a new world order will emerge

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a new world order will emerge


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Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): We conduct this debate, 18 months after the horror and tragedies of 11 September, with our institutions impotent, with no coherent solutions to the threats facing civilisation, and with the old world order split asunder, possibly irrevocably. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that international diplomacy has failed. The United Nations has shown that its structure is not equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. The European Union is split, and its plans for a common foreign and defence policy are in ruins. The future of NATO is threatened as the different aims, objectives and outlooks of its members are exposed. Out of this carnage of shattered institutions, a new world order will emerge. Rebuilding those institutions must be a priority, but this is not how it should happen.

Many will ask how we got ourselves into the position in which we find ourselves tonight. I have sat here for months listening to Ministers confidently predicting that those institutions would accept the challenges before them. I have waited for Ministers to produce the killer piece of evidence that they gave the impression was there. It has not materialised. With hindsight, their optimism was misguided, misplaced and misleading. There is no smoking gun. There is no clear link between international terrorism and Saddam Hussein. The dodgy dossier and the false claims of attempts to buy uranium in Africa have undermined the argument. There is some evidence that the tyrant is disarming.


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1. Reform of international institutions has emerged as a priority for the Government under
Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, the Prime Minister. In his first Mansion House speech as
Prime Minister, and again in a speech in India on 21 January 2008, the Prime Minister
spoke of the need to renew global institutions which had been created in and for a different
era.1 His aims for this “new world order” were:
“To create a new International Monetary Fund for the modern world, to create a new
World Bank that can meet the environmental challenges as well as the development
challenges, to create a new United Nations that can meet the challenges of rebuilding
where there are conflicts and where there are fragile states in need of international
assistance and support.”2


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Lastly, I want to talk about the problem of the level of rhetoric and promise in this crisis. I was one of those who was nervous about the tenor of the Prime Minister's conference speech because we do not have to pitch our expectations too high, we have to respect the limits of the possible. I well remember President Bush and his promises of a new world order. That ran rapidly into the sand. It would be unwise to promise another new world order unless we are sure that we can deliver it. We must be extremely careful not to suggest that there is another sense in the West that we are taking up the white man's burden and that we will resolve the problems of the world. It is therefore extremely important that we get the Asian countries as actively engaged as we possibly can in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and its neighbours, including China.

We should recognise the mistakes made in the past 10 years and more and make a sustained effort to overcome them. We should not have abandoned Afghanistan after 1989. We must make absolutely sure that we keep a long-term effort there after this conflict is over. We allowed western policy in the Middle East to drift. We now must take a very firm grasp on the inter-connected problems of that region as a whole. We have failed to reform the United Nations. We now must take on board much more actively what we do about strengthening global institutions. We gave a low

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"Yes, but", that was used by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). The Leader of the Opposition, with his close links to the US right, must not be allowed to lead us into a dutch auction to sell out British interests to the obsessions of the American right. We must not be allowed to let real threats to the British people be increased in order to reduce imagined or remote threats to the United States.
Reference has been made to the increase in the US defence budget, and it has been suggested that we should follow that in Britain and Europe, but there is another consideration. With the US now being in the position of outspending on defence the whole of the rest of NATO plus Russia and China, while spending one of the lowest percentages on diplomacy, aid and reconstruction for other countries, surely it is time that the US considered whether it should be putting more dollars and more effort into the State Department and into aid.

As it says in "A New Chapter", the United States will undoubtedly play a lead role in many things, but it should be under the United Nations, which should lead us. George Bush senior said that he believed in a new world order, but it cannot be a new world order where one country lays down the rules for all the rest while flouting them itself. It is dangerous to assume the supremacy of the west, but it is even more dangerous to have the supremacy of the wild west. For certain states that view the United States as their allies, members of the US Administration should recognise that, although we would not regard it as the rogue States, it is certainly becoming the States of concern.

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DFID and the World Bank

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must bring France closer to full NATO membership, because French forces will be included in the task force. France may also be signed up to NATO's military committee, which would be extremely welcome.
Since 1989, we have seen the advent of the so-called "new world order". The other day I spoke to people at Jane's Defence Weekly, who described the new world order as world disorder. They said that we are entering the most dangerous decade of human existence, a sentiment which I believe is shared by analysts and political scientists on every continent. Almost a decade after the Berlin wall fell, the world is still gripped by conflict, tension and mistrust. There are 17 major conflicts under way around the world, and a further 20 areas of special concern in which conflict could break out at any time.

