Croatia

HL Deb 20 November 1991 vol 532 cc991-1008

9.17 p.m.

The Marquess of Tweeddale rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take urgent action to help the people of Croatia.

The noble Marquess said: My Lords, since last June, when the Republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from the Yugoslav Federation, we have witnessed two wars. The first, happily, of short duration between Slovenia and the Federal Army; and, secondly, that between Croatia and the Federal Army acting in concert with the largest republic, Serbia.

Both those conflicts arose out of declarations of independence made after massive popular assent in referenda. The second conflict has resulted in terrible damage. to Croatia, a state which, like Slovenia, is an obvious candidate by way of its culturally Western attitude for membership of the European Community.

Thousands of people have been killed and many more thousands have been injured, with hundreds of thousands of people being made homeless refugees. Whole towns have been laid waste. Countless churches and other monuments have been deliberately, in many cases it would appear, wrecked. The Croatian president's residence has been murderously attacked by aeroplanes of the so-called Yugoslav People's Army. Moreover, something which brought matters well and truly to the attention of the bien-pensant world-at-large, Dubrovnik, a real jewel of a place and an entity never ever in its whole almost 1,000 year history in any sense Serbian, has been put under siege. The pretext for all that: the "threatening" of the very existence of the Serb minority in Croatia.

Now, there is little doubt that the uppity Croatian nationalist government of President Tudjman, with its reuse of something very much like the red-and-white chessboard symbol of the Croatian fascists of the 1940s, upset the Serb minorities in some places, especially in the Krajine—the area adjoining Bosnia in the South-West. There is also creditable evidence that Serbs in outlying areas of Croatia have been subject to negative discrimination of (sometimes) a very disagreeable sort. Of course, that is to be deplored. But, at the same time, we should not forget the fact that around 200,000 Serbs live, or have been living, secure lives in the great towns of Croatia; for example, Zagreb, Split and Rijeka. None of that justifies the Serb assertion that the new Croatian state is a fascist one which deserves the onslaught to which it has been subject in the past few months.

Those who have followed the development of affairs in the Serbian sphere since the advent of President Milosevic as First Secretary of the Serbian Communist Party have been, as the Foreign Office must or should have been, increasingly aghast at the unlovely symbiosis between Milosevic and his people. A great political performer and a demagogue, he has succeeded, in an extraordinary way, in combining a year's out-of-date communism (or socialism as they now prefer to call it) with an equally outmoded crass nationalism, to great popular effect. With slogans such as, "Serbia is where Serbs are", he has given that people the deluded sight of a return to their medieval destiny: the great Serbia of the old emperors; but that has meant aggression.

Thus there has been the brutal repression in Kosovo and the reduction of that now 90 per cent. Albanian province from the autonomous region which Tito had made it, to a Serbian fiefdom; thus the effective reincorporation of the Vojvodina (an area with the barest of Serbian majorities over Hungarian and other nationalities, including Croats); thus the brutal repression of opposition with tanks on his own Belgrade streets; thus the war with the Croats.

If the Croats had not provided him with a ready-made excuse, Milosevic would have had to find one. His is a regime which must expand or it will collapse. Such a regime must be met with force. There is no other way.

What have we members of the EC done? The answer, sad to say, is very little of any effect. I cannot help feeling that history will take a dim (and rather perplexed) view of that failure. The seemingly numberless EC-negotiated cease-fires have achieved little beyond—through the professed even-handedness of the negotiators—promoting the idea that there was little to choose between the parties. That is an untruth.

It is surely time that we recognized—as I believe the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs probably now has—that the Government's initial stance of trying to save the federation was mistaken and a let-down of the genuinely aggrieved parties.

I ask the Government to make up for their sad failure to recognise Croatia—and of course Slovenia—from the outset by contriving that the EC does so without delay. Further, will they declare their readiness to provide the Croatian republic with anything in the way of defensive weapons that it may reasonably require? I ask them to think deeper and harder about their—I am glad to say—already conceded, but highly qualified readiness to commit our warships to the Adriatic, and to extend that thought to using our air force to clear Croatian airspace of Yugoslav aeroplanes. In addition, will the Government use their offices to ensure that economic sanctions are applied which will be felt by Serbia and its ally Montenegro? All that I regard as urgent, since, for all the valour of the Croatian forces, the conflict is an unequal one, and, as things are, Serbian progress seems likely to continue. That may have two particularly undesirable consequences.

