Kosovo

HL Deb 01 February 2000 vol 609 cc151-68

7.35 p.m.

Lord Skidelsky

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their response to the report of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe on human rights in Kosovo.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the occasion of this Unstarred Question is the publication on 6th December 1999 of the report on human rights violations in Kosovo compiled by the OSCE verification mission. The report covers three periods: 1st November 1998 to 21st March 1999; 24th March 1999 to 10th June—that is, the period of bombing; and the post-bombing period until last October. In the first and third periods, monitors were in place on the ground. During the bombing period, the evidence is taken by the OSCE from Serb refugees and expellees. It is by far the most authoritative account of human rights violations in that period.

Comment on the report by the media was conspicuous by its absence. Publication was noted and a few extracts given from the executive summary. That is particularly unfortunate, since the summary failed to bring out the crucial break in trend—which is something I want to emphasise—in the level of human rights abuses between the pre-bombing period and the bombing period.

I raise the matter this evening because the factual evidence set out in the report casts serious doubt on the justification for the war consistently given by Her Majesty's Government and by the NATO alliance as a whole. The Government claim that the war was fought to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe and that it succeeded in its aim. The Prime Minister has used the words "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" to describe what the Serbs were doing before the bombing started. It has been the Government's contention that the latter was the result of a deliberate, long-matured plan by Milosevic to empty Kosovo of its Albanian population. Most people in Britain probably believe some version of that story to this day.

I do not need to remind your Lordships that truth is the first casualty of war. The OSCE report paints a different and to my mind far more plausible picture of what was going on at the time. It is perfectly true that fears of an impending humanitarian catastrophe were well founded in the summer of 1998. UN aid agencies reported that between 200,000 and 300,000 Albanian Kosovars had been driven from their villages into the hills in the Drenia region along the Albanian border that summer. On 23rd September 1998, Security Council Resolution 1199 demanded an immediate ceasefire and political dialogue, the scaling down of Serbian security forces and the installation of observers to verify compliance. It should be noted that Russia vetoed the use of force to support the resolution, but the NATO council nevertheless endorsed the use of aerial bombardment to do so if necessary.

Resolution 1199 led to the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement of 16th October 1998. It provided for a ceasefire, a return to their homes of the displaced Albanian villagers, a scaling back of Serb forces to their pre-1998 levels and the emplacement of 2000 international observers in Kosovo. The observers arrived at the start of November.

For the first two months everything seemed to be going well. However, a ceasefire takes two to observe, and by the end of December/early January it became apparent that the KLA had used the lull to arm and train. Fighting broke out in the north-east of the province, where the KLA had established positions athwart the supply routes from Serbia to Kosovo. There were also, a number of reactive operations by the Yugoslav/Serb forces against [KLA] infiltration along the Albanian border". The observers reported "small scale ambushes" and "individual" atrocities by both sides.

What triggered off the events which led to NATO's armed intervention was the discovery in mid-January of 45 Albanians, including some children. murdered, mostly at close range, in the village of Racak. Responsibility for that atrocity has never been established. The Serbs claimed that they were killed in fighting and their bodies arranged by the KLA to look like murder. Though that was an isolated event, in a situation otherwise characterised by low-level skirmishing and sporadic atrocities, there is no doubt at all that it had an enormous impact on world opinion. It was assumed that it was part of a systematic campaign of terror by the Yugoslav/Serb forces. As the Rambouillet conference neared breakdown in mid-March of last year, the Serbs started preparing for a war on two fronts—against NATO in front of them and against the KLA behind them. For the first time, OSCE observers were denied access to the frontier areas. The escalation of violence was a direct response to NATO's own build-up.

The break in trend between the pre-war and war period is captured by the following quotations from the report. I dwell on them because their effect is cumulative. The first quotation: The level of incidents of summary and arbitrary killing escalated dramatically after the OSCE withdrew on 20 March". The second quotation: Summary and arbitrary killing became a generalized phenomenon throughout Kosovo with the beginning of the NATO air campaign … on the night of 24–25 March". The third quotation: Indiscriminate attacks on populated areas, sporadic prior to 24 March 1999, became a widespread occurrence after that date". The fourth quotation: The loss of life of large numbers of Kosovo Albanian civilians was one of the most characteristic features of the conflict after 24 March". The fifth quotation: Once the OSCE … left on 20 March 1999 and particularly after the start of the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 24 March, Serbian police and/or the VJ, often accompanied by paramilitaries, went from village to village and, in the towns, from area to area, threatening and expelling the Kosovan Albanian population". My final quotation: Between March and June 1999 the FRY and Serbia forcibly expelled 863,000 Kosovo Albanians from Kosovo". The Government want us to believe that this dramatic escalation in the level of violence and scale of expulsions had nothing to do with the withdrawal of the observers and the start of NATO's bombing. What is more they want us to believe that it was only the NATO intervention which stopped it! I have no difficulty in justifying this action", wrote the Prime Minister on 16th May. We fought for an end to ethnic cleansing", he said on 31st July. What hypocrisy! What is the evidence? There is very little in the report.