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THE MOMENTUM OF THE PAST: COLD WAR AND NEW WORLD ORDER

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In the decades following WWII South Africa's racial policies became a matter of international concern. As the struggle against apartheid developed into a "great moral cause", SA became a pariah state; sanctions were imposed on it, and the anti apartheid campaign absorbed into the fabric of international organisations. At the same time a low intensity war developed between the white government and the liberation movements (African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress). Several neighbouring black states, by supporting the liberation movements, brought down Pretoria's wrath on themselves, in the form of e a cross border "destabilisation" policy.
Harold Macmillan had made clear in his "Wind of Change" speech (1960) that he—and by implication other Western leaders—were concerned not only about racial issues, but whether post colonial Africa would turn to East or West in the Cold War context. However, the West's response to the situation was characterised by vacillation and ambivalence. In Britain's case successive governments sought the middle ground in a situation were the contending parties saw no room for compromise. The liberation movements accused Britain of putting its material interest before its moral concerns by failing to give them support and refusing to impose further sanctions against SA.
For its part the apartheid government saw itself as the target of a Moscow inspired "total onslaught", and accused the West, not only of failing to give support, but kowtowing to the Afro-Asian states by imposing sanctions. Pretoria dismissed the British as "wish wash liberals" at best, and communist fellow travellers at worst.
In contrast with the West the Soviet bloc gained prestige in black Africa by supporting the armed liberation movements—including the ANC's armed wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe). This military support—together with its alliance with the Communist Party (SACP)—drew the ANC towards the Soviet bloc and its socialist ideas; while rejecting Western capitalism.
A New World Order and the SA "Miracle"

The demise of the Soviet bloc was greeted with joy the in the West, but consternation in the ANC. Internationally the tension of Cold War gave way to the short lived hopes of a New World Order. President George Bush (Snr) spoke of a world free from threats, of states living in harmony under the rule of law; and Francis Fukuyama trumpeted the triumph of the West by declaring "the end of history". At the UN Butros- Butros Ghali published his "Agenda for Peace". The hope was that persistent international problems—whether in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, or Southern Africa—could be resolved peacefully. In the event only in SA were such hopes realised, where a UN negotiated settlement was achieved in 1989, followed by the SA "miracle".
It started in February 1990 when President F.W. de Klerk seized the initiative—confident that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the ANC had been seriously weakened and the threat of the total onslaught had disappeared. He lifted the ban on political parties and released Nelson Mandela. Four years of negotiation followed—with the National Party (NP) Government and the ANC as the major players—before a new SA was born. The international community strongly supported the negotiating process and to an extent saw itself as midwife of the new democratic state. Furthermore, the hope was that the successful outcome of negotiations in SA, and the earlier Namibia settlement would act as models for others to follow.
Therefore, although the end of apartheid and the emergence of a new democratic polity had been achieved by South Africans themselves through negotiation, the international community was involved and the momentum of the past ensured its continuing interest in the future.

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The way in which the United Nations was shaped in 1944–45 was the product of much interesting and intelligent discussion both inside and outside governments. That was quite lacking after 1990 at the end of the Cold War. The reason for that lack of speculation and discussion was simple: we had had 40 years of the Cold War and all statesmen and all people involved in international politics were much more exhausted than they seemed to be. That was a pity, because instead of intelligent suggestions for what the new world order should be like, as indeed this report constitutes, we had nothing more subtle than the assertion by the United States of its capacity to act as it wished. Indeed, there were times in 2003 when the United States spokesmen talked as if there was no need for them to consider any other authority at all.

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has a deep knowledge of matters relating to the Royal Air Force. Of course, he is completely wrong: the Royal Air Force has had to go through a difficult period and has reconfigured itself for the new world order, to deal with the challenges that will face it, in common with all our allies and, indeed, our foes. All armed forces have been through a period of downsizing, but the Royal Air Force remains the benchmark against which all other air forces in the world judge themselves. It is highly rapidly deployable and extremely well equipped.