First, there is the possibility of a Right Wing coup against Dr. Tudjman's Government. Tudjman may not be good at running a democratic state in difficult times, and perhaps he is not a very nice man either. But he is surely no fascist. However, there are fascists—heirs to the Ustache who massacred hundreds of thousands of Serbs during the war—in Zagreb, and they are becoming more and more prominent. A takeover by those people would be a catastrophe.

Secondly, the greater the success of Milosevic's Serbia, the greater the threat it will pose elsewhere than in Croatia. The spectre of war in Bosnia, a republic with a threefold ethnic split (Moslem, Serb and Croat) looms ever more large. Let us be spared that horror.

Whatever else the Minister has to say about this issue, I shall be disappointed if he does not tell your Lordships that the Government plan to do their utmost to relieve the atrocious suffering of the Croatian people with humanitarian aid, particularly medical supplies, and very quickly. We acted on behalf of the Kurds, a people altogether more strange and obscure: we cannot leave that entirely European people—virtually neighbours of ours—to a fate which they do not deserve.

9.25 p.m.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, the family of the noble Marquess have been neighbours and have tangled with my family for many years. I rise to support his plea for help for Croatia. However, I do not support his plea for the recognition of this regime. I speak because for 60 years I have been in and out of Yugoslavia. I have worked in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana for The Times. I endured Hitler's punishing bombardment of Belgrade in 1940. I have some knowledge, albeit imperfect, of the lingo.

Whatever the federal army has done—and goes on doing—there is little to choose between the regimes of Mr. Tudjman of Croatia and Mr. Milosevic of Serbia. Both are recycled communists. Both have built their new power on two factors. One factor has been the communist party dominance of the electoral machinery, including most of the media and especially the television. Secondly, both have made quite appalling appeals to racist jingoism to replace the Marxism which is now discredited.

In Belgrade the once respected newspaper Politika, which corresponded to The Times here in days gone by, has for several years now descended to the lowest sensational treatment of anything bad that could be said about Croatia. More recently, the other rather better paper in Belgrade, Borba, has tended to write in the same way. Only the weekly Vreme seems now to be the voice of civilised points of view within Serbia. Although in the Serbian Parliament, the Skupstina, there is a small and altogether ineffective and disunited opposition, I know of none in the Croatian Parliament, the Sabor. Anyone who has had the miserable experience, as I have, of listening to two days' debate in the Croatian Sabor will realise it is very like the very old Reichstag in its management.

In both countries the mass of ordinary people, in my observation, have lived fairly peaceably together, side by side, save where—as in the Krajina area—there are minorities who felt themselves threatened, as indeed they were, with bombs and terrorism, even before the declaration of independence by Croatia. They have felt much more severely threatened since that declaration.

Croatia has asked for and got rather more than it expected. Its unilateral declaration of independence was not made within the ambit of the constitution, rotten as that constitution was. The constitution collapsed, as it was bound to do, once the Communist Party collapsed which had sustained it. Although Milosevic of Serbia is to blame, to a degree, for blocking the presidency's election of a president, the fact remains that Croatia's procedure was outwith—as was Slovenia's—the framework of the existing constitution.

Whatever the politico-military outcome may be—in the past 48 hours we have witnessed the thirteenth breakdown of a ceasefire—there are several factors which seem absolutely clear. Under either EC or United Nations auspices humanitarian aid is urgent. I am sure there is no dispute about that. The provision of that aid is impossible until there is some kind of a standstill in the battles. Further, outside military intervention, except with the consent of the warring parties, is simply not on. If we once got in there, we would never get out.

The provision of a naval escort for evacuees from Dalmatia is welcome. It could be the forerunner of a peacekeeping force once the battles have stopped, and are seen to have stopped.

There are some major questions which must be answered. Under what competent political authority does the army now claim to operate? There is no longer a presidency, yet it was supposed to take orders from the presidency. Therefore one has to ask whether the army has degenerated to a form of warlord status.

The second question is who, if anyone, controls both the Croatian Ustache and their many foreign recruits and volunteers as well as the so-called Chetnik irregulars? I have asked everyone I can think of and I cannot discover who controls either. They seem to be mini warlords.

Perhaps I may draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that until the last 48 hours, when the army took people out of Vukovar, there were very few reports of prisoners. I am afraid that that fact speaks for itself. Pictures of appallingly mutilated bodies are now in circulation, rather like filthy pictures in the Middle East.