Now, my Lords, for the results. Nothing, of course, can bring back to life the hundreds and perhaps thousands of Albanian Kosovars killed by the Serbs during the period of the NATO bombing and the hundreds and perhaps thousands of Serbs killed by NATO bombs. We can at least claim to have reversed the ethnic cleansing which started after 24th March. Around 700,000 Kosovars have been returned to their homes and live in much greater security than before under the protection of the UN forces. However, under the protection of those same forces, the ethnic cleansing is now done by the other side. In a BBC interview given by the Foreign Secretary on 24th June 1999, Mr Cook said: When we met the leaders of the Albanian community yesterday, including the leader of the KLA, they all said that they want to create a multi-ethnic society, open to all the people of Kosovo and indeed Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA, did say he appealed to the Serbs to stay. Over two-thirds of them have stayed and some of them are coming back". In the lexicon of fatuous pronouncements made by our Foreign Secretary, that surely takes the prize.

Taking an average of different estimates, it looks as if there are about 70,000 Serbs left out of a pre-bombing population of about 250,000. Milosevic expelled about half of the Albanians under war conditions. Under the eyes of the UN's 50,000 armed troops, about two-thirds of the Serbs have been expelled and many more atrocities have occurred since June.

Perhaps I may say in conclusion that the last thing in my mind in bringing this report to the attention of the House is to whitewash Milosevic. He has brought untold damage to former Yugoslavia and to his own people in the sole interest of hanging on to power. The sooner he is removed the better. Nor would I want to deny that at some point military intervention might have become right and proper. What I do want to claim is that the reasons given for the intervention, when it occurred and in the form it took, do not stand up to serious scrutiny. I do not myself believe that the avoidance of a humanitarian disaster was uppermost in NATO's mind when it embarked on the diplomacy which made bombing inevitable. I believe that having threatened bombing back in October 1998, NATO's leaders convinced themselves that the credibility of the alliance was at stake if they did not bomb. And here I ask: credibility for what purpose? Perhaps the Minister will give us an answer.

What I mind above all is the lying. On such a basis no durable settlement for the Balkans can be built. If we live in a world in which our leaders cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, that is a dreadful omen for the future.

7.47 p.m.

Lord Judd

My Lords, my intervention will be brief. I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for raising this issue. Taken together with his interesting contribution to the recent foreign affairs debate, it is clear that he is posing the kind of fundamentally significant questions which are altogether appropriate for a second Chamber worth having. I also believe that we should put on record our appreciation of the report produced by the OSCE mission in Kosovo. Its findings are sombre, but they are also distressing, particularly the indications that the young are being caught up in the abuse of human rights.

When I was in Kosovo last August for the Council of Europe I recall looking at the extensive damage in one urban area and finding it difficult to comprehend that this was not the result of aerial or artillery bombardment but had been wrought by the "hands on" activity of ordinary citizens against other ordinary citizens. The emotion involved had clearly been terrible. In a volatile impersonal world, people need the security of identity. We should not deny ethnicity. What matters is to encourage and support in time the leaders within ethnic groups who understand that the future of humanity depends on co-operation with those of other ethnic origins. Not to take that approach is what plays into the hands of opportunist extremists, the ethnic entrepreneurs.

Also last August, in Montenegro and Serb Yugoslavia, I met the wretched Serb victims of oppression by ethnic Albanians, and, right at the bottom of the pile, I met the Roma refugees in appalling conditions. While, as the OSCE makes plain, numerically the persecution of Serbs and Roma by ethnic Albanians does not begin to be on the same scale as the systematic, state sponsored persecution of ethnic Albanians by the Serbs which preceded it, it is obvious that whatever the military action by NATO achieved, it did not bring atrocities to an end.

I am convinced that that is why explicit, not implicit, UN authorisation is essential for military intervention. It makes the point that intervention is for universally applicable principles and not partial principles. Or, at least, it makes it even less credible when some try to portray intervention as partial. I believe that, with hindsight, we should accept that the language at the time of the intervention ought to have been more firmly about intervening to uphold universally valid human rights and less open to the interpretation that we were intervening for the ethnic Albanians against the Serbs. That would have given us a far stronger base from which to curb the totally unacceptable and reprehensible—albeit on a smaller scale—excesses by the ethnic Albanians.

