own. I would put it to you that to jus- tify the delayed response in terms of the security position is not a sufficient justification, because the security position when the international commu- nity moved was basically no better than over the period when the delay took place. I would like to ask you to share with us your views as to the lessons that have been learnt by the British Government, and possibly the United Nations as well, as to how we can respond more speedily and without the appalling delays that undoubtedly did take place in dealing with the Somalian tragedy? (Mr Hurd) I think this does follow very much Mr Canavan’s line of questioning. We must accept that there was excessive slowness, although I think our own part in providing supplies and seeking to get them in was good. Why was there the slow- ness? Because of the basic feeling in: the United Nations that the internal affairs of Somalia were Somalia’s business. It had been a colony shared between Italy and Britain; it was independent, and the UN had no basis, as it were, to fight its way in and make sure that the supplies which were being allocated actually reached the people in being. You will find that reluctance because of the back- ground. I think the lesson is that that reluctance has to be overcome soon, but it does involve risks. When I was in Mogadishu it had just been announced that there was going to be not just the 500 Pakistanis that are there now but about another 3,000 troops in the rest of the country arriving from the UN in order to secure that sup- plies actually reached the people in need up and down the country. We were met by a demonstra- tion against this, organised by the warlords. The British Government is not actually sending troops to Somalia; the Belgian Government is. They face this question: are you actually going to hold back the sending of your troops until there is some sem- blance of a ceasefire on the ground, or are you going to fight your way in? If you fight your way in, how many of your troops are going to be killed in a country of which Belgium has heard very little until recently? How long are you going to stay there? That is the lesson from Somalia and the les- son I was trying to draw in these speeches, that we have got to be prepared, and we have got to be more active in trying to prevent this situation com- ing about, but more prepared to take the necessary risks if and when it does. Chairman: Mr Gapes is going to have the last questions this morning, and although they are going to be very much central questions about future inquiries, they are questions about the struc- ture of the UN itself and how best it is going to be equipped to play all these roles we have discussed today. Mr Gapes 64. Foreign Secretary, what is the attitude of the Government to proposals for restructuring and changing the composition of the Security Council? Last month the German Foreign Minister said that Germany should stake a claim for a seat as a per- manent member. Would you be in favour of that? Would you alternatively be prepared to move towards a rotation of the British and French seats on behalf of the European Community’s political union? Do you support the Japanese membership, and there are a number of other suggestions, and also the whole question of the role of the perma- nent members and the veto? Is it suitable in the post-cold war world that the British Government will ever want to use its veto again, or will we only do so as part of a European collective foreign pol- icy decision? (Mr Hurd) As you rightly said, Mr Gapes, there are a lot of ideas in this field, and the diffi- culty about changing the composition of the Security Council is that it involves revising the Charter. That is an extraordinarily difficult opera- tion. Certain ideas, such as the ones you have men- tioned, will certainly produce other ideas from people who say, “If it is going to be discussed, we have to be represented. We have to be there. We are not going to allow one, two or three extra per- manent members because, clearly, that would be unrepresentative. We have to be there too”. This process has hardly started, and would be immensely time-consuming and difficult. So we are not persuaded of the case for seeking to reform the Security Council. We think that would create more controversy at a time when the body is actually functioning pretty well. The corollary though is that the members of the Security Council, particu- larly the permanent members, have to do a great deal of listening in order to justify their position. That leads on to the second part of your question which we discussed in the run up to Maastricht: this is the question about Europe’s views. We and the French achieved what I think is a good out- come, which corresponds to what is actually hap- pening now with Maastricht. The Member States which are also members of the UN Security Council will keep the other Member States fully informed. Permanent members ensure the defence of the positions and interests without prejudice to their responsibilities under the provisions of the Charter. That means that we continue to do our job as the Charter provides but we do try and seek out, before we speak about it, the views of our partners. That is happening all the time. You have a discussion such as we had exactly a week ago in the Foreign Affairs Council at which the perma- nent members and the elected members of the Council belonging to the Community listened to and saw the views of the others. They are not bound, but in practice in Yugoslav cases this works pretty well, and we are acting in effect on behalf of the 12 although, legally speaking, we are not bound and we certainly could exercise our veto. We have not done so since December 1989,
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