The information I receive from both sides suggests that w are confronted with people who, under communism, were largely cut off from intellectual contact with the West. Whereas in days gone by people went to university in Paris, Berlin, Switzerland and so on, under the communist system very few were able to go to western universities. In that context the appeal of Croats and Slovenes to the principle of self-determination is a throwback to 19th century thinking and attitudes. While Dubrovnik says that the West has deserted it, we have no obligation whatever to give military help to Dubrovnik. Many people seemed to believe that the West would always come to the aid pf "good people". That is not so. That attitude is largely due to the intellectual isolation of Yugoslavia under the communist system.

The situation is summed up by the phrase "official disinformation". I should like to urge action-aside from the self-evident case for the maximum humanitarian help. I should like to propose and urge that the Government give serious consideration, when the opportunity arises, to making sure that Serbs and Croats can hear much more on the BBC of objective news. I believe that the BBC's news broadcasts should be extended, even if only for a few months, because the current disinformation is appalling. My family telephoned friends in Yugoslavia and we were shocked by the jingoistic nonsense coming from people who are normally sensible due to the fact that they do not receive clear information.

Secondly, in any cooling-off period it is important that provision should be made for representatives of the EC monitors to have assured access to television and radio, both in Zagreb and Belgrade for, say, an hour a day so that people can receive reliable informs Lion which they can trust and which is untainted by racist jingoism.

It would be wrong for me to sit down without paying a heartfelt and sincere tribute to the tenacity, enterprise and endurance of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the sheer heroism of the EC observers.

9.35 p.m.

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu

My Lords, I must apologise to the House for not being here for the beginning of the debate.

Many of us who have watched the unfolding drama of the appalling casualties and destruction in Croatia have another concern—with the built heritage which has been under attack. It is not my wish tonight to comment on the policies followed by Her Majesty's Government and the European Commission in relation to that tragic and wasteful conflict. I would not be so callous as to suggest that the fate even of Dubrovnik's historic core is of principal concern at present. However, those of us who are not drawn into the immediate concern of stopping the fighting should consider what might be the situation when hostilities finally cease.

I am sure that many people and governments will wish to aid whatever form of nation emerges to recover as much as possible from the damage. It may be the Government's wish to consider whether we in this country have any role to play in relation to the built heritage. If so, perhaps I may make one or two suggestions.

One potentially useful link with Yugoslavia is through ICCROM—which stands for the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property—in Rome. My noble friend may recollect that the United Kingdom contributes £73,800 annually to that institution, equal funding being provided by English Heritage, the Overseas Development Administration and the Museums and Galleries Commission. That amounts to over 5 per cent. of the total ICCROM funding. English Heritage also provides a representative for the ICCROM Council.

Within ICCROM's architectural programme there is already a proposal for a joint Yugoslavian-United Kingdom-ICCROM project to establish at Split an international course on the processes of recording and analysis of historic buildings and sites. The United Kingdom contribution has been to supply a comprehensive model for the application of appropriate techniques, based upon the joint experience of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, English Heritage and others published by ICOMOS (UK) last year.

English Heritage has already suggested to ICCROM that, although the course cannot be proceeded with at Split as planned this year for obvious reasons, those skills and equipment could be diverted from training to recording and analysis of damaged historic centres. That is an essential first step in urgent conservation and repair work. It is likely that in such an eventuality ICCROM will appeal to its member states and other international institutions for additional funds or support in kind. In due course it may be a route for well-targeted aid from the United Kingdom, should that seem appropriate.

I feel strongly tonight, and I hope that your Lordships will support me, that we should try to have a person from the United Kingdom in Yugoslavia to see what we can do to contribute our know-how to repair the appalling damage in Dubrovnik, that great historic city which so much needs repair.

9.37 p.m.

Lord Bonham-Carter

My Lords, I should like to join your Lordships in thanking the noble Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, for raising this matter tonight. It is an appropriate moment when we are watching that terrible tragedy unfold before our eyes and become more acute as day succeeds day. Both the noble Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, and the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, have painted a fair picture of the confused situation in what was Yugoslavia, because I do not believe that Yugoslavia can be said any longer truly to exist, and of the unhappy balance between the two opposing sides. I do not propose to follow the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who made an interesting and important suggestion on which I am totally unqualified to speak. Nor is my experience of Yugoslavia equal to that of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. My experience is limited to a honeymoon in Dubrovnik and a visit of less than a week at the end of October as a guest of the Croat Government.