Without political stability, human rights can never be secure. If we are to move forward in Kosovo, there has to be a steady transition from a de facto international colonial presence to genuine self-government. There have to be democratic institutions to which the police and other authorities are accountable. But, as I have argued before, for that to happen effectively time will be essential. The preparation for the elections will be as important as the elections themselves. The context in which they take place will he vital. What happens in the rehabilitation of education will be highly relevant. What happens in the development of genuinely independent media— the lifeblood of successful democracy—will be indispensable. Election law and administration will be critically important—not least the registration of voters. That raised the whole question of the absent refugees and displaced people. It will be good to hear the Government's thinking on all this. Do they, for example, favour the idea canvassed by some of starting with municipal or local elections as a trial run for more significant major national elections?

In the meantime, the delay in bringing the external police presence up to the required strength is frankly inexcusable. For all who advocated the action which has led to the international presence, there is surely a moral imperative to will the means to achieve its logical follow-through. Anything less is feeble or, worse, cynical.

Similarly, it is extraordinary that interim arrangements for the administration of justice are still inadequate. What kind of grotesque reality have we reached if we can mobilise without question the resources needed for bombing but totally fail to generate on the necessary scale the human and financial resources to build the peace? That hardly smacks of the real commitment to human rights and democracy of which the Foreign Secretary spoke so powerfully again East week. If I may be forgiven for concluding on a colloquial note, I believe that, in respect of strengthening the international police presence and the administration of justice, we have to pull our fingers out, and fast.

7.53 p.m.

Baroness Turner of Camden

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for making it possible.

I have always been critical of NATO intervention in Kosovo: I suppose that it cannot be called a war because there was never a declaration. Like many of my generation, I remember only too well what continuous aerial bombardment is like. I lived with my parents on the outskirts of London during the war and I have never forgotten it. Seeing news flashes on television of Belgrade burning brought it all back to me vividly. I could practically hear my mother saying, "They've got the London docks again". I have ever since regarded the bombing of urban areas as a means of terrorising a civilian population—indeed, I think that is its main objective, despite what military people may say. I thought last year, when NATO bombing was at its height, that we should not have been doing it, and that remains my view.

I do not believe that there was no alternative. Rambouillet was presented as an ultimatum—which it was unlikely that any Serbian government would have accepted. Negotiation was still an option; and the UN was marginalised. Opinions are now more frequently being voiced to the effect that military intervention was unlawful. The UN charter gives two grounds for the valid use of force: self-defence or with the sanction of the UN Security Council. Neither applied in the case of the Kosovo operation.

My noble friends on the Front Bench have repeatedly claimed that the operation was "successful". Well, it depends what the objective was. If the real intention was to create a purely Albanian ethnic state, perhaps it has been successful. But we were told that the aim was to bring about the creation of a state in which all ethnic rights were respected.

It would also appear that it was the bombing campaign which intensified the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by the Serbs, as some of us maintained at the time. Now that has been replaced by the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, brought about not only by revenge killings by Albanians but also by KLA members who are apparently determined to create an entirely Albanian state. It is not only Serbs who are being forced out but also the Roma people, Jews and even the small Croatian community. The international forces present seem powerless to prevent it. The region remains, and is likely to continue to remain, unsettled.

What is to be done now? Little information seems to be available as to the numbers of civilian deaths and injuries resulting from the NATO bombing campaign. Albanians were killed as well as Serb civilians. Many Albanians were killed and injured in the convoys which were bombed by mistake by NATO forces. Nothing seems to have been done to help the survivors or to compensate for the lives lost.

When I have asked about the possibility of compensation—at least for civilians killed and injured as a result of NATO acknowledged mistakes— I have been told that the issue of compensation does not arise because the NATO action in Kosovo was "lawful". So it was lawful, apparently, to use cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions on civilian areas.

There is no doubt that the bombing campaign badly damaged the civilian infrastructure, as well as rendering parts of the Danube unnavigable. Questions about this have been asked in the House, and the response has been to blame Milosevic. Apparently he is demanding that sanctions be lifted before access can be granted. I should be grateful to know whether that is still the situation.

In any event, why are sanctions being continued, since the "conflict" has been won? They seem more likely to strengthen, rather than weaken, the present Yugoslav leadership. It is not surprising that even Serbs with pro-Western sympathies feel that they are victims. The historian Alexei Djilas, the son of the best known dissident ever, made that clear in a recent television interview. Most of those who have studied the situation in the Balkans know that it is immensely complicated and the demonisation of one individual, unpleasant though he may be, does not help us to understand it. Not so very long ago Milosevic was a man with whom Richard Holbrooke could do business. He was needed in order to reach the Dayton accord. I mention that because it is too easy to come to conclusions based on the over-simplifications beloved of the media.