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new world order--a new world order based upon killing, brutality and the massacre of innocent men, women and children out there in the middle east. I do not believe that.
That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow was right to raise the matter. That is why it is important to study the views of other people. It is important to raise these issues. Much could be said about the war, but one thing is certain : everyone who sold arms to Saddam is as guilty as everyone else--the whole lot of them. If they did not sell the arms, they provided them with the machine tools to make them, and with all the equipment. Right up to the nether end, they were writing off Iraq's debts and increasing the Export Credits Guarantee Department's money to about £400 million. They did everything possible to build up that monster, Saddam Hussein. Then they have the cheek to tell us that we cannot have the motion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), to say that, although we support people who will lay down their lives in the desert, we prefer peace. The opposite to war is not appeasement--in our language, it is peace, and it is time that we gave it a chance.

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Africa. The aircraft were provided by France and the Soviet Union. Mines were provided by the Soviet Union, Taiwan, Italy and others. Brazil provided fire-controlled radars ; Britain provided training and equipment ; France provided point defence radars.
We were still training Iraqi troops in this country until a few months ago and now we are told that Saddam Hussein is a monster. When we said so, we were ignored. I do not like the Government's hypocrisy. They now accuse us of being appeasers or, as some of the gutter press suggest, traitors. We have been loyal to the British people from the beginning and have always wanted to ensure that no British military person should lose his life in this shabby war. As for principles, President Bush would not know a principle if it were stuck on the end of an Exocet and smashed straight through his head. That great, principled politician ordered the invasion of Panama. We do not want to hear about principles but about peace, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover said. We want to ensure that the United Nations is used to resolve those regional conflicts by peaceful means. Surely the new world order is that we talk peacefully and in a civilised fashion about how we reconcile our differences, not how we throw our young people against each other and see them killed and maimed.

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I would like to say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, and through him to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary, that I admire enormously what they have done in the past few months. I believe that the sad catalogue of Bosnia's history from April 1992 has been a dark, dark chapter in post-cold war history. As we have moved towards a new world order, there has not been any other episode that we will look back on with greater regret than the bloodletting of Bosnia, the destruction of so many towns and villages and the wholesale slaughter, maiming and rape of so many. We have spoken about that in the House before.

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military forces or logistics to ensure that a conflict can be resolved, although we might not be allowed to determine how it is to be resolved.
The hon. Member for Bexleyheath drew attention to areas in which the United Nations has played a role and clearly one of those is in human rights. The United Nations seems to me to be the only body which can be the world protector of human rights. Far too often, nation states are based on the rights of those in a particular group or area, and usually on a state's economic problems or aims, rather than on concern for the rigths of individuals.

I also congratulate the United Nations on the speed with which it has moved in certain parts of the world, for example, when trying to resolve the Cambodian crisis. A full member of the Security Council has allowed its client state or group to prevent the implementation of United Nations resolutions in Cambodia. It is clear that if China, which is a full member of the council, were to tell the Khmer Rouge that it has to abide by the resolutions and participate in the peace process, it would be required to do so. No one is in any doubt about that fact of life. The fact that the Khmer Rouge was able to retain members of a United Nations logistics force for two or three days--I join the hon. Member for Bexleyheath in welcoming their release--does not reflect the true problem.

The problem is that the Khmer Rouge has decided, unilaterally, not to abide by the agreements hammered out through the United Nations peace process. It is determined to hold out for more power, which will prevent real peace coming to Cambodia. It is clear that China could resolve that matter quickly. We need to ensure that the Security Council regularly reminds China of its responsibilities as a full member of that council. I hope that the Minister who is to reply will say something about Cambodia and the efforts that we are making to ensure that the peace process can move forward as quickly as possible.

The debate has provided the House with a useful opportunity to talk about the United Nations. I hope that it will spark off a series of debates in the Chamber and in Parliaments across the world so that we can achieve a greater understanding of the original concepts behind the United Nations and how they might be developed in the 1990s and beyond.

The end of the cold war was a spur for the new world order. However, I believe that the explosion at Chernobyl was far more significant, because it demonstrated to the world that even the so-called peaceful use of nuclear facilities in the Soviet Union could not protect the population of that country or those in many other parts of the world. I am not sure whether all the sheep and lambs in Wales and Scotland are now edible. The fact that the explosion at Chernobyl affected the food cycle in such far- away countries put paid to the concept that power was the basis on which one can run the world.