I shall try not to repeat what I said in the debate on the Queen's Speech, but the Question that has been asked by the noble Marquess urges the Government to take action to help the people of Croatia. As both he and the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, have said, that help can be in two forms: one is humanitarian and the other is political. With the approach of winter in a country with a continental climate the need for humanitarian aid is acute. When I was there the nights were freezing—and presumably that will now be more acute—and there were 400,000 displaced persons. The information I have is that today there are half a million displaced homeless persons. In addition, when I saw the President of Hungary last night he told me there were over 40,000 such people in Hungary.

Those are very substantial figures for countries which are not well endowed. So far the aid which has reached them from this country and elsewhere seems to be totally inadequate. I understand that Her Majesty's Government have given £250,000 to the International Red Cross to alleviate the problems faced by the two governments, but above all by the Government of Croatia where the bulk of the displacement has occurred.

The two reports I have from the Red Cross are dated 7th November, which is obviously rather old, and 20th November, which I received today. By November 7th they had sent over 50,000 food parcels and over 140,000 blankets, but that aid was for the whole of Yugoslavia and the Red Cross could not tell me how it was distributed between the Croatian and Serbian areas. The figures are not very helpful but indicate aid on a rather small scale considering the size of the problem. The report of 20th November is rather more detailed and gives an account of what they are struggling to do with about 50 expatriate representatives in the whole of Yugoslavia. Since 19th November they have had what they call 12 delegates in the town of Vukovar who have been able to reach the hospital and deliver a tonne of medical supplies. Yesterday they signed an agreement to neutralise, as they call it, the hospital. They have been told they can treat the wounded and evacuate those who cannot be treated in Vukovar. The trouble with those agreements is that they are signed but broken. One hopes that this agreement will not follow the same pattern.

The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, talked about prisoners of war. That is an important subject. The Red Cross report that they have visited 2,000 prisoners of war and more than 700 have been released with the agreement of both sides. They have also been tracing prisoners of war, which one knows is an extremely important task, so as to inform their families what has happened to them. A ship is leaving Bari on 20th November with eight Red Cross delegates aboard bound for Dubrovnik. A second one carrying foodstuffs, blankets and other supplies should be leaving either today or tomorrow.

It seems to me that with very limited resources the Red Cross are doing a job that needs to be done on the humanitarian side and deserve further support from the Government than they have so far received. I hope that we will be given an assurance that that is the case. As anyone who has ever touched this subject will accept, it is far more difficult to suggest any constructive political moves in a country which, as I was told by one of the monitors I met, who happened to be an Irish soldier, "is even more interested in history than we are". That makes me rather pessimistic.

They are very interested in history. As I said before, that history goes back to the old fault line—the split of the Roman Empire between Byzantium and Rome by Diocletian. It goes back to the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It goes back to the conflict between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The whole situation is embedded in history. I suppose that we are regretting the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We cannot see any substitute for it at this stage that will provide any kind of structure which, supposing peace were to break out, would make it possible for the people to live in peace together after the terrible events of the past few months.

So, let no one think that there are any easy or facile solutions. It is difficult to offer any proposals which have much reality in the face of the situation that confronts us. The object is peace. Without peace all humanitarian aid is first aid and first aid, as we know, is a temporary matter. The prerequisite for peace is a ceasefire that sticks. There have been 13 ceasefires so far, not one of which has stuck. I should like to join with the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in his tribute to the persistence, patience and courage with which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has pursued his deeply frustrating task. He is trying to deal with people who, if we speak of governments, as all noble Lords have indicated, are not the easiest or the nicest people to deal with and who sign anything and break anything with complete insouciance. His job is a terrible one.

However, we have to ask ourselves how Her Majesty's Government can help him in that task. First, we must recognise that the Yugoslavia which was created in 1918 no longer exists. My experience, as I said, is very limited, but we must try to instill into the Croat Government and the leaders of Croat society, some of whom I met, some degree of realism. They genuinely suggested to me that they expected that a peace would be imposed by force by the European Community. When it was suggested that that was not on the agenda, they expressed surprise and incredulity. The advantage of such an attitude is that it stops them from having to think of a way out for themselves. In point of fact, the only way out must come from within those countries, even if we support it in every possible way.

other proposals have been made. One of them is recognition and I think that in due course recognition will come. The question is over the timing of that recognition. Can that recognition be used as in any way a negotiating lever or would it be more successful if we granted it now? I do not pretend to know the answer to that question. It is certainly one possibility which has to be considered.

The second constructive step is sanctions but how does one enforce sanctions in those countries? How does one enforce an oil embargo? We should certainly try, hut we should be optimistic if we thought that it would be easy or if we believed that the results from sanctions would be quick.