We were told at the time of the Kosovo venture that it heralded a new approach in international affairs. For the first time in history, oppressive leaders could no longer hide behind the doctrine of national sovereignty. If people were oppressed, they could look to the international community for assistance— perhaps even armed intervention.

But it is now clear that in the real world, where unfortunately there are many countries where human rights as we understand them are ignored, that is not a practical possibility. Fortunately, the Government now seem to have come to terms with that view. If recent reports are accurate, it would seem that the Government have been reluctant to give guarantees or assurances to the present leadership in Montenegro, should it feel inclined to push harder for complete independence. If that is the government position, it is very sensible.

Of course, the international community should always be willing to provide humanitarian assistance to those who suffer as a result of such conflicts. And of course the United Nations must be strengthened. I entirely share the view of my noble friend Lord Judd in that respect. That, it seems to me, must be the way forward. In the meantime, in Kosovo it seems that the international community has a continuing task of monitoring and supervising if lawlessness is to be overcome and human rights protected.

8 p.m.

Baroness Williams of Crosby

My Lords, first I thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. I do not refer to him as my noble friend in this House since we belong to different parties, but outside this House he is my noble friend. He and I have worked very closely together, not least in Russia, and I greatly admire and respect the work that he has done there and elsewhere in the world. I say that because during this short debate I must strongly disagree with the argument that the noble Lord has put before the House. I believe that the noble Lord is aware that I strongly disagree with him. I extend my courteous apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, who is also a Member of this House whose integrity and honesty I respect. I need to say that because I shall also strongly disagree with her observations.

I believe that when we look at the reports of OSCE we see a description of man's inhumanity to man on a terrifying scale. In a way, we are looking at sheer evil. As one studies page after page of the first report, which is primarily about the period up until March, and the second report, which deals with the six-month period from March to October, one feels a sense of disgust and outrage at the obscenity of what people have done to one another. But we must recognise that a crucial distinction is to be drawn. It is here that I fundamentally disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. It is clear from the first OSCE report that the attack by the regime of Milosevic on the Kosovar Albanians was, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said in a passing remark, state policy.

I respond to the quotations of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, with a few extracts from the OSCE report. The noble Lord said that the Kosovar Albanians had been "expelled under war conditions". The OSCE report states: On the part of the Yugoslav and Serbian forces, their intent to apply mass killing as an instrument of terror, coercion or punishment against Kosovo Albanians was already in evidence in 1998", which was a whole year before the NATO attack was loosed. It goes on to state: Rape and other forms of sexual violence were applied sometimes as a weapon of war". In 1993—six years before the period under discussion this evening—I recall making a visit to Bosnia as a follow-up to the Warburton report on the use of rape as a weapon of war. I spoke to many desperate women in the Croatian refugee camps at the time about the terrible conditions through which they had gone, including the gang rape of children as young as 12 and 13. Those children's future had been ruined, given the culture from which they came. That was not in 1998 or 1999, but exactly the same person was responsible for the use of rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia as in Kosovo later: Slobodan Milosevic.

My third quote is perhaps the most telling: The accounts of refugees also give compelling examples of the organised and systematic nature of what was being perpetrated by Yugoslav and Serbian forces, and their tolerance for and collusion in acts of extreme lawlessness by paramilitaries and armed civilians".

Lord Skidelsky

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. To what period does the last quotation refer?

Baroness Williams of Crosby

My Lords, it covers the period of the investigations into refugees made by the OSCE in Macedonia and also Albania. I cannot give the precise dates, but I have clearly indicated to the noble Lord that the report itself refers back to 1998. I have also given clear first-hand evidence that these practices were not first perpetrated in Kosovo but long before in Bosnia and Croatia. I give one more example. I saw at first hand the so-called winter exercises of the Yugoslav army in Kosovo in January 1999, two months before NATO intervened. I saw at least half a dozen villages burnt to the ground. I was so horrified by what I saw—for example, children's shoes in burnt-out houses—that I became then, as I am to this day, a strong supporter of intervention by NATO in Kosovo. If we pretend otherwise we should see the recent film made about Srebrnica entitled "A Cry from the Grave". If we do not recognise that this is a systematic, strategically planned and carefully thought out policy to commit atrocities against civilians we should not take part in any discussion without looking at the evidence at first hand.

In the terribly troubled century that has just ended, we have seen the use of state policy to break human beings. One example is Hitler's Germany; another is Stalin's Russia. The anarchy that has led to the killing of Serb civilians is unforgivable, but it is not the same as state policy. Or e has in mind the words of William Butler Yeats: Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed". Anarchy and state policy are two different things.