The accident at Chernobyl hastened the break-up of the monolithic state of the Soviet Union, but it also helped to refocus the minds of all politicians and ordinary people on the need to establish a world organisation that could arbitrate on and determine peace and human rights. That accident made everyone realise that no one country could deal with such a problem and that a responsible world organisation should be established. It is no good saying that because someone is our enemy, we will not help him, especially when--through no one's fault--a civil nuclear power accident in that person's country puts his people,

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In facing up to Serbia, we must acknowledge that that country has, at wartime-use rates, some two years of ammunition, weapons and equipment with which to fight a war. One must be extremely careful, therefore, about the escalation of military activity in that country.
Only a few years ago it seemed credible that the UN would play the central role in the new world order that optimists assumed would flow from the collapse of communism. The cold war paralysis was gone and it was believed that the UN would be able to act as a police force, social work department and development agency on a world scale. I am afraid that it just has not worked out like that. Alas, with the passing of the cohesion of totalitarianism, we now have the chaos of tribalism and the breakdown of established order through the settling of old scores.

Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, in "An Agenda for Peace", has said that the foundation stone of the UN's work must be the member state. He said :

"Respect for its fundamental sovereignty and integrity are crucial to any common international progress if every ethnic, religious or linguistic group claimed statehood, there would be no limit to fragmentation that followed."

Cohesion would go and peace, security and economic well-being--the objectives of the UN--would be ever more difficult to achieve. We have seen that happen in eastern Europe and most notably in Yugoslavia. However, we have not seen it happen in China. That country is home to one quarter of the world's population, and we must say to those in Hong Kong who press for ever faster progress towards democracy that the stability of China is extremely important to the world today.

Imagine what chaos the world would be in if China were to fall apart. In the present situation, a quarter of the world's population lives in a country which still has cohesion. I do not accept that type of cohesion, but for the time being I hope that China remains as it is.

It is as well to remind ourselves, as we consider the challenges facing the United Nations, what the UN is and what it is not. It is a voluntary association of states dedicated, through signing the UN charter, to the maintenance of international peace and security and the solution of economic, social and political problems through international co-operation.

The UN is not a world government, and although there has been a suggestion in the debate about the possibility of the UN fulfilling a role in Somalia- -perhaps by trusteeship or the provision of a protectorate--that should be done on only a temporary basis to establish some degree of stability and enable that country to accept its own responsibilities in due course. So the UN is not, and can never be, a world government. It has no right to intervene in the essential domestic affairs of a nation state.

If the UN did not exist, we should almost certainly have to invent it. It succeeded the League of Nations and inherited many of its institutions and procedures. The name "United Nations" was first used in the Washington declaration of January 1942 to describe the 26 countries that were then allied together to fight the axis powers. The UN charter was drawn up by 50 nations in San Francisco in 1945, and following its ratification, came into being on 24 October of that year ; and 24 October is still celebrated as United Nations Day. The UN has as its emblem the pale blue flag that we all know. I suggest that its vehicles deployed in activities

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escalate. There are great hopes that, under the new
Secretary-General, reforms will be introduced at the United Nations to enable us to capitalise on the new world order and not be beaten by it.

However, the whole is only as strong as the sum of its parts, and the House will agree that Britain will continue to play more than its part to ensure that the United Nations can and will fulfil the aims and objectives that we need to achieve for a better world for this and future generations.

11.16 am

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : I thank the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) for the characteristically elegant and thoughtful way in which he introduced the debate.

The hon. Gentleman complained that there had been a speech lasting 53 minutes last Friday, but he cannot possibly have been referring to me, because I took only 52 minutes to introduce that debate. He must have been referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone).

I share the hon. Gentleman's vehemence about UNESCO. As he said, UNESCO was started not far from here, in the Institution of Civil Engineers. As he well put it, we could have renewed our subscription for the cost of two tanks and should frankly never have left in the first place.

I also share the hon. Gentleman's sense of caution about what is happening in Bosnia. We would do well to remember that Tito's deterrent was not nuclear weapons or even tank regiments. It was training his people in the techniques of guerrilla warfare. That was what deterred Stalin. It is the idea of holding those people down--people who had occupied 37 German divisions from 1943-44 that makes one shudder. To think that one would come out unscathed from that is tempting providence.

I also share a sense of caution about Somalia. We all heard this morning that the Americans plan to be in and out before 20 January. Does it really work like that? From Northern Ireland to Afghanistan, people have found that it is much easier to put in armies than to take them out. The experience is in, in and in--deeper into the mire. Because of the appalling pictures that one sees of terrible cruelty and starvation, I do not jump to the conclusion that it should not be done, but I should be much happier if their entry were under full United Nations control rather than seen as an American-led operation. Indeed, it should not be a non-United Nations coalition.