A third proposal has been put forward by the noble Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, and raised in another place. I simply do not know the answer. Is it possible with United Nations support to interdict the air space—to stop the flight of fixed wing aircraft over Yugoslavia? Is it possible to break the sea blockade which Serbia is imposing? I simply do not know the legality of the situation. I should be very interested to know whether that is a possibility and whether it can be done within the rules. I must say that I should be very hesitant to supply arms to anybody in the Balkans. It is a tinderbox. That is what is so frightening about the whole situation. The danger is that what started as a conflict between Serbia and Croatia will spread to Macedonia, Kosovo, which is 90 per cent. Moslem, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina. We know only too well the history of the past—and the past is forever present in that part of the world.

Finally, whatever the criticisms may be of the European Community's response, it is difficult to see what more they could have done than they have done although they could have done it more quickly and with rather greater resolve. That is because the machinery of political co-operation in framing a European Community attitude in foreign affairs is too clumsy and slow to meet the circumstances that we shall have to meet.

I make only three proposals; some are nebulous, some less so. First, it is essential that we give more help to the Red Cross for humanitarian aid. Secondly, I still find it extraordinary that our embassy in Belgrade has no one in Zagreb. How can the people in Zagreb know what we think? How can we know what they think if we have no one there? It is perfectly possible to travel through Hungary from Belgrade to Zagreb by motor car. The world press are there. It seems extraordinary that we have no one from our embassy in Belgrade in Zagreb.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, does the noble Lord say that there is not even a consul in Zagreb? There always used to be.

Lord Bonham-Carter

My Lords, there is a consul, but he is not a very senior officer. He is there to deal with tourists, of whom there are not many at present. There is no political man. I have been in touch with the Foreign Office about that.

Thirdly, we must continue to investigate ways and means of assisting the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in his task by considering those steps that I have suggested, none of which I am optimistic about. But somehow or other we have to create circumstances in which peace is possible and, above all, in which the war does not spread.

9.52 p.m.

Lord Richard

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Marquess for having tabled the Question and launched the debate. I did not find myself so much in agreement with the content of his speech as with the fact that he has given us the opportunity to discuss the issue.

There is an air of unreality about the matter. Here we are, in November 1991, considering the minutiae of politics in the Balkans. One expects Palmerston to walk through the door and somehow or other impose a solution, as though in this day and age it were possible to produce 19th century answers to what is in many ways an historical problem. In that respect I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter.

However, the disintegration of Yugoslavia and its plunge into civil war raise the terrible spectre of unrest which could emerge as the countries of Eastern Europe—not only Yugoslavia but others—attempt to come to terms with the collapse of Communism. For all its faults, it provided a national framework and a central discipline. It managed on the whole to keep ethnic disputes under control, or at least prevent them from exploding. Coming to terms with the collapse of the regime under which they have lived for so long, and with the pressures that are now involved in developing new political and socio-economic systems, is a dangerous situation. It worries me greatly.

It is apparent that the changes which now sweep through Eastern Europe have brought to boiling point ethnic divisions and conflicts that have been simmering for years and which have remained dormant. Significant numbers of ethnic groups which were previously denied the right to express their national, cultural and political identities are now demanding those rights with what I can only describe as restless intensity. Unfortunately, the demands that they make are almost invariably hostile and mutually exclusive to each other with the danger that conflict will spread from Yugoslavia throughout the region.

The war in Yugoslavia illustrates too the terrible dangers that are posed by a virulent nationalism based sometimes on prejudice and bigotry rather than on any concept of mutual respect or tolerance, and upon the idea that historical grievances can now he resolved in "our" favour. If that is happening—I caught that from the flavour of the noble Earl's speech and he knows the country better than me—it is dangerous not only to Yugoslavia but to Eastern Europe as a whole. One must recognise that many countries, especially the Soviet Union, have the same inherent potential for self-destruction given the ethnic divisions and traditional enmities existing between many of the nationalities within their borders. It is critical to keep the genie inside the bottle if possible.

In such a situation one inevitably asks what we can do. It was emphasised in the debate that, like everyone else, the Serbs and the Croats are prisoners of their own history. The Serbs have never forgiven nor forgotten the war when thousands of their people were massacred by the Croats. The Croats have never forgotten their fear of being dominated by a more powerful Serbia. It is a dangerous brew.

In terms of finding a solution we on this side of the House fully support the current European Community and United Nations mediation attempts. After all, they are aimed at securing a cease-fire and promoting negotiations that could eventually produce a diplomatic settlement.

