Bosnia (Hansard, 28 October 1997)

§ 7. Mr. Barnes
If he will make a statement on progress towards meeting the Dayton accords with respect to Bosnia. [12118]

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tony Lloyd)
We are making excellent progress with the tougher approach to peace implementation that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary agreed with his steering board colleagues at Sintra in May, but much more remains to be done and we shall be keeping the pressure up until it is. I shall make that clear to all three parties when I visit Bosnia this week.

§ Mr. Barnes
Are not the Bosnian Serbs driving a coach and horses through the Dayton accord by refusing to hand over indicted war criminals to the court in The Hague? Is it not essential that the criminals should be handed over, if lasting peace is to be achieved in Yugoslavia and if refugees are to be returned to the areas that they came from?

§ Mr. Lloyd
My hon. Friend raises a real question. The Bosnian Serbs should learn the clear lesson given by the Bosnian Croats when Kordic and the other nine Bosnian Croats went to The Hague to face the charges against them. We expect the same from all indictees, whether Bosnian Serbs or Bosnian Croats. On the question of the return of refugees, my hon. Friend will be glad to know that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has a programme to return 100,000 refugees this year. Already, 83,000 have returned and the programme is on course. That is good news. Progress has been made and will continue to be made.

§ Rev. Martin Smyth
The Minister said that he was keeping pressure on the three parties concerned. Does he agree that he might also need to keep pressure on the Americans, who hosted the Dayton accord, because there 698 seems to be a growing lobby in that country for withdrawing to an offshore commitment, instead of a hands-on commitment in Bosnia?

§ Mr. Lloyd
Let me place on record that we work closely with the Americans and all our allies in Bosnia. Progress is being made. For example, the problems caused by corruption have seen Mrs. Plavsic break with the Pale crowd, including Karadzic and his cronies, in her anti-corruption drive. We have seen the seizure by the Stabilisation Force of the transmitters in Pale, which stopped the transmission of the daily messages of hate. Transmissions will be stopped until we get an agreement from the Bosnian Serbs in Pale that messages of hate are a thing of the past. We have seen an effort by our troops in Prijedor in arresting indictees, which gives a signal to all indictees that we expect to see them at The Hague. We shall see them at The Hague. Progress is being made, because all the allies are working together in the Dayton framework.