Has the Foreign Office given any thought to peacekeeping training? Those of us who did national service must realise that people who have normal training in the forces are not well trained as peacekeepers. As a national service man, I would not have been much good as a peacekeeper. It is an art in itself.

Is the Foreign Office in contact with the Bradford university school of peace studies at which much serious work is being done on the theory and practice of peacekeeping? I understand that a major study by Betts Featherstone, Dr. Nick Lewer and Dr. Tom Woodhouse is to come out in January.

Any of us who have had the good fortune to go on parliamentary delegations to the United Nations and, in my case, to be welcomed most hospitably by Sir Anthony and Lady Parsons and Brian Urquhart, know that

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Mr. MacKay : Does my right hon. Friend agree that the one happy affair in this tragic circumstance has been the role of the United Nations, particularly that of the Security Council? It is encouraging for the new world order that is developing that its permanent members have agreed to so many positive resolutions.

Mr. Hurd : My hon. Friend is right. There is a chance that the Security Council will establish itself in the role for which its founders designed it--as the supreme political authority of the international community which can take decisions, as opposed to simply uttering decisions, that are respected. We are not there yet, but my hon. Friend is right that there is a chance.

Mr. Ron Brown : Surely Saddam Hussein cannot be all that bad if he hates Thatcherism. As that lady has parted with her philosophy to stand in Dallas or elsewhere, might the House look at the issue more clearly? Saddam Hussein makes sense in some respects. he says that there must be dialogue, settlement and a peaceful solution to a very big

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treatment of their injuries. Given the exceptional nature of the circumstances, the Secretary of State for Health and I have agreed that the Government will bear their hospital costs. We are already working on arrangements for the repatriation of bodies and for flights for relatives to go to the United States.
These attacks have shocked the world; they have also changed the world. This massive tragedy is an event of huge and almost unparalleled historical significance. Comparisons have been made with the attack on Pearl harbour, but, unlike Pearl harbour, Tuesday's attacks were directed against thousands of unarmed, innocent civilians, and at the very heart of the continent of the United States. They were launched by an enemy who, as yet, remains unseen.

It is plainly too soon to reach firm conclusions about the consequences of these acts for the global order, but history has presented us with such decisive moments before. Over the past two centuries, each time a conflict has ended people have come together to try to ensure that the last war really would be the last war.

After the first world war, US President Woodrow Wilson worked for a new world order to try to establish a lasting peace, yet within a generation the world was again at war. The structures established after 1945 have in every respect been more successful in preventing global conflict for half a century, but those structures—political, military and legal—were laid down to deal with the last threat: of war between states. Our challenge now is to make sure that they are equal to this and to the next threat.

In considering the approach we now take, we would do well this week to draw lessons from the experience of the 1930s. Our predecessors then were so desperate to avoid further military action that they made a huge, if understandable, mistake. They thought that they were dealing with adversaries who shared the same values, basic rules and assumptions about how humans, even in times of conflict and war, should behave towards one another.

It was not until it was too late that our predecessors realised that the aggressors were in the grip of a sort of collective political psychosis and that they did not accept the norms and decencies that the rest of us took for granted. We all know the consequences of what followed.

We have to acknowledge that the people who plotted, organised and carried out Tuesday's attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania do not accept any of the rules or values that we in the rest of the world would recognise. They have no respect, however minimal, for human life—not even for their own lives.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, there must be a response. As he said, the United States, rightly, is proceeding with deliberation and care. Equally, to turn the other cheek would not appease the terrorists, but would lead to a still greater danger. We need to acknowledge that overwhelming, if dismal, truth if we are to prepare ourselves and our societies in the months and years ahead for the possibility—unpalatable as it may be—of further attacks.

This is not a conflict in which nation state is pitted against nation state. Instead, this is a deliberate act of war by calculating groups formally outside states against the rest of the civilised world. Indeed, the rise of the warlord and the terrorist funded by conflict, drugs and other criminal activity is one of the growing threats that we have faced, particularly since, paradoxically, the fall of the Berlin wall.