What can we do now? I agree with the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd. At this point I am not totally uncritical of Her Majesty's Government. I believe that, as Justice Arbour said, unless there is justice there will be revenge. First, justice is still not established in Kosovo. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, when he spoke about the need to put resources into justice. We have not done it. I understand that there is not even a UK financial contribution to the work of OSCE. But without justice one plunges into revenge. The code of ethics of the peoples of the Balkans is one of revenge. "If no one avenges me I shall avenge myself". Ignatieff calls it the warrior's honour; it is all about tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Secondly, I believe that the British Government should support the training of more police and courts in Kosovo. Thirdly, I believe that they should disarm both of the conflicting ethnic groups in Mitrovica which is currently under the French UN force. To allow one ethnic group to kill another in an area where one has thousands of troops is insupportable. Finally, I ask the Minister what steps we are taking to try to bring about the return of Serb prisoners from Kosovo and the many thousands of Kosovar Albanian prisoners currently in Serbian prisons. That could be a key to a better relationship between both sides. Such an exchange of prisoners has been a building block in the peace negotiations, however troubled, in Northern Ireland. I believe that we can learn from that lesson in Kosovo.

Lord Rea

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down perhaps I may put one question. Does she agree that, despite the horrible atrocities committed by the Serbs in Bosnia and Albania before the decision of NATO to intervene, when the bombing commenced and the OSCE monitors left the country the atrocities vastly increased and it was at that point that the majority of the Albanian expulsions took place?

Baroness Williams of Crosby

My Lords, I agree that there was an escalation, as invariably happens. There was an escalation in German mobilisation after the strategic bombing of German towns in 1943 and 1944. However, I do not believe that there is any evidence that NATO's intervention was related directly to atrocities, and I tried to explain why. I have also given the House first-hand evidence of what happened in Bosnia when there was no intervention and the British and French stood to one side and let it all happen. What was the result? Thousands of innocent people were slaughtered. Srebrnica is a clear case where 8,000 people died and the British and French did absolutely nothing to intervene.

8.9 p.m.

Lord Moynihan

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Skidelsky for securing this important opportunity to discuss the current situation in Kosovo. I welcome many of the powerful insights made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. All too often, once conflicts are over, the media spotlight is dimmed and the eyes of the world turn elsewhere, ignoring the fact that the real challenge—that of making and keeping a permanent peace—is only just beginning. So today I shall concentrate on what is to be done now.

As noble Lords have heard today, the publication two months ago of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights reports has provided a valuable window into events in Kosovo, past and present; and has shed light on the grave problems Kosovo has faced and continues to face.

Page after page of the report reveals an organised and systematic strategy of human rights and humanitarian law violations, most brutally implemented. The report makes clear that Belgrade has much to answer for in its years of ruthless incitement of ethnic hatreds in the region. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to outline how the Government intend to make use of the reliable database that the report constitutes in order to agree upon appropriate measures to restore and maintain international peace and security in the region; and to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes uncovered, which is an important part of the reconciliation process by which dismembered societies are invisibly stitched back together.

Part II of the OSCE report which documents the period between 14th June and 31st October, when more than 800,000 refugees returned to a war-torn Kosovo under K-FOR protection and UN administration, confirms that Kosovo remains infected with the disease of ethnic hatred and violence and that the nightmares described in Part I are living ones and cannot be consigned to the archives of the past. With one example after another, the report depicts a Kosovo convulsed by the poison of revenge, with acts of vindictive, retaliatory violence contributing to the creation of a climate of lawlessness and impunity.

The report notes that two particularly iniquitous trends have emerged: the targeting of vulnerable, elderly Kosovo Serbs and the participation of juveniles in human rights violations, both of which disturbingly underline the growing intolerance that has emerged within the Kosovo Albanian community.

The current situation in Kosovo highlights the critical importance of the work of the UN mission (UNMIK) in the rebuilding of civil society in the province, a fact which makes the recent allegations of bureaucracy and incompetence against UNMIK all the more disturbing. Yet nearly eight months since the conflict was ended and NATO troops entered Kosovo to keep the peace, today's reality is very far from that goal. Back in May, the Prime Minister promised the refugees of Kosovo, practical help, practical commitment and above else a determination that all this suffering and all this misery…[should] not last but [should] be reversed", so that those same dispossessed refugees would become, symbols of hope. humanity and peace". Yet, despite the international presence, there are very few "symbols of hope, humanity and peace" to be found and the peace that has been built to date stands on the flimsiest of foundations.