I join other noble Lords in paying the warmest tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. He has exhibited immense skill and courage in his untiring efforts to secure such a settlement. But, sadly, the fighting continues. It illustrates the extent to which the Federal Army and the Serbian and Croatian paramilitaries appear to be beyond political control. Therefore, the European Community has imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia.

Perhaps the Minister can outline the progress being made in the enforcement of those sanctions and in the implementation of the United Nations arms embargo. In the context of the United Nations it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether the Government have discussed the matter with other permanent members of the Security Council and whether they will sponsor a Security Council resolution proposing comprehensive international sanctions. What happens in New York at this stage could have considerable significance in the quest for a diplomatic solution.

Despite the continuing violence it has become evident during the past couple of weeks that President Tudjman of Croatia and President Milosevic of Serbia may—and I emphasise the word "may"—be willing to consider the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force. Admittedly there are enormous divisions between them in relation to the nature of that peacekeeping force and to its placement and proposed deployment. It remains to be seen whether they are acting in good faith. But it may represent a genuine tentative attempt to find a peaceful solution. As such we must examine the attempts with seriousness and urgency. I hope that this development, combined with the arrival of the UN mission to Yugoslavia last Monday to investigate the possibility of a peacekeeping force being sent to that country, together with the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will finally produce an effective cease-fire and establish the dialogue which could lead to meaningful negotiations on both sides.

Once there is a real cease-fire many things will become possible. Without a cease-fire those same things will remain intractable. By definition peacekeeping means that there is a peace to be kept. It is a different concept from peacemaking which implies that somehow somebody will impose a solution. I cannot see anybody imposing a solution in the present situation in Yugoslavia. First, any solution that is imposed is inherently weak because it is imposed. Secondly, who will do the imposing? I cannot believe for one moment that the European Community nor the United Nations will do so. If I were a member of the United Nations and were asked to contribute to a peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia I should have the gravest of anxieties before committing any of my forces into that part of the world.

In the present mood, I can only echo what the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said. There is no magic immediate solution to this problem. The parties have to want a solution and, frankly, I am not yet convinced that they do. The most we can realistically hope for at present is that the combined diplomatic efforts of the United Nations and the European Community will produce on both sides a recognition of this basic truth.

To move from where we are in Yugoslavia to a situation analogous to the Cyprus one, which has been mentioned, requires, first, that both sides should wish to have that type of solution. Secondly, it requires that they should agree on where a peacekeeping force should go, which means that they would have to agree at least on the de facto boundaries between the two potential or prospective combatants. Thirdly, they would have to be prepared to give very strict undertakings indeed as to the safety of any peacekeeping forces that were put in. So we are a very long way, as I see it, from a Cyprus-type solution.

We have seen in recent days television footage, and indeed we have read in the press, of the events that have followed the fall of Vukovar. The federal army really must take all necessary steps to ensure that there are no reprisals against Croat civilians or members of the Croat armed forces. The European Community observers have played an important mediating role in this conflict, and we should pay tribute to them for their brave efforts. Those officials are currently in Vukovar and it would be useful to know whether the Government have any information as to the extent to which the Community has been informed by them in relation to the surrender and the treatment of those surrendering.

The other problem, of course, is that the intensity of the fighting reduces the scope for getting humanitarian relief into the country. I do not think anybody in this House would doubt the need for sending humanitarian relief or, indeed, would be against that. I think we would all be massively in favour of it. However, I should be grateful if the noble Lord could outline the progress that has been made in allocating and distributing humanitarian aid and in bringing into effect the plan proposed by the French and the Italians to evacuate children from Dubrovnik and other cities along the Adriatic coast.

I am afraid that what I have had to say is somewhat bleak. I do not apologise for that because it is a somewhat bleak situation. Unless one recognises the realities of the problem there one cannot sweep away the illusions. The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, spoke about the illusions that some people on the Croatian side have. Such beliefs are indeed illusory. Nobody is going to come in on a white charger and sort out the problems of Yugoslavia. Those problems will have to be sorted out by the Yugoslays themselves, though I think that the international community as a whole will do its very best to aid the process and indeed to emulsify the whole affair.

I hope that the Government for their part will be prepared to play an active role in the process. I am sure that they will. I also hope that the Minister's speech may perhaps not be quite so bleak as the one that I have felt obliged to make to the House tonight.