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Mr. Bennett : Given all the talk about a new world order, does the Minister agree that that new world order should try to inject some urgency into peace negotiations within Ethiopia, because until peace is established within Ethiopia there is little hope of effective aid reaching the large numbers of people now starving in Government-held areas and in areas held by the various liberation fronts? Will the Government use all their offices to get some action, rather than simply talking about talks?

Mr. Waldegrave : I agree with the link that the hon. Gentleman makes between the establishment of peace and effective aid. Until there is peace, there will never be an end to the hunger crisis in that country. The principal responsibility must lie with the warring factions, who too often in recent years have seen the mirage of a military victory and therefore broken off negotiations again, but it is somewhat more encouraging that they are talking again.

Mr. Jacques Arnold : Does not my right hon. Friend consider the disastrous situation in Ethiopia to be yet another example, in economic and human terms, of Marxism in action?

Mr. Waldegrave : Certainly the Ethiopian Government have had a terrible record in the past both on human rights and in the competence of their economic and social doctrines. They are now jettisoning those doctrines very fast, which gives some hope for progress.

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Those are large, difficult and costly objectives, but if we are to have a realistic new world order--which I am sure is the aim of hon. Members on both sides of the House--they are the objectives which we must pursue.
11.42 am

Sir Michael Marshall (Arundel) : I accept immediately what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his peroration. He suggested that a common theme could be found in the tragic circumstances affecting Iraq, Somalia and Yugoslavia : the role of the United Nations in facing the challenges involved.

What are those challenges? I believe that they can be summed up in three areas of the work to which the UN is dedicated--preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and disaster relief. I feel that, in the countries we are discussing, preventive diplomacy must inevitably be seen as something which has been sadly missed in the past and to which we must now turn in seeking to prevent future tragedies on a similarly appalling scale elsewhere.

My concern is that the UN has been hampered, and is still being hampered, in its work in these countries, especially in peacekeeping and--above all-- disaster relief. I believe that, in the past, there has been a failure to recognise the convergence of those two challenges. The evidence is clear. In Somalia we have 3,500 armed troops to protect essential supplies. The no -fly zone in Iraq is there to protect the Kurds, in implementing UN resolutions and in response to the report of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In Yugoslavia, the convoys of food and medical supplies and the work of the UN protection force in Bosnia show again the interrelationship between the military presence and disaster relief.

What can Parliaments do in such circumstances? I use the plural advisedly, and I refer to the work of Parliaments as well as to that of Governments. I know that the House will understand if I draw on consultations undertaken by Parliaments this month on a wide scale. Earlier this month, the IPU conference in Stockholm was dominated by the debate on the role of Parliaments in enhancing the work of the UN. I am also able to draw on the deliberations of the AIPO regional conference of ASEAN Parliaments, which was skilfully hosted by Indonesia and involved fellow-members from Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand--as well as many other observer countries. The conference continues this week, and I returned from it yesterday, thanks to advice that I received from the pairing Whip.

At these conferences, important opportunities have been provided for many parliamentarians to take part in appropriate debate. It was interesting in this regard to note that 33 members of the European Parliament were active on this subject during the conference that is still proceeding in Indonesia.

I do not claim that I can speak for more than 100 Parliaments, but I can claim to have heard from their representatives, and I believe that there is widespread agreement on common themes. They can be summarised as follows. The first is the necessity for the United Nations to adapt and change in a new world situation. Those who have met the UN Secretary-General in recent months recognise the remarkable efforts that he has made to make the structure more effective. That has led to some difficult decisions, which have had a painful effect on, in many

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12.11 pm
Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West) : It is all too clear that post-cold war talk of a new world order was premature, to say the least. Indeed, this debate, brought about by events in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia, and by the world's continuing difficulties in dealing effectively and promptly with them, is a fair measure of the precarious and complex nature of any such operation.

Yet at the Rio Earth summit and the new world order seminar in Tunisia, which I attended, it was clear that many in the third world see the opportunity for positive change. They look to the developed world for commitments to advance peace and security, development, respect for international law and human rights. The question remains : are we living up to their, and our own, expectations ?