The international community has not been able to deliver on its promises. No Kosovar of any ethnicity feels secure. There is no region in Kosovo in which human rights are fully respected. Tens of thousands remain without adequate shelter. Civil registration has yet to get under way. No Serb has agreed to stand on the new UNMIK-Kosovo Joint Interim Administrative Structure. Kosovo's long-term status is still in question. Its economy and infrastructure are still devastated. And, as we have heard today, there is no agreed-upon, functional system of justice, and criminals, including war criminals, continue to operate.

As though to acknowledge that no remedy has been found for the contagion of intimidation and intolerance, the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, no longer talks about reconciliation but about "the first step of co-existence". This is a step that has yet to be taken.

The stark back-drop to the post-war setting described in OSCE reports makes it clear that only a strong law enforcement system can prevent the atmosphere of vindictive revenge that has perpetuated such violence. Amnesty International makes it clear that the international community, through UNMIK, must bear some responsibility for the failures in Kosovo. Last month, Amnesty concluded that the murder of a Slavic Muslim family in Prizren—a father, mother, daughter and an elderly grandmother— highlighted the continuing failure of the international community to protect the human rights of all minorities in Kosovo.

Does the Minister agree with Amnesty that it is indeed, time for the international presence to fulfil its obligation to protect human rights and take urgent action to prevent further human rights abuses"? Does the noble Baroness further agree that the rebuilding of an open and inclusive society in Kosovo founded on the principles of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realised only through the continued monitoring and reporting of the human rights situation and the establishment of the rule of law?

Dr Bernard Kouchner once again was going recently, cap in hand, to the international community in Brussels. He was urgently pleading for more UN policemen, for more support for training local police and for the local system of justice, and for the plentiful pledges and promises of funds from the Kosovo Donors Conference to be fulfilled.

Can the Minister assist the House by explaining why, when the Foreign Secretary was hopeful last June that 3,000 international police officers would be deployed in Kosovo by July last year, today there are still fewer than 2,000 police officers deployed?

We used all the energies of NATO to stop the killing, and the atrocities, at a cost of billions. Yet it appears that we do not have the small resources which would make all the difference between success and failure in Kosovo. If all the nations in the world who claimed to fight for freedom and against repression cannot now manage to send sufficient police officers to Kosovo, then I regret to say that that failure may cost the world Kosovo's peace.

From these Benches we would be the first to say that our expectations must be realistic. Kosovo will not be changed overnight. The legacy of human rights violations that occurred before, during and after the conflict is a very heavy one. Kosovo is a society eviscerated by hatred and fear. Such deep wounds take time to heal. In diplomatic, financial, ethical or any terms, peace is a better investment than war, and certainly an intermittent war. The principle is one which I am sure the Minister will be eager to acknowledge. We must not find ourselves in the position of winning the war that we have chosen to fight, but losing the peace we have sought to impose.

The point has been made by the President of the European Commission. Romano Prodi said, As each day passes I am increasingly worried that the capacity for organising war far outstrips our capacity to co-ordinate the reconstruction of people's shattered lives". His concerns struck a deep chord. In the cease-fires and armistices which the UN presides over, it is a lesson well learned that combat suspended is not combat ended. While international peacekeepers are occupied in keeping apart parties who remain hostile, while war seethes under the surface and its underlying causes are not addressed, the deep scars and wounds of conflict will never heal and true peace cannot take root and thrive.

I am sure the Minister will recognise that there have been reverberations far wider than the immediate vicinity of Kosovo, and, indeed, the debate today in this House. These reverberations will continue to be felt in transatlantic attitudes, relations and institutions for a long time. There is an increasing demand for answers to questions about the legality of intervention, mandates for intervention, and burden sharing, both financial and in terms of manpower, firepower, equipment and resources.

In conclusion, we are all agreed that the evil ethnic cleansing that took place in Kosovo which led to the NATO operation against Serbia was an assault on the universal values of respect for human rights and dignity. For that reason, we supported the Government's action, yet the way we implement the peace that has been imposed and the resources we commit for that purpose will be the ultimate test of the success or failure of our military intervention in Kosovo.

The stakes are high for the people of Kosovo, Montenegro, neighbouring states, the Balkans and the international community. Effective war fighting needs to be followed by effective war termination and peace consolidation or history will surely judge us wanting. I look forward to hearing the Minister outline how the Government, who took a lead in winning the war, intend to take a lead in winning the peace in Kosovo.

8.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for drawing the attention of the House to the important and valuable OSCE report on human rights in Kosovo, published in December 1999. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord that the report deserves careful perusal. However, it is important to read the report as a whole. We have derived a different flavour from that divined by the noble Lord. We refute entirely any suggestion that the Government have lied. I was surprised to hear such language in this place.

