Yugoslavia

HC Deb 10 February 1993 vol 218 cc967-70

5. Mr. Alan W. Williams

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the latest position on the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.

Mr. Hurd

We and our European Community partners are lending full support to the efforts of Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance. We believe that the plan that they have put forward offers the best prospect for a peaceful solution. We are following discussions in New York closely and taking part in them. We urge all the parties to negotiate seriously and to abide by the agreements reached at the negotiating table.

Mr. Williams

While accepting that the Vance-Owen peace plan for Bosnia is the only one on offer, what does the Secretary of State have to say to those in the new Clinton Administration who say that the proposals reward ethnic cleansing?

Mr. Hurd

We are waiting for the policy decisions of the new Administration. We have been in touch with them, and I had a good talk with Secretary Aspin last weekend. I believe that we shall shortly get a statement on the American position which will recognise the importance of the Vance-Owen process.

Sir Geoffrey Pattie

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable anxiety and disappointment on the part of Bosnian refugee men living in Chertsey at their failure to be reunited with their families? Is he satisfied with the reception of processing arrangements in refugee camps in the former Yugoslavia?

Mr. Hurd

If my right hon. Friend will send me details, I will take up the Bosnian matter with my Department. I will also take up the matter of the refugees in his constituency with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

The record of the United Kingdom in receiving those who need to come here and who are nominated by international agencies to come here is a good one, but the main thrust of our effort must be to enable those who have been forced from their homes to survive and get through the winter as close to their homes as possible and then to return.

Sir Russell Johnston

In the area of conflict prevention, what action is being taken to reduce tension in Kosovo? Is it not time that we set aside Greece's anachronistic objections to the recognition of Macedonia?

Mr. Hurd

As the hon. Gentleman will know, there is much discussion going on in New York at present about the way in which that country could be admitted to the United Nations. That is the essential step and I do not despair of getting agreement on it fairly soon.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right: Kosovo is a dangerous spot. Everyone accepts that it is part of Serbia and everyone should accept that it is entitled to the sort of decent autonomy that it had before 1988.

Mr. Colvin

Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that our troops are deployed in the former Yugoslavia not to fight a war but to deliver humanitarian aid? Will he take this opportunity to congratulate our armed forces on performing a difficult and dangerous task with considerable success?

Earlier, my right hon. Friend said that the United Nations does not have the resources with which to fulfil its new role in the world as peacemaker and peacekeeper. In the light of the report of the Select Committee on Defence published this week, is he convinced that the United Kingdom has the resources to fulfil its role as a member of the United Nations Security Council?

Mr. Hurd

We have the resources to do what we are doing, which is very substantial. The United Kingdom is second only to France across the world in how we join in United Nations peacekeeping. We have more troops in Bosnia for the humanitarian purpose than any other country. The exercise was treated as perhaps rather negligible when it started, but, thanks to the work of the British troops, it has turned into the only piece of substantial good news to come out of that area this year. Hundreds of thousands of Bosnians, who all the experts predicted would die this winter, are being kept alive—partly because the weather is a bit milder than usual, but mainly because of the efforts of allied troops among whom the British are pre-eminent. Our troops have escorted 244 convoys, carrying 18,480 tonnes of food, medicine and other supplies to the towns and villages of Bosnia. The RAF has delivered 4,773 tonnes by air into Sarajevo.

Mr. George Robertson

May I add my tribute to our troops engaged in the humanitarian work in Bosnia? Reports came out over lunchtime that the Clinton Administration have decided on a deployment of troops for future peacekeeping in the area, combined with further aid and the possibility of a special envoy. We would welcome that as a supplement to the Vance-Owen proposals, not as a replacement for them.

Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the House expects him to continue to press for the continuing pursuit of those guilty of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia? The whole world has been revolted by verified reports of actions that clearly fall within the description of war criminality, especially reports of the systematic mass rape of women in that area. For the perpetrators of such obscenities there must never be a hiding place.

Mr. Hurd

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. We have emphasised that point repeatedly. The lawyers are now hard at work trying to overcome the difficulties in establishing an international tribunal for that purpose. I believe that that work has to bear fruit in the Security Council.

Sir Anthony Durant

Does my right hon. Friend agree that more should be done by the United Nations and the Western European Union to deal with sanction breaking in Yugoslavia, particularly the importation of oil by barges, which I believe is happening on a massive scale?

Mr. Hurd

I entirely agree with that. I discussed it with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister this morning and I have discussed it with the Romanians and the Bulgarians in the past week. For those of us who believe that peaceful pressures are crucial, it is important that those pressures should be effective, and they are increasingly effective on the Adriatic. The Romanians have begun to turn away barges loaded with oil bound for Serbia. It is crucial that all the riparian states, Ukraine and, indeed, all the neighbours of Serbia should do their best to make those pressures effective.