Let there be no misunderstanding. If the United Nations is to take an enhanced role in world affairs--an even-handed role sensitive to the needs of both the rich and poor nations and one which commands genuine respect and support, both political and financial--the part that the UN and its member states play in events in Iraq, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia will be a major factor in achieving that. Throughout the crisis in Serbia, Bosnia, Hercegovina and Croatia, the Government have shown incompetence and prevarication. Holding the presidency of the EC, they could and should have been leading efforts to tackle the problems. Furthermore, the initial efforts of the EC and the UN at sanctions against Serbia were accorded insufficient importance. At no time has there been adequate monitoring of their implementation. Allegation after allegation has come to light regarding sanctions busting. Supplies, including oil, have been regularly transported by the Danube to Serbia ; the former Soviet Union has been a source of supply throughout the conflict. According to The Guardian's investigations, over $10 million worth of trade has entered Serbia through Cyprus, including food, lorries and machinery.

Where are the results of the monitoring announced by the Foreign Secretary this afternoon ? Perhaps he will tell us how effective the monitoring has been on the Danube. How many times has there been intervention which has stopped supplies getting through to Serbia ? It is widely acknowledged that the UN relief agencies are buckling under the strain of responding to the Balkan tragedy. The costs of this and any UN operation must be met in full by UN member states. The Foreign Secretary claims that British medicines are supplying hospitals in Sarajevo, but nightly television pictures show a gross lack of provision of medical care. That is something else that the Government have to tell us ; they must explain the gap between what is claimed to have been provided and what we see on our television screens each night.

If the developed world ever needed a chance to prove to its poor and suffering neighbours that its commitment to the new world order is real and deep-seated, Somalia should be the proving ground. It has become literally impossible to deliver aid to the millions facing starvation and death without the permission of the warlords and the paid protection of their henchmen.

The super-powers' failure with Somalia is shown not only by the masses of dumped weaponry which feeds the clan feuds, but by the manipulation of tyrannical leaders for short-term political aims. Most importantly, it is

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shown by the failure to realise some time ago that the situation in Somalia was deeply wrong and was destined to bring about civil war and massive famine.
It would be pointless to delve now into the corrupt political mess in Somalia to seek solutions. Independent international action is desperately required. The Somalis cannot solve their problems alone. However, all the aid agencies working there are constrained by the lack of an overall plan for relief action. The United Nations humanitarian operation remains at the level of general statements and pious plans.

The reason is simple enough. In an area of such deprivation, food and medicine have become strategic weapons. Until the UN and non-governmental organisations have sorted out proper attitudes to humanitarian aid they will struggle against impossible odds. It is clear that there is a greater role to be played by the UN. Indeed, if the new world order is to be effective it must be interventionist. The crisis offers the United Nations an opportunity to develop new ways of bringing decency and security to all parts of the world. The present limited mandate for UN forces is insufficient. If the UN could put large numbers of forces into the former Yugoslavia to aid the suffering population there is no moral argument for refraining from similar action in Somalia. A United Nations military presence, with the same rules of engagement as in the Balkans, will deprive the warring factions of the opportunity to steal relief food and medicines. At the same time, all parties could be encouraged to the negotiating table and pressured into seeking a peaceful solution to their arguments.

The Foreign Secretary spoke recently of an "imperial" role for the United Nations. Indeed, there is a possible problem of UN military intervention seeming like an invasion, but therein lies the true acid test of the new world order. Nations such as Britain, the United States and Russia, which espouse humanitarian ideals and have the financial means to pay for their extension to poor and afflicted nations, should take the lead and ensure that that freedom is extended. Instead of reneging on aid payments and United Nations debts, they should carry their fair share of financial burden. As was said recently in The Independent, with insight and will it may be possible to develop a new pattern of intervention in the humanitarian nightmares of the world, with the aim of bringing relief to people who are victims of their Government's neglect or oppression.

The debate allows us to speak in favour of such a commitment as we had when it was decided to deal with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It was decided that with the end of the cold war there could be a new world order, and that the UN could begin to play the role which those who brought it into being sought, and agreed that it should have. However, that will come only if we accept that the structure of the UN itself has to change. We must re- examine the make-up of the Security Council and those who hold millions of pounds who seek financial short cuts to compensate for deficits owed to them. The United Nations has a chance, particularly in Somalia, to play a major role in ensuring that we are not seen to be attempting to impose some form of colonial intervention on the affairs of other countries. In fact, we are responding to the real needs of real people. Anyone who has watched the television coverage of Somalia must be concerned that now that the rains have


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started, the aid effort will naturally be slowed and even more young children are likely to die in the days ahead. The situation demands more than just hot air from this Chamber. We must start to play the role that we have described--of wanting to be part of a new world order. We must start to make that a reality. I hope that what has been said today will be the beginning of genuine concern and a determination to make the United Nations perform the role that it should have played from the very start.
12.20 pm

Mr. Patrick Cormack : As I was a chairman of the advisory committee of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), perhaps the House will permit me to express good wishes for the future, following his moving address to the House just over one hour ago.