Lord Morris

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down. may I ask him a simple question, particularly bearing in mind the realpolitik of the situation and the absence of peace? Also, particularly bearing in mind that the noble Lord is a most distinguished lawyer and diplomatist, may I ask what his reaction is in the context of this very sorry story to the one fundamental principle that has flowed from the history of the United Nations since 1945; namely, the principle of self-determination? Would he care to comment on that?

Lord Richard

My Lords, the other side of the principle of self-determination, I have to say to the noble Lord, is the other principle which has been enshrined within the United Nations since it started: that the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a member state. It has always been difficult to reconcile that principle, which is enshrined in Article 2(7) of the Charter and which indeed is one of the pillars of the United Nations, with the other impetus, if I may put it that way, which is the one to which the noble Lord referred.

Legally, I suppose, the answer is that one recognises the country first. It becomes a separate country and then the other provisions of the charter, other than Article 2(7), come into play. However, recognition of a country in the situation in which Yugoslavia now is is something which needs to be approached delicately and in concert with our European allies.

The noble Lord puts his finger on one of the great problems of United Nations law. He has provoked me on one of my favourite topics. Perhaps at this hour of the night one should not be provoked. However, a great deal of thought is going into trying to devise a corpus of law in circumstances in which the principle of non-intervention should be eroded. I do not believe that we are anywhere near producing such a corpus.

The Marquess of Tweeddale

My Lords, perhaps I may return to something said by the noble Lord to the effect that neither the Serbs nor the Croats want a solution. The Croats simply want the Serbian army off their territory.

Lord Richard

My Lords, with respect, it is not as simple as that. There was an ethnic Serbian minority inside Croatia. That minority had preoccupations and concerns that were recognised by the Serbian government in Belgrade. Until they are recognised it is not simply a boundary dispute between two gentle neighbours; it is a dispute which has historical and fundamental origins. Somehow or other each side must recognise that the other has a case. I am sorry to say that I do not believe either party is yet in that position.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the obvious principle of self-determination is respect for and protection of minorities?

Lord Richard

My Lords, certainly one can say that. Before I sit down for the final time perhaps I may point out that I really am not the Minister.

The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara)

My Lords, I believe we have enough on our plates this evening without discussing that possibility. It is a serious situation.

I warmly welcome this opportunity to debate the tragic situation in Yugoslavia. The sieges of Vukovar and Dubrovnik have been on our television screens daily. Those images have recalled the horrors of past conflicts and bloodshed which we thought we had eradicated from Europe. A civil war in our continent in the late 20th century is indeed a terrible anachronism.

The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, in the debate on the address, rightly alluded to the ancient division between Serbs and Croats, 1.500 years of religious and cultural division, and the wartime massacres which killed probably 800,000 people and left a legacy of bitterness and distrust which will he hard to overcome. Unbridled nationalism can still have great destructive force. Moreover, our international political institutions are largely powerless to impose solutions on conflicts within the borders of individual states, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said. Although the crisis has now developed many international ramifications, the Serbs and Croats will ultimately have to make peace between themselves. No final settlement can be imposed from outside.

Our overriding concern, and that of our EC partners, is to bring an end to the killing and destruction. The EC Presidency, under the forceful direction of Mr. van den Broek, has made every effort to establish lasting ceasefires. Since September, when the conference on Yugoslavia opened in The Hague, my noble friend Lord Carrington has also been searching tirelessly for peace. I join other noble Lords in praising his efforts. But 12 successive ceasefire agreements collapsed because of a lack of will on either side to respect them. That gives the measure of the depth of suspicion and hostility between the two sides. Unfortunately, it has also demonstrated that the politicians in Belgrade and Zagreb no longer control the military forces which they have unleashed. The private militias on both sides must clearly be brought under political control and demobilized.

In the past few days there has been an important and possibly helpful development. The Serbian political and military leaders have said that they are willing to withdraw from Croatia and leave the protection of the Serbian communities to a UN force. The Secretary-General's special representative, Mr. Cyrus Vance, is now in Yugoslavia and will report to the Secretary-General shortly on whether there is a basis for a peace-keeping operation. The conditions which will apply will be that there must be a durable ceasefire; that all the parties must want such a force; and that it should seem likely to contribute to a political settlement. Until these conditions are met, any force which intervened would risk being drawn into the conflict and might have the greatest difficulty in extracting itself.

In addition to working for a lasting ceasefire the EC is trying to provide humanitarian help for the victims of the fighting, especially in Vukovar and Dubrovnik. The main agency involved is the International Red Cross. WEU Foreign Ministers agreed in Bonn on 18th November to consider humanitarian help including the possible use of naval ships. Naturally we hope that this will not be needed and that the relief agencies will not be impeded in their vital work.