Noble Lords

Hear, hear!

Baroness Scotland of Asthal

The report Kosovo/Kosova, As Seen As Told is in two parts. The first catalogues the abuses of human rights in Kosovo from October 1998 to June 1999—from the establishment of the OSCE-led Kosovo verification mission to the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Serbia secured by the NATO air campaign. The second part of the report covers the period from June to October 1999—the first four months of the international presence in Kosovo established at the end of the crisis.

Both parts make for disturbing reading and give pause for thought. I will share with the House some thoughts on the implications of the report's findings. I pay tribute to the work of the Kosovo verification mission and in particular to the men and women from Britain who played a crucial role in establishing it. The mission was the result of an agreement between the government of President Milosevic and the OSCE to allow international monitors into Kosovo to give 200,000 internally displaced people, particularly the tens of thousands living in the hills, the confidence to return to their homes—without which, the Secretary-General had warned, there might be a humanitarian catastrophe.

The presence of the KVM helped temporarily to avert such a catastrophe. Britain sent an initial deployment of 120 verifiers, who were among the first on the ground in early November 1998. They did important and often dangerous work that winter, until the OSCE reluctantly took the decision in March 1999 that the situation was too dangerous to allow the mission to continue.

The findings of the KVM report are damning. I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, who, with her usual style and flair, captured the horror that was alive in the region before NATO's intervention. I do not hesitate for a moment to repeat some of the quotations that the noble Baroness gave from the OSCE report, for it is important to give a sense of balance and proportion. It stated that, on the part of Yugoslav and Serb forces, their intent to apply mass killing as an instrument of terror, coercion or punishment against Kosovo Albanians was already in evidence in 1998 and was shockingly demonstrated by incidents in January 1999 (including the Racak massacre and beyond)". It added that, arbitrary arrest and detention and violation of the right to a fair trial became increasingly the tools of the law enforcement agencies in the suppression of Kosovo Albanian civil and political rights". It also said that, rape and other forms of sexual violence were applied, sometimes as weapons of war". The House will recall images of horror and terror from Kosovo over the past year. Just over 12 months ago, the world was shocked by the discovery by the KVM of the victims of the massacre at Racak. as many noble Lords have said, when more than 40 Kosovo Albanians were shot at close range and dumped in a ditch. That massacre prompted the Contact Group to summon the Belgrade government and the leadership of the Kosovo Albanians to peace talks in France to resolve the crisis in the province by a political settlement.

The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said that the responsibility for Racak has never been established. I remind the House that the Serbs refused to allow the War Crimes Tribunal to investigate Racak. If the Serbs wanted the truth to be discovered, they would have co-operated with the tribunal as the Security Council had demanded. The Serbs refused.

A lot of nonsense has been spoken about the Rambouillet negotiations. With respect and much regret, I cannot agree with the sentiments expressed in that respect by my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden. Those negotiations were not an attempt to impose NATO government over Kosovo. The agreements worked out by European, Russian and US negotiators were to keep Kosovo within FRY and to restore the autonomy that Milosevic had stolen 10 years before. The negotiations were not an attempt to impose NATO forces across the territory of FRY. We asked FRY to negotiate with NATO arrangements to allow NATO allies and others, such as Russia, to supply the troops they would send to Kosovo to underpin the political settlement there.

The negotiations were not an attempt to force the Serbs into rejecting an agreement to give NATO some sort of excuse for bombing. We were committed to making the negotiations succeed and worked hard to achieve that objective. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and his French counterpart, as chairman of the talks, spent hours at Rambouillet persuading the two sides to reach agreement.

Lord Skidelsky

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the implementation appendix of the Rambouillet accord gave NATO and its allies full access to FRY territory? That was not the case in the agreement that ended the bombing last June.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal

My Lords, it was clearly thought necessary at that stage for that requirement to be added and I do not resile from it for a moment. In the end, the Albanians accepted the agreement, even though it fell short of what they wanted, but the Serbs refused. It was not a hidden NATO agenda but a clear Serb one that was to blame for that failure. As the KVM report makes clear, while the Serbs were meant to be negotiating in France, their forces were beginning a spring offensive in Kosovo. That offensive was under way before NATO action began.

My noble friend Lord Judd rightly mentioned the complexity of the conflict between the Serbian and Albanian people resident in Kosovo. When NATO launched its first air strikes, 70,000 refugees had already been displaced from Kosovo in neighbouring states—as well as 200,000 people internally displaced within Kosovo. NATO intervened to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. The Serbs reacted by accelerating the brutal offensive already under way. NATO, in response, made clear that an objective of its campaign would be the return to Kosovo of all those people expelled by Milosevic's ethnic cleansing. That objective was secured.