I will concentrate my remarks on the former Yugoslavia. I begin by expressing genuine respect and admiration for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and his ministerial colleagues for all that they have sought to do. At the same time, I make it plain that I have for months been haunted by the words of Edmund Burke, who said that nothing was necessary for the triumph of evil but that good men do nothing.

I am not suggesting that good men have done nothing--far from it--but we are certainly seeing the triumph of evil because good men have not done enough. Anyone who doubts that should view the video to which reference has already been made. Tabloid newspapers are not exactly the flavour of the month at the moment, and I confess that I have never read the Daily Sport . However, I watched the video that the editor sent to every Member of Parliament. Any right hon. or hon. Member who has not watched that video should do so as soon as possible. It makes dreadfully tragic viewing, but it brings home just what is being done to snuff out all humanity and humane values in that part of the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor) referred to one appalling incident. In another, one sees someone carrying a tray of young men's genitals that were hacked off by Serbian soldiers. I will not go on, but I urge right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House to watch that video and to ponder it.

Day after day, week after week, and month after month for the past year or so we have seen some of the most unspeakable atrocities committed--first in Croatia and then in Bosnia--since the end of the second world war. In fact, they are among the most unspeakable atrocities ever committed in Europe. Let no one doubt that. I do not for a minute believe that all the atrocities have been committed by one group against another, but it is plain--as the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) emphasised in his speech--that the aggressor for the most part is the Serbian, and Serbia is responsible for the majority of the carnage.

When Dubrovnik was being shelled and Vukovar was raised to the ground, I was one of those who urged that we should take some action--air strikes into Serbia. We seem to be perfectly willing to wound by sanctions but reluctant to strike. I understand why, but this is not a civil war, because we in the west decreed that the countries involved are nation states. One can argue about the wisdom of whether that status should have been recognised. I believe

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The dissolution of the old eastern bloc has made international relations more, not less, complicated. Our recent requests for developing countries' help in maintaining the so-called new world order might not come cheap. Is there any truth in the report that Pakistan is to have a number of the tariffs on its products cut or

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The Economic Secretary said that the quota that we pay to the IMF determines our voting strength. How strong is our voting strength? What influence do we have to monitor the IMF's activities and to make them more transparent? As the hon. Member for South-West Devon said, there is now a new world order, and this country and the Government should lead the world in rethinking international finance.

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Germany--the great democracies of the world now--having the ability, to an extent, to influence and to police world affairs, as they have in the past.

The United Kingdom and the United States have a proud record of protecting the interests of liberty and freedom in the decades since 1945.

The issue is that, in the new world order to be policed by the ICC under the mechanisms set up in the Rome statute, there is a threat to our willingness to go on making the contribution in security terms. The threat has been made explicit in the United States, and I believe that the Senate will never ratify the statute. To an extent, that will undermine its whole effectiveness.

The fact that we cannot get the United States to agree to the statute punches a huge hole through it. Of course, it was always going to be enormously difficult, with the traditions and history of the United States, to get the United States Senate to agree to the statute, but I do not believe that the set-up for the election of the judges, who in the end will make the decision, was ever going to be acceptable to the United States.

Within the statute, greater account should have been given to the size and importance of countries. After all, that is why the United Nations Security Council was set up with five permanent members in 1945--it recognised the realities of the security issues of the day. I do not believe, on the amount of attention that I have been able to give to the statute and to the proceedings before us, that we can be satisfied that it does that. I regret that, so far, I have not been able to give the matter the attention that it deserves. I hope to have the opportunity to do so in Committee.

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[dangermouse]

shhhh thats a conspiracy theory :p

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I would say its now way more than a theory

[ryethorpe]

I would say its now way more than a theory

Point taken (though I haven't read every word I get the picture).

A bit off topic, but we have been getting a lot of sudden police activity at York Station recently (not always reported in the paper), e.g.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/search/display.var.2122620.0.police_arrest_two_in_sweep_a t_station.php