I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, in that regard that this country's total humanitarian aid now stands at £1.5 million. I can also tell him that EC monitors are working hard this evening to ensure that Vukovar hospital is evacuated. I can also tell the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that EC monitors have not so far reported atrocities in Vukovar. We hope that that remains the situation.

Moves to deal with the military and humanitarian aspects of the conflict must be accompanied by efforts to find a political solution. My noble friend Lord Carrington has been meeting in The Hague with representatives of all the Yugoslav parties and has produced draft proposals for a loose association of sovereign republics. These provide for political and economic links, as well as guarantees for minority rights. We see these as an essential part of any outcome, since the rights of the Serbs in Croatia are at the heart of the present conflict. Unfortunately, progress was blocked by objections from several republics and the conference has been in abeyance since 5th November. This followed a deterioration in the situation because of the federal army's cynical aggression against Dubrovnik, a city of no military significance.

On 8th November EC Ministers therefore adopted a number of economic measures, including the suspension of the trade and co-operation agreement with Yugoslavia, in order to bring pressure to bear on those responsible for the violence. At the same time Ministers requested the UN Security Council to look urgently at the question of a mandatory oil embargo. We are co-authors with France and Belgium of a draft resolution imposing an oil embargo. Comprehensive sanctions would be a much bigger question and we must go first for what might be attainable.

It is clear that Serbia, supported by the federal army, bears the greatest responsibility for this tragedy. If the current ceasefire fails to hold, and violence resumes, then we must ensure that an oil embargo is put in place. Fuel is the life-blood of any military machine and the army must be brought to a halt. At the same time we must ensure that the arms embargo which was put in place by the UN Security Council on 25th September, is rigidly enforced. As the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said, sanctions are not an immediate panacea and will take time to bite. But I believe that we cannot afford to overlook any step which will help to restore sanity and bring peace to a war-ravaged country.

Some have argued, as the noble Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, argued tonight, that the EC has failed to deploy the only really effective weapon against Serbia: namely, immediate recognition of the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Like my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, we have considerable reservations about this course. Long-term stability of the region must be based on respect for minority rights. We should use the leverage of non-recognition to ensure that satisfactory mechanisms for protecting ethnic minorities are first put in place. Quite rightly, Croatia wishes to recover the whole of its territory, but it has been very slow to recognise that the many Serbs living there have genuine fears and grievances. It is impossible to envisage any kind of stable relationship between these two republics unless Serbs feel safe in Croatia, and vice versa. Finally, premature recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would, we fear, precipitate crises in other republics, notably Macedonia and Bosnia. These two would feel reluctantly obliged to go down the path of early recognition; but given the national and racial complexities this would, I fear, lead to serious violence there too.

The noble Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, and the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, referred to the possibility of air interdiction. That would need a United Nations Security Council resolution; otherwise it would be illegal. We would be unlikely to get such a resolution at present as third world countries would oppose.

My noble friend Lord Lauderdale referred to BBC World Service coverage. The service has already improved by beginning to broadcast in both Serb and Croat.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, before my noble friend leaves that point, will he take on board a further suggestion? Arrangements should be made as soon as possible both in Zagreb and Belgrade for the monitors to have access to television and radio.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

My Lords, I was just coming to that point. The monitors are not trained broadcasters. They have the practical task of negotiating prisoner exchanges, local ceasefires and so on. I do not believe that they should be distracted from that task. Nevertheless, I take note of what my noble friend has suggested.

My noble friend Lord Montagu quite rightly referred to the damage to the historical site of Dubrovnik. The best protection for historical and religious sites is an overall settlement. We strongly condemn the damage done to Dubrovnik and to cultural sites and churches throughout Croatia. As I said before, Dubrovnik is of no military value whatsoever. The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, referred to the embassy staff. We do not have anyone based permanently in Zagreb but embassy staff from Belgrade travel regularly to that city.

In conclusion, I should like to emphasise that we shall not weaken in our efforts to achieve a peaceful outcome to this crisis. It will not be easy and it may take time. But we cannot deny the peoples of Yugoslavia the right, enjoyed by the rest of Europe, to determine their own future. The future shape of Yugoslavia cannot be decided by force, against the wishes of the majority of the population. We therefore hope that the United Nations will be able to stabilise the situation and that the Hague conference will be allowed to resume. The effects of the violence will be longlating; but, at the end of the day, the peoples of the region will have to accept that they must co-exist in the same part of Europe. We and our partners will do all we can to help.