The report's authors spoke to hundreds of Kosovars during the enforced exile. They report an interview with a refugee explaining why he fled Kosovo last May. The man was in his house in Pristina when five or six armed men arrived. They started to smash up the house, placed a bucket over the man's head, then proceeded to kick him in the stomach and ribs. They demanded money, then threatened to kill him. They held a lighter to the man's face and burnt his moustache and mouth. They beat him with rifle butts. They said if they found him again they would kill him. The next day, the man fled Kosovo for Macedonia.

Anyone who doubts that NATO had to intervene to stop what was being done to innocent victims in Kosovo should read the OSCE report—and read it fully.

The justification for our intervention in Kosovo was to stop the appalling repression—as the UN had demanded—and avert the humanitarian catastrophe, of which the UN had warned. The alternative would have left the EU and NATO as spectators while Serb atrocities continued and accelerated. If we needed any extra flavour, I suggest that we have only to remind ourselves of the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who gave the House graphic evidence of what she saw with her own eyes.

The criticism that we cannot intervene in every crisis invites the retort: does that justify doing nothing in any situation? As the Foreign Secretary said in his Chatham House speech last Friday, try telling that to the Kosovo Albanians, whose long years of suffering were ended by NATO.

The OSCE returned to Kosovo in June 1999. The organisation was given responsibility within the United Nations mission for democratisation and governance, police training, institution building and human rights monitoring. In pursuance of this last function, some 75 human rights monitors have been at work in Kosovo over the past eight months. The second part of the OSCE report is the result of their work.

The report notes that serious human rights violations have continued to occur in Kosovo. I am sure that the House will agree that the persecution and intimidation of the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo is appalling. It is right that we should condemn it. NATO intervened to uphold the principle of a multi-ethnic Kosovo, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, touched upon in his speech. We should not let others destroy this now. But, as the OSCE report brings out, what is happening now is very different in scale and nature from the state-sponsored terror and ethnic cleansing practised by the forces of the Milosevic regime in Kosovo.

Since we have a few moments, I shall take the opportunity to reply to some of the specific issues that have been raised in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was right to concentrate on the challenges with which we are faced for the future, and progress is being made in tackling them. Bernard Kouchner, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Kosovo, notes in his foreword to the report that many of the abuses documented in Kosovo since last June have been committed by members of Albanian armed groups against other ethnic Albanians and non-Albanians. There have also been allegations against Serb armed groups.

However, all cur efforts have brought good fruit. The result has been a significant decline in levels of violence and intimidation; but one murder a week is one too many. I accept that entirely. Part of the answer is that Kosovo needs a fully functioning criminal justice system, as has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble, Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. Dr Kouchner's recent decision to revert to the legal system which applied in Kosovo before Milosevic stole its autonomy has helped. As a result, the UN mission is finding it much easier to recruit local judges and prosecutors. In the past week alone some 130 were sworn in.

I shall now turn to one or two specific questions that were raised in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, asked about the sanctions against Serbia and what is happening as regards the Danube. Sanctions are intended to maintain pressure against the regime in Belgrade led by men indicted for crimes against humanity. So far as concerns the Danube, the EU would be ready to consider supporting work to clear the Danube. However, Milosevic has so far refused to co-operate.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, as regards support given to the OSCE we are one of the OSCE's strongest supporters. We contribute 10 per cent of its budget in Kosovo and 10 per cent of its personnel, including more than 30 UK policemen 'training the future local police force in the OSCE-run training school. In addition, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who raised the issue of the 2,000 police, we agree that UNMIK needs more police. Some 60 RUC officers are in place. recognised as among the most effective in the international presence. Furthermore, we continue to monitor that issue.

The EU has an important role to play, but the international community can only do so much. The lasting answer has to come from the people of Kosovo. The special efforts of UNMIK and KFOR devoted to minority protection can only he a temporary solution, treating the symptoms rather than the disease itself. The people of Kosovo must take on their responsibilities. Those responsibilities are very broad indeed. This Government will continue to play a leading part in working to achieve the goals of peace and security for all Kosovars, be they Serbs or Albanians resident in that country.

Baroness Turner of Camden

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, will she respond to my query about the victims of NATO bombings, those who were killed or injured? I raised the issue of compensation for such victims. They were Albanian as well as Serb, as my noble friend knows.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal

My Lords, I have replied to that question before and the noble Baroness gave the answer. I re-emphasise that everything is being done to restructure and assist the Kosovar people to regain stability. We very much hope that that will help to compensate them for the terrible suffering that has been visited upon them by Milosevic and all that has